Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Davis, Mr. Lex, not David.
VDH is one of my must reads. Would love to take one of the cruises where he explains the history of a given region.
Regards,
Thanks, Ron.
Hillsdale College’s Nov. 09 Imprimis newsletter covers a lecture VDH gave there on “The Future of Western War”. Interesting read.
Well, as to the current POTUS, Scipio Africanus he ain’t (although Scipio was never more than a Censor, politically)….. Maybe closer to Caligula, however.
I know I’m a bit of broken record when this type of topic comes up, but just another example of Sir Alexander Tytler’s cycle of democracy.
I’m not a determinist and think we can avoid the cycle, but there definitely seems to be a natural, cultural tendency towards it. Our plenty and security is so taken for granted by most of us we unwittingly sow the seeds of our own slavery to the state, never believing the outcome is possible or plausibly our fault even as it comes inexorably into the light.
Perhaps that is where/why Jefferson said
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
The beauty of our system is that the cycle of elections will hope cause the pendulum to swing back to the other end as we begin to sense the removal of our freedoms by those we put in charge.
I just hope we survive until the next election….
I hear ya . . . Now, for that bottle of Sterno (regular alcohol just doesn’t cut it sometimes). I get a little antsy whenever Harry Reid starts working overtime. For me of course, so I’m told. What a guy.
PGA is, I believe, safer and stronger. It also mixes better, or so I’m told by a Coastie that did time at the Antarctic station.