Point taken...

Ryan is right, of course.  I do hope he wasn't too offended by what I wrote in my last post.  I wasn't "poo-pooing" comparisons he might have made between ancient Rome and the US today, since there are many, many to be made.  However, one doesn't have to look too far to see comparisons made by facts (or untruths) taken completely out of context.  And most comparisons ARE made by taking things completely out of context.

Here's one that Ryan's last post did make me think of, though... immediately:

In 212 AD, the very bad emperor named Caracalla delivered the "Edict of Caracalla" which made all free men (meaning no slaves or women) "citizens" of Rome and the Empire.  Amid all the myriad of "bad" things Caracalla did, many look on this edict as his one and only redeeming action as Emperor of the Rome and ruler absolute of the entire civilized world... but it wasn't.

Citizenship in the 3rd Century of the new millennium was NOT the same as it was in the old Republic... or even what it was during the rule of Julius Caesar or Augustus.  It was NOT something people fought wars to obtain or defend anymore... it was simply a means to expand the tax base of an increasingly insolvent Empire.  People, common people on the streets, gained nothing by the 212 Edict other than a new means by which Caracalla could squeeze 28% of all profits and income from an additional thirteen million previously exempt men who had never and would never see the city of Rome... or even the Italian peninsula... EVER!

That, my friends, sounds an awful lot like the sort of disdain for "citizenship" and "civic duty" that F. Ryan is describing, doesn't it?

Preach on, Brother!