The Battle of Michigan and Legacy of Clodius vs.Milo

Did you feel that?

The American Republic is shaking again.  Those who proceeded to protest in Wisconsin are taking the same tacks in Michigan (9% Unemployment).  Those tacks echo the ending of the Roman Republic. 

The Battle of Michigan starts with a tale of the Mob Rule as the Roman Republic was unraveling.

Here is a (fictionalized) story of Titus Annius Milo and the death of Clodius Pulcher.  In other words, where the Mobs of Michigan will end:

On memeorandum, the Left were upset and the Right was shocked at the attacks against the Democratic process.

First watch this video:

The video above shows what Milo and Clodius was trying to achieve. 

Travel backwards if you want to understand the Now:

"...By testing the opportunities of street violence to the very limits, Clodius blazed a trail that others were preparing to follow. In December 58 [BCE] Clodius' term of office came to an end. Among the new tribunes was a gruff and brutal Pompeian. Titus Annius Milo. Encouraged by his patron, Milo formally indicted Clodius for employing violence, an open and shut case if there ever was one.  Clodius, by appealing to his brother Appius, who was Praetor that year, managed to have the charge suppressed, and ordered his gangs to ransack Milo's house in revenge.

"But the new Tribune, backed by the infinite sources of Pompey, and aware he was dead meat unless he met violence with violence...He [Milo] began to recruit gangs of his own, not, as Clodius had done by bribing amateurs from the slums, but by importing well-armed well-trained heavies from Pompey's estates and buying up gladiators to steel their ranks.

"At a stroke, Clodius' monopoly on street violence ended, a challenge to which the former Tribune rose with...gusto. The gang warfare escalated daily. Soon, it became so brutal that all Government Institutions in the Forum, including the Law Courts, had to be suspended. Day after day, across the public places of Rome, the tides of anarchy ebbed and flowed."
-- Tom Holland, Rubicon, pp. 244-45

Welcome to the slow birth of the First Triumvirate.  

What is causing all this madness?

Michigan, in trying to fight to get manufacturing going again (When is the 2013 Pontiac Firebird coming off the line? Oh, there is no Pontiac Trans Am anymore! Game, set, match, not in the Unions favor.) wanted to make their state "Right to Work," 

What is "Right to Work?"

Right-to-work laws are state laws that prohibit both the closed and union shop. A right to work law secures the right of employees to decide for themselves whether or not to join or financially support a union. However,employees who work in the railway or airline industries are not protected by a right to work law, and employees who work on a federal enclave may not be.
...
If you resign from membership, you may not be able to participate in union elections or meetings, vote in collective bargaining ratification elections, or participate in other "internal" union activities. If you resign, you cannot be disciplined by the union for any post-resignation conduct. 


If you resign from union membership, you are still fully covered by the collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated between your employer and the union, and the union remains obligated to represent you. Any benefits that are provided to you by your employer pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement (e.g., wages, seniority, vacations, pension, health insurance)will not be affected by your resignation. However, the union may exclude you from some "members-only" benefits. Although you may resign from union membership at anytime, you may be limited to a specific "window period"before you are able to end any automatic dues deductions.

(h/t US Legal Dictionary)


Was Right to Work passed in the dead of night? 
Was it done by Executive or Judicial Fiat?

No, it was done in the light of day, passed by the two branches of the State House and signed by the Governor.  Last I checked, Elected Officials, not Union leaders, represent "the people," 

Rather then going about and Lobbying the Legislature, the Unions bussed in protesters and caused havoc and violence. 

Who is doing the people's work again?

My question: When Democrats lose votes in the State Houses, they have been resorting to violence.  Is President Obama allowing the rise of a new Milo and Clodius in America?

America's Cold Civil War 2 (Or the Return of Catiline)

Motivational Poster Maker


Sequels suck.

Unless you count Empire Strikes back, G-dfather 2 and the Dark Knight. 

Among the partisans, something is going on.  I noted it back on the Crack on the Washington Monument post, I see it even more as we get closer to Election 2012.

Cicero Denounces Catiline by Cesare Maccari

It seems the Democrats and their Media Praetorian Guards are playing the role of Catiline, ready to destroy the Republic if their Champion does not win.

Who is Catiline and what was his role in the Roman Republic?

(c. 108-62 B.C.), a member of an ancient but impoverished patrician family of Rome, the prime mover in the conspiracy known by his name. He appears in history first as a supporter of Sulla, and during the proscription he was conspicuous for his greed and cruelty. He slew his inoffensive brother-in-law with his own hand, and tortured and mutilated the much-loved Marius Gratidianus. He was believed to have made away with his wife and his son to win the profligate and wealthy Aurelia Orestilla; it was even suspected that he had been guilty of an intrigue with the Vestal Fabia. In 77 he was quaestor, in 68 praetor, and in 67-66 governor of Africa.

And his conspiracy?

Depending on such accomplices and adherents, and knowing that the load of debt was everywhere great, and that the veterans of Sylla, having spent their money too liberally, and remembering their spoils and former victory, were longing for a civil war, Catiline formed the design of overthrowing the government. There was no army in Italy; Pompey was fighting in a distant part of the world; he himself had great hopes of obtaining the consulship; the senate was wholly off its guard; everything was quiet and tranquil, and all these circumstances were exceedingly favorable for Catiline. 

...

But most of the young men, and especially the sons of the nobility, favored the schemes of Catiline; they who had abundant means of living at ease, either splendidly or voluptuously, preferred uncertainties to certainties, war to peace. There were some, also, at that time, who believed that Marcus Licinius Crassus was not unacquainted with the conspiracy; because Cneius Pompey, whom he hated, was at the head of a large army, and he was willing that the power of anyone whomsoever should raise itself against Pompey’s influence; trusting, at the same time, that if the plot should succeed, he would easily place himself at the head of the conspirators. 

...
Catiline and Autronius, having concerted measures with this Piso, prepared to assassinate the consuls, Lucius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus, in the Capitol, on the first of February, when they, having seized on the fasces, were to send Piso with an army to take possession of the two Spains. But their design being discovered, they postponed the assassination to the fifth of February; when they meditated the destruction, not of the consuls only, but of most of the senate. And had not Catiline, who was in front of the senate-house, been too hasty to give the signal to his associates, there would that day have been perpetrated the most atrocious outrage since the city of Rome was founded. But as the armed conspirators had not yet assembled in sufficient numbers, the want of force frustrated the design.

...
Of the first conspiracy enough has been said. 
-- Sallust, the Conspiracy of Catiline, Chapter 16 -19 

Let's start with President Obama's Praetorian Guard, Fareed Zakaria:

But our Constitution has been revised 27 times.  Some of these revisions have been enormous and important, such as the abolition of slavery. Then there are areas that have evolved. For example, the power of the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, is barely mentioned in the document. This grew as a fact over history.

But there are surely some issues that still need to be debated and fixed.

The electoral college, for example, is highly undemocratic, allowing for the possibility that someone could get elected as president even if he or she had a smaller share of the total national vote than his opponent.

The structure of the Senate is even more undemocratic, with Wisconsin's six million inhabitants getting the same representation in the Senate as California's 36 million people. That's not exactly one man, one vote.

And we are surely the only modern nation that could be paralyzed as we were in 2000 over an election dispute because we lack a simple national electoral system.

So, to defend President Obama and the Democrats, the cry went forth on June 20th, 2011: Change the Rules.

To keep going with the same trend (Change the Rules so Democrats can win!!!), we now have Peter Orzag, President Obama's  former OMB Chair (and shares the same birthday with yours truly by two years. Unlike him, I did not go to private school) wrote this:

"This is why I believe that we need to jettison the Civics 101 fairy tale about pure representative democracy and instead begin to build a new set of rules and institutions that would make legislative inertia less detrimental to our nation’s long-term health.

 ...

"What we need, then, are ways around our politicians. The first would be to expand automatic stabilizers—those tax and spending provisions that automatically expand when the economy weakens, thereby cushioning the blow, and automatically contract as the economy recovers, thereby helping to reduce the deficit. A progressive tax code is one such automatic stabilizer ...

"Beyond automatic stabilizers, we also need more backstop rules: events that take place if Congress doesn’t act.....

...

"I wish it were not necessary to devise processes to circumvent legislative gridlock, but polarization isn’t going away. John Adams may have been exaggerating when he pessimistically noted that democracies tend to commit suicide, yet, as we are seeing, certain aspects of representative government can end up posing serious problems. And so, we might be a healthier democracy if we were a slightly less democratic one."

-- Peter Orzag, The New Republic, "Too Much of a Good Thing,"

Read the words I highlighted.  Just because President Obama is losing does not mean the American Polity is.

And one final shot in the Coming Cold War from Cataline sympathisers:

Speaking to a Cary Rotary Club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.

“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that,” Perdue said. “You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”

The comment — which came during a discussion of the economy — perked more than a few ears. It’s unclear whether Perdue, a Democrat, is serious — but her tone was level and she asked others to support her on the idea.

Please read those bolded words.  How different are these Democrats from the words of Catiline on the verge of his second conspiracy?

Who in the world, indeed, that has the feelings of a man, can endure that they should have a superfluity of riches, to squander in building over seas and leveling mountains, and that means should be wanting to us even for the necessaries of life, that they should join together two houses or more, and that we should not have a hearth to call our own? They, though they purchase pictures, statues, and embossed plate; though they pull down new buildings and erect others, and lavish and abase their wealth in every possible method, yet cannot, with the utmost efforts of caprice, exhaust it. But for us there is poverty at home, debts abroad; our present circumstances are bad, our prospects much worse; and what, in a word, have we left, but a miserable existence? 

 

Will you not, then awake to action? Behold that liberty, that liberty for which you have so often wished, with wealth, honor, and glory, are set before your eves. All these prizes fortune offers to the victorious. Let the enterprise itself, then, let the opportunity, let your poverty, your dangers, and the glorious spoils of war, animate you far more than my words. Use me either as your leader or your fellow-soldier; neither my heart nor my hand shall be wanting to you. These objects I hope to effect, in concert with you, in the character of consul; unless, indeed, my expectation deceives me, and you prefer to be slaves rather than masters-- Sallust, Conspiracy of Catiline, Chapter 20

How different was Catiline from the Occupy Wall Street mobs?  Not very.

And here is Cicero's words, standing up for the Republic, speaking to the people of Rome:

Wherefore, O citizens, since a supplication has been decreed at all the altars, celebrate those days with your wives and children; for many just and deserved honours have been often paid to the immortal gods, but juster ones never. For you have been snatched from a most cruel and miserable destruction, and you have been snatched from it without slaughter, without bloodshed, without an army, without a battle. You have conquered in the garb of peace, with me in the garb of peace for your only general and commander. 

[24] Remember, O citizens, all civil dissensions, and not only those which you have heard of but these also which you yourselves remember and have seen. Lucius Sulla crushed Publius Sulpicius⁵; he drove from the city Caius Marius the guardian of this city; and of many other brave men some he drove from the city, and some he murdered. Cnaeus Octavius the consul drove his colleague by force of arms out of the city; all this place was crowded with heaps of carcasses and flowed with the blood of citizens; afterwards Cinna and Marius got the upper hand; and then most illustrious men were put to death, and the spirits of the state were extinguished. Afterwards Sulla avenged the cruelty of this victory; it is needless to say with what a diminution of the citizens and with what disasters to the republic Marcus Lepidus disagreed with that most eminent and brave man Quintus, Catulus. His death did not cause as much grief to the republic as that of the others

[25]And these dissensions, O Romans, were such as concerned not the destruction of the republic, but only a change in the constitution. They did not wish that there should be no republic, but that they themselves should be the chief men in that which existed; nor did they desire that the city should be burnt, but that they themselves should flourish in it. And yet all those dissensions, none of which aimed at the destruction of the republic, were such that they were to be terminated not by a reconciliation and concord, but only by internecine war among the citizens. But in this war alone, the greatest and most cruel in the memory of man,—a war such as even the countries of the barbarians have never waged with their own tribes,—a war in which this law was laid down by Lentulus, and Catiline, and Cassius and Cethegus that every one, who could live in safety as long as the city remained in safety, should be considered as an enemy, in this war I have so managed matters, O Romans that you should all be preserved in safety; and though your enemies had thought that only such a number of the citizens would be left as had held out against an interminable massacre and only so much of the city as the flames could not devour, I have preserved both the city and the citizens unhurt and undiminished. 

(Cicero's Third Oration against Catiline)

Can the Democrats in their hatred against President Bush, former Governor Palin or any of the Wisconsin Protests say the "city and the citizens [are] unhurt and undiminished," 

That's why this post is called the Cold Civil War 2 -- the slings and arrows of attacks have gone in one direction for so long (after Elections, and always needing an Emmanuel Goldstein) from Left to Right, that many people are shocked that the Blogosphere and new partisans of the Right are standing up.

Here is how the Left looks upon the Right: (the missiles are pointing in that direction. Hmmm)

USSR fighting the West

Conservatives and Republicans have dealt with losses (close and otherwise) by continuing forward.  Democrats lose, and they want to change the rules.  Don't believe me?


The Republicans were the Minority in the House for 40 years (and the Presidency from FDR until Ike) -- even then, no Republican ever thought of changing the Rules.

My question: Why are the Democrats taking their cues from Catiline?

UPDATE 8:30PM PST: Welcome Insty Readers! Enjoy the Valley and hit the Tip Jar!  Thanks for visiting!

Alarums and Excursions: If the Sybil Could See Today

Dictator Sulla with his proscription lists

Before Sulla rose to become Dictator, there was a sign:

"On 6 July 83 BC the largest building in Rome was struck by lightning. The ancient temple of Jupiter loomed on the summit of Capitoline Hill.  Here,beneath a ceiling sheathed in gold, amid trophies of statues and shields, the guardian of Rome had his shrine. back in the distant days of Kings, excavators digging the temple's foundation had found a human head.  Augurers, summoned to determine this wonder, had explained it foretold  Rome's future as head of the world.Who could doubt, then,  that it was Jupiter who had guided the Republic to its greatness? No wonder that the Senate should choose to hold its first meeting every year in the sanctum of the G-d. This was where Roman power was touched by the divine.

"But now Jupiter had decided to destroy his own temple with a thunderbolt.  This was not a promising omen. It hardly required the Sibylline books to reveal that -- which was just as well, since they too were going up in the blaze.  But what was the G-ds anger?"

-- Rubicon by Tom Holland, pg 82

This week, Washington, DC is in line with two forces of nature:

First, the earthquake that cracked the Washington Monument:




And now Hurricane Irene is soon to strike the same region.  

Where are the Augurers today? Or a Sybil to note the trends?   Are there more plagues of Egypt to enter the Beltway?

My own theory is that America cracked after the Connecticut Senatorial primary of 2006 -- Senator Lieberman was thrown out of the Democratic party for working across the aisle with the President of the other side.  Precedent was created.

The tea party groups (Fiscal Conservatives all) are being slammed just like the Social Conservatives of the 1990's were.  Rep. Waters (D-CA) telling them to "Go to Hell," is not the road to civility. 

In the last Administration, the Democrats called forth their hate against an American president who believed in Wilsonianism.  It was what the Democrats believed in under Reagan and Bush pere (and FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ).  Did the Democrats sacrifice their soul for power? 

Before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Sulla brought his troops to Rome in 88.  The precedent was set.  

My question: Is this foreshadowing something worse? Or has the die already been cast? 

UPDATE 8/26/11 7:33 AM: Cue the Twilight Zone music! Just as the post was about to publish -- the Internet went down due to the heat.  Divine Providence? or coincidence? You decide!


UPDATE 8/26/11 8:25 PM: Hello Instalanche readers!  Welcome!  Next month I will be reporting live, as both delegate and Blogger from the CAGOP Convention.  Please hit the Tip jar if you can! 

For Want of Comity in the Senate, A Revolution began to Pick up Steam

Watch the ugliness by the Senator Al Franken (D-MN), and then watch Senator McCain (R-AZ)uphold the honor of the Senate:



The rules of Governing are different from the Rules of Politicking.

The House of Representatives might be close to the people, but there was a reason the Founders created the Senate.

It was created for two reasons:

1) The Connecticut Compromise (The G-ds of Irony are laughing) to give the smaller states equal power against the larger ones; and

2) President George Washington said the Senate's job was to "cool," the passion of the House of Representatives. Or in modern language, the institution outlasts the Politics of it's time.

And, just like the examples earlier in the Valley, the Left want to rid the US of the Senate too because things don't go their way. Don't believe me? Read this article. It is written by the same person who wants to get rid of the filibuster.

What the Left fails to get (over and over again) is if you engage using Tip O'Neill's rules, comity comes forth, debates are give and take and everyone has a beer afterwords. By failing to take into account Churchill's quote, "...in Victory, magnanimity," they lose any reason for outreach by the Conservatives or Republicans.

And now, Senator Franken's asshattery.

Elections are next year, and if the Republicans take back the Senate, why shouldn't the same games be played?

Do you folks on the Left know how angry we are at how you treated President Bush and Governor Palin? I guess not.

Do you folks on the Left enjoy mocking us on the Right? I guess so.

What Senator Franken did was open up a new front in an advancing Civil war. We on the Right have put with the Two Minute Hates and Emmanuel Goldsteining of our people.

NO MORE.

Democrats, either chastise Senator Franken or prepare for the whirlwind when you lose the Senate. This offer is only good for 24 hours starting from the publishing time of this post.

My question, will no one teach the Democrats how to make Politics a calm place in the Governing side? Or do they not know the consequences?

Palinaphobia -- My Messages to the Left and the Right

First, the lady of the hour (and of 2008 and 2009), Governor Sarah Palin (Transcript here):





And now, my message to the partisans on both sides. First, my "friends," on the Left:

You wonder your little heads why we're angrier then usual? First, you make Emmanuel Goldsteins of us, then you look slyly when Andrew Sullivan personally attacks the family of a Republican politician. I've said here what you folks need to do to calm my anger.

I see, now, that you just don't give a damn about Americans whose belief differs from yours. Well, by making Governor Palin a martyr (oh yes she is, you cannot walk back that cat.), any line of civility in my heart is gone.

Lawsuits upon lawsuits? Just like you did to Newt, Delay and Palin? Karma answers back and I have no pity if a Democratic Vice Presidents daughter is found with drugs, I might promote it every damn day. Don't like it? Don't start it.

Final warning. Clean up your act. By destroying Palin, a non Ivy Governor of a state, you have proven to be the party of "elite," My curse upon you: May every Democratic President (including Obama) and Governors families be treated the way Governor Palin's was. I will not excuse the attacks on any Democrat official or partisan anymore.

For the Right:

This is war. Governor Palin has been attacked only because she stood up against Obama. It is time to take the sadness and civility from our hearts and replace it with fury and action. Churchill always wrote, ACTION THIS DAY memos. Here is mine:

1) First, I want Andrew Sullivan's head. Either cut off in the states or sent with his body attached back to England. He must pay for breaking the oldest rule in politics: Attacking a politicians family. Even Speaker Tip O'Neill wrote how wrong it is. People like him never learn.

2) Find out everything about Todd Purdum. Post his home and cell info on the major blogs. He is a supplicant for Obama, I'm sure some Hillary supporters can help us here.

3) The News media is our Dardanelles. We start fighting a two front war. More discussion next week in the Encyclicals.

4) Every frivolous lawsuit set against a Republican leader means we do TWENTY against their leaders. We suffer? So do they.

5) President Obama cannot Govern. Show examples to people every day. Unemployment is high and getting higher. There are no Republicans to oppose Obama and the Speaker. We remind people of this every day until November 2010 and 2012.

G-d Bless you Governor Palin! You have my blessings in whatever you do (I will join your Presidential campaign in an instant because you always punched back against your attackers. We need more of that in the GOP).

The Second Civil War has begun and Governor Palin is our Fort Sumpter. Time to shoot back.

Advancing Towards Fort Sumter

I discussed this earlier, and I wasn't listened too -- so, here we go again, but now I am sending out the warning shots. Dismiss it at your peril.
******

Let's look at history first. In the secession crisis of 1860-61 in the US, South Carolina left the Union and the United States left a Military Fort in the jurisdiction of South Carolina. It was Fort Sumter. The Confederates warned the Union troops they would fire; when diplomacy failed, the Confederates fired for 34 hours on April 12, 1861 on Fort Sumter. The Union lost Fort Sumter and it took Four years (and a lot of critics from the Democratic party) but President Lincoln won back the territory and saved the Union (can I get an Amen?).


Now let me introduce to a quote from one of my heroes, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill:

“In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity”

**********

During the Tea Party Protests, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper made fun of the protesters, and so did MSNBC and a few other outlets.

Two months later, on June 1st, Playboy Online had an article about hate F**king women of the Right (sounds like rape to me -- where was NOW?). Playboy took the article down (but did not fire the writer), but the Politico left the article online for a little longer.

This week was an explosion of news: David Letterman made a misogynistic joke about Governor Palin and her daughters (and NOW finally got involved today and said he was wrong) and someone with with a hatred of Former President Bush and Jews tried to shoot up the Holocaust Museum and the Weekly Standard offices.

And for over a year, I have been discussing in the Valley the love of the Left and Anti-Semites and their shared hatred of Bush. Chickens....coming home to roost, but no one on the Left ever wants to admit being wrong here. There are no modern William F. Buckley's in today's Left.

After the shooting, the partisans on the Left (and their allies in the media) immediately blamed all of the Right (and then added "The DHS report was right,"). Two Establishment writers in the media, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, and Paul Krugman of the New York Times, both men well known for their hatred of President Bush and Republicans, said Conservatives, Fox news and Republicans are to blame. Hypocrite, thy name is Robinson and Krugman.

Maybe Michelle Malkin is right and we don't need to be civil in this era of Obama.

Tonight, my friend Donald Douglas, has a post that has been on all the lips of the Right: Is there a coming Civil war? Not between North and South, but between Right and Left.

Remember the Churchill quote? Since January 20, 2009 (heck since December 12, 2000), no Democrat has ever shown Bi-partisanship, post-partisanship or magnanimity. As the examples above show too, even the media shows a lack of understanding and respect for the Conservative and Republican side of the equation.

Now this is my message to everyone on the Left, Democrats, Progressives and

media friends:

Ever read Langston Hughes, A Dream Deferred? With no sign of the promised post-partisanship, or magnanimity from President Obama or any his partisans or friends in the media, it is causing some of us to literally, explode.

Do you want to stop the separation between Right and Left? Republicans and Conservatives lost the last election, but unlike the Left for last 8 years, we are not whining about it. In fact, speak to any True Conservative or Republican and we will agree that it is a great day for America that we have our first African American president and family in the White House. But, when you have Evan Thomas, editor of Newsweek, calling him a demi-G-d, we on the Right have a duty to ask: What the fuck?

Heck, in Churchill's quote: In defeat, defiance. Is dissent now un-patriotic after the loose talk of the last 8 years? Until the members of the Press and the Left realize how ung-dly they were to other Americans who disagreed with them, you have stoked an upcoming fire. History did not begin on 1/20/09 and nothing we have seen since then proves that you do anything but hate our guts.

I have a test for all Liberal Trolls on other Blogs: I ask, name 3 policies of the past two Presidents (Bush II and Clinton, Obama and Bush II after his term) that you support. No one on the Left can perform this easy task. Anywhere. Anytime. I can and do.

Throughout the Valley, I have at theory that the Left needs an American Emmanuel Goldstein -- I have yet to be disproven of this theory. You want Conservatives and Republicans "to calm down," well here is a hint: Stop turning our people into Emmanuel Goldsteins. There is no step back from this.

And if you deny us magnanimity, post-partisanship and a place to be heard (which is why Fox and talk radio do well), where do people go when they feel the System in all it's Establishment is against them? The last time the New York Times endorsed any Republican was President Eisenhower. Again, deny us our dignity.

Democrats and Liberals, you own the Establishment. You call us "racists," for disagreeing with President Obama, and you forget that we on the Right love our First Amendment Rights and our Second Amendment Rights. Change your tune or Fort Sumter might come sooner then you think. We hear you, but we need you to hear us.

And my question, what are you doing to stop the next American Civil War?