lesson of rome. If you’re going to do it. You do it like you did to carthage. You do not do it like you did to greece and judea.
Source date (UTC): 2018-11-09 08:49:00 UTC
Theme: Civilization
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CONSTANTINE THE DESTROYER OF THE EMPRE Emperor Constantine moved the legions fro
CONSTANTINE THE DESTROYER OF THE EMPRE
Emperor Constantine moved the legions from the frontiers to one consolidated roving army as a way to save money and to protect wealthier citizens within the cities. However, this grand strategy would have costly effects of the Roman empire by weakening its frontier defenses and allowing it to be susceptible to outside armies coming in. Also, people who lived near the Roman frontiers would begin to look to the barbarians for protection after the Roman armies departed. “Constantine abolished this frontier security by removing the greater part of the soldiery from the frontiers to cities that needed no auxiliary forces. He thus deprived of help the people who were harassed by the barbarians and burdened tranquil cities with the pest of the military, so that several straightway were deserted. Moreover, he softened the soldiers who treated themselves to shows and luxuries. Indeed, to speak plainly, he personally planted the first seeds of our present devastated state of affairs – Zosimus, 5th-century CE historian[citation needed]
Source date (UTC): 2018-11-09 07:38:00 UTC
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Yet Another Critic
One’s “Kith and Kin”. |KIN| Self > Family > Clan > Tribe > Nation > Race. |KITH| Friends, Associates, Acquaintances > Neighbors > Polity > Culture > Civilization. kin·folk, kin
[ËkinfÅk]
NOUN
(in anthropological or formal use) a person’s blood relations, regarded collectively.
synonyms:
relatives · relations · kin · kindred · family members · family · kith and kin · kinsmen/kinswomen · one’s own flesh and blood · blood relatives · connections · folks · people kith[kith]
NOUN
acquaintances, friends, neighbors, or the like; persons living in the same general locality and forming a more or less cohesive group.
kindred.
a group of people living in the same area and forming a culture with a common language, customs, economy, etc., usually endogamous. -
Kith and Kin
—“The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.”— â Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 38 “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West”
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Mercy is for kin
THANKFUL FOR OUR GIFTS
by James Santagata I woke up at 3 am. Dry throat. I flipped on a light switch, used the flushing toilet, washed my hands with soap and clean water, had a drink of potable water, checked to make sure my TV was office, that the refrigerator and freezer doors were closed, that my induction heating stove and appliances were off, and that my wife had set the “scheduler” button for our front loading washing machine and dryer to room. I plugged in my smart phone to recharge it, and closed the front window when I heard a motorcycle scream by. Then I got on my knees and thank my White Male Ancestors for all of these gifts, the thousands of inventions and unveiling of basic science to produce each of these products – the basic science and tech involved in a taken for granted automobile is mind blowing as is the people who invented or unveiled those secrets. It is not a social construct but an intergenerational baton pass of cultural and cognitive curiosity and ability underpinned and informed by genetics. -
Thankful for our gifts
(the demand for national mythos) Um. when the atheists attack mythology – abrahamic or otherwise – they do not specify the means of graceful failure of decidability that mythos provide. That’s why one needs a founding mythos. Because there must exists some means of decision making in the absence of knowledge. Hence why I argue for Self Authoring in the Virtues, and for the western historical ‘mythology’ of transcendence (progress into godhood). But what do we teach as decidability? One needs an aspiration or it is impossible to construct a complete set of decidability. (really. It is. Sorry). However, with that aspiration, the law is enough. The law brings us transcendence into gods, and into mystery of the universe. The law is enough because it will produce transcendence. transcendence likewise will produce the law. So whether bottom up or top down we produce the combination of the law, ascendence, transcendence. The Natural Law. The White Law. Reciprocity, and a canon of precompiled arguments for nearly every category of human decision making.
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Yet Another Critic
One’s “Kith and Kin”. |KIN| Self > Family > Clan > Tribe > Nation > Race. |KITH| Friends, Associates, Acquaintances > Neighbors > Polity > Culture > Civilization. kin·folk, kin
[ËkinfÅk]
NOUN
(in anthropological or formal use) a person’s blood relations, regarded collectively.
synonyms:
relatives · relations · kin · kindred · family members · family · kith and kin · kinsmen/kinswomen · one’s own flesh and blood · blood relatives · connections · folks · people kith[kith]
NOUN
acquaintances, friends, neighbors, or the like; persons living in the same general locality and forming a more or less cohesive group.
kindred.
a group of people living in the same area and forming a culture with a common language, customs, economy, etc., usually endogamous. -
The Coming Civil War
THE GREEK CIVIL RESPONSIBILITY NOT PERSONAL RELIGION
In his book on the subject, Did the Greeks Believe Their Myths?, Paul Veyne writes: —“Myth is truthful, but figuratively so. It is not historical truth mixed with lies; it is a high philosophical teaching that is entirely true, on the condition that, instead of taking it literally, one sees in it an allegory.”— -
Kith and Kin
—“The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.”— â Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 38 “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West”
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Curt Doolittle updated his status.
THE GREEK UNDERSTANDING OF GODS —“Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods
all sorts of things which are matters of reproach and censure among men: theft, adultery and mutual deceit.
But if horses or oxen or lions had hands or could draw with their hands and accomplish such works as men,
horses would draw the figures of the gods as similar to horses, and the oxen as similar to oxen,
and they would make the bodies
of the sort which each of them had. (frag. 15)”—Xenophanes