You’re right, we are living in dangerous times but I think it will take more than one Caesar to save our Republic. It will take MANY brave and courageous men and women to stand up and speak the truth about what is really happening. WAKE UP AMERICA!!
Caesar was a pivotal leader in Roman history. However, it would be a disingenuous reading of Roman history to imply that he was any less corrupt as the leader of the Populares faction than Pompey's Optimates. Nor was Caesar particularly committed to "saving" the Roman Republic, having chosen to rule essentially as Rome's first Emperor after the Civil War.
Napoleon and Franco were also politically ambitious and committed to their own personal political agendas far more than they were to any ideal of republican governance.
Which is indeed the danger here: the chaos and the division in this country makes it vulnerable to a politically motivated populist who talks about "the people" but interested only in his own aggrandizement.
Rather than looking for a "great man" to "save" the American Republic, we would do well to focus our energies on strengthening those parts of that Republic within our own grasp.
Take on issues of governance in local city councils and school boards.
Campaign against state legislators and governors unwilling to reform and reduce government spending.
Strengthen local community resources for tackling problems of homelessness, education, economic privation, substance abuse, et cetera.
We should not wait for one great man to lead us. We should each of us instead strive to be moral men. All our problems and all our divisions can be healed if each of us is willing to commit to doing the right thing in all circumstances.
"In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes." -- Judges 21:25
It almost sounds as if you were hoping for a Caesar to come and overthrow the American constitutional order. On your own telling, what that resulted in, in the case of the original Caesar, was civil war (and "Rome descended into abject chaos and was never the same again").
And yes, I FULLY endorse the idea of a Caesar figure arriving on the center stage to completely annihilate the existing power structure of the Left. That will make conflict and war inevitable, but so be it. The only way out of the extreme crisis we find ourselves in is through and the only way to save what’s left of our country is through action and power.
Isn’t the ‘constitutional order’ you speak of kind of dead right now? I seriously cannot imagine anyone still believing it exists. If you still do, I don’t know what to tell you. (And no, the Caesar figure would arrive to destroy the Left regime which overthrew the constitutional order of our Founders decades ago.)
"would arrive to destroy the Left regime"--and replace it with what, exactly? Again, in the case of the antecedent you yourself cited to introduce the concept, the answer would appear to have been a dictator for life. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth; perhaps I misunderstand what you were saying in the first place?
"kind of dead"--fans of The Princess Bride will know that mostly dead is significantly different from dead. I'm not that big a fan; I'd prefer to say, What did you think the American order consisted of? I agree that the left's march through the courts etc. over the past century or so in America has significantly undermined the limited-government vision of the founding, the individual-rights framework, and the structural constitutionalism that are all important parts of our system rightly understood. The left are no fans of the Founders, and I'm no fan of the left. Nevertheless, the Founders' work has proven so durable, that so much of our institutions still remains, that America has among the strongest free-speech protections in the world, among the strongest gun rights in the world, and (with now one exception, in 2020-2021) an unbroken record of two and a half centuries of peaceful transfers of power. Those may not be everyone's favorite examples--fair enough--I think America compares favorably to other countries in many other ways, too. Pick your examples.
So, 10% dead, 90% alive? 25-75? Even if you rate it something like 50-50, I wouldn't recommend pulling that trigger.
What countries are you comparing America to, where we aren't still an amazing, historic-exception success story by comparison? I know some people from other countries where even managing one peaceful transfer of power is still too great an accomplishment to manage, something for them to aspire to someday. That is more nearly the rule, America the exception, across times and places in human history.
As someone has commented somewhere, perhaps, ours is a terrible system, except for all the alternatives.
Meanwhile the American Revolution is more or less the only Revolution in world history that succeeded in not leaving a country worse off than before. What reasons to you have for confidence that the revolution and war you dream of will end better than most?
You’re right, we are living in dangerous times but I think it will take more than one Caesar to save our Republic. It will take MANY brave and courageous men and women to stand up and speak the truth about what is really happening. WAKE UP AMERICA!!
It looks like you have it figured out. We will just have to wait and see who our Caesar is.
Caesar was a pivotal leader in Roman history. However, it would be a disingenuous reading of Roman history to imply that he was any less corrupt as the leader of the Populares faction than Pompey's Optimates. Nor was Caesar particularly committed to "saving" the Roman Republic, having chosen to rule essentially as Rome's first Emperor after the Civil War.
Napoleon and Franco were also politically ambitious and committed to their own personal political agendas far more than they were to any ideal of republican governance.
Which is indeed the danger here: the chaos and the division in this country makes it vulnerable to a politically motivated populist who talks about "the people" but interested only in his own aggrandizement.
Rather than looking for a "great man" to "save" the American Republic, we would do well to focus our energies on strengthening those parts of that Republic within our own grasp.
Take on issues of governance in local city councils and school boards.
Campaign against state legislators and governors unwilling to reform and reduce government spending.
Strengthen local community resources for tackling problems of homelessness, education, economic privation, substance abuse, et cetera.
We should not wait for one great man to lead us. We should each of us instead strive to be moral men. All our problems and all our divisions can be healed if each of us is willing to commit to doing the right thing in all circumstances.
"In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes." -- Judges 21:25
It almost sounds as if you were hoping for a Caesar to come and overthrow the American constitutional order. On your own telling, what that resulted in, in the case of the original Caesar, was civil war (and "Rome descended into abject chaos and was never the same again").
Maybe I'm missing something?
And yes, I FULLY endorse the idea of a Caesar figure arriving on the center stage to completely annihilate the existing power structure of the Left. That will make conflict and war inevitable, but so be it. The only way out of the extreme crisis we find ourselves in is through and the only way to save what’s left of our country is through action and power.
Isn’t the ‘constitutional order’ you speak of kind of dead right now? I seriously cannot imagine anyone still believing it exists. If you still do, I don’t know what to tell you. (And no, the Caesar figure would arrive to destroy the Left regime which overthrew the constitutional order of our Founders decades ago.)
"would arrive to destroy the Left regime"--and replace it with what, exactly? Again, in the case of the antecedent you yourself cited to introduce the concept, the answer would appear to have been a dictator for life. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth; perhaps I misunderstand what you were saying in the first place?
"kind of dead"--fans of The Princess Bride will know that mostly dead is significantly different from dead. I'm not that big a fan; I'd prefer to say, What did you think the American order consisted of? I agree that the left's march through the courts etc. over the past century or so in America has significantly undermined the limited-government vision of the founding, the individual-rights framework, and the structural constitutionalism that are all important parts of our system rightly understood. The left are no fans of the Founders, and I'm no fan of the left. Nevertheless, the Founders' work has proven so durable, that so much of our institutions still remains, that America has among the strongest free-speech protections in the world, among the strongest gun rights in the world, and (with now one exception, in 2020-2021) an unbroken record of two and a half centuries of peaceful transfers of power. Those may not be everyone's favorite examples--fair enough--I think America compares favorably to other countries in many other ways, too. Pick your examples.
So, 10% dead, 90% alive? 25-75? Even if you rate it something like 50-50, I wouldn't recommend pulling that trigger.
What countries are you comparing America to, where we aren't still an amazing, historic-exception success story by comparison? I know some people from other countries where even managing one peaceful transfer of power is still too great an accomplishment to manage, something for them to aspire to someday. That is more nearly the rule, America the exception, across times and places in human history.
As someone has commented somewhere, perhaps, ours is a terrible system, except for all the alternatives.
Meanwhile the American Revolution is more or less the only Revolution in world history that succeeded in not leaving a country worse off than before. What reasons to you have for confidence that the revolution and war you dream of will end better than most?