The consul of Julius and Caesar...

Fans of the podcast that Titus turned me on to will recognize my title as an ancient running joke among Romans of a certain era. Always two consuls stood for election. Always two were elected. Always. Yet with the demise of his colleague, Consul Gaius Julius Caesar didn't bother with ensuring that this colleague was replaced. Hence the consular year was jokingly referred to as "The consul of Julius, and Caesar." And this joke dovetails nicely into my response, as I will focus primarily on the NSA/powers of the state.

So I get a text the other day that reads, "Posted. But read very carefully." I know at that moment that I am not to read said post until I have a solid 45 minutes to respond. Titus has undoubtedly written something just to get my hair up, hoping it will lead to something productive because he's bored that afternoon, so why not screw with Ryan (hehe). But your worries were misplaced my friend. Perhaps this little anecdote will help explain why...

When I was in my early twenties I sat down across the table from the individual who's title was "Chair of the Department of Political Science" at the University of Southern Mississippi. Now, if you can believe it, at that age I was somewhat cocky about my handle on politics, debate, history, and the world in general. Again, I 'm sure you find this a jaw dropping revelation, but stick with me. So there I sat - under the very real pretense of  getting "counseled" on how best to earn a PhD in poly sci - and I found myself  ITCHING to start a fight with this "chair person." As far as I knew, all egg head PhD's were leftists, and the opportunity to test my acumen against someone deemed a "professional" was simply too much to resist. Damn the credits, I have a pissing contest to win, saddle up. So I broke with the credits this and that, and dissertation rules here and there,  blah, blah, blah, and flat out interrupted mid sentence to ask, "Can I ask you something?" And this very gracious "Chairperson X" responded, "Of course." I proceeded. "Are you a Republican or Democrat?" At the time, in my world, these were the only two entities that existed, hence no choice C. She (yes, a she) responded, completely disarming me, with her own question, "Are those my only two choices?"

I'll save you the suspense... I sat there dumbfounded, not saying a word. Pretty suave, huh?

She smiled and went on to give me some advice I never quite forgot. She said, and I quote: "See, you think that politics is a straight line. You have the Right, which the Left hates. The Left, which the Right hates. And the middle, whom everyone hates. But it's not a straight line, it's a circle. The Left and Right separation simply takes you on different paths to the same destination. And at the end of those paths, when the two lines meet to complete the circle, you have total state domination. Hitler is the extreme Right, Stalin the extreme Left, but their method of rule is the same. They end at the same place."

Again, I sat there contemplating, not sure what to say next. Maybe I mumbled something, but who the hell knows. Her chuckling must brought me out my stupor because the next words I remember saying were, "But you're a political science professor, if in the end it doesn't matter, that we're destined to destroy ourselves, why bother?" And she responded, "That's why I'm a Libertarian. Not because I want prostitution legal or people to be able to do drugs, but because governments only do one thing, no matter who is in power... grow."

Now I've thought on that a lot lately. At the time I knew I had been schooled, but I wasn't sure why. Now I am. And listening to these History of Rome podcasts has only reinforced why. No matter the nation or time period, each time a man in any given society is elected, to any post, it is on a campaign pledge to do "something." No one gets elected saying I'm going to keep things exactly the same. And it's just human nature that the "something" be bigger, more. When it came to Roman antiquity I was always caught up in questions like, "Who was the first emperor? When did the Republic officially die?" But there's no demarcation line that you can point to and say "here!", right here is where they switched from a Republic to a dynastic imperium. It doesn't work like that. It's a death by a thousands cuts over generations, at least. Bad precedent, at the moment of its' occurrence, seems to occur in a vacuum, or as an anomaly. But it doesn't, because that precedent is used to create two more, then four, then eight. Until you wake up one day and being 180 degrees from where the Republic was founded is the new "normal." What did Titus say, that the acts taken now, as part of due course, would have had you arrested and hauled in front of a congressional hearing in 1996? We're living it brothers. I listen to these podcasts or read the Old Testament and catch myself shaking my head asking, "How did they not see how awful that would turn out?" or, "That never works, why are you trying that?" And when I catch myself doing that I feel like an idiot. Of course they couldn't see it. Very rarely can anyone see it. The names of those that stand up and try to put the brakes on, or those that  really did reduce the power of the office they held (or at least tried to) are inevitably washed away in a tide of, "And furthermore, when I''m elected I will..."  Or they are men that really did exist as an anomaly. From Cicero and Sulla to Reagan and Ron Paul. They're momentary heads popping up from the water, grabbing a breath so the body can live just a little bit longer. And whatever else they are, they certainly aren't the norm. And that's why that professor was a Libertarian. She had already traveled on this ideological path and had arrived at the very reasonable realization that there is no power we can grant or allow our government that they will not, in the end, use to curtail our freedom. The temptation is just too great, the arc of history just too clear. So she had decided on the only label that maximized freedom and minimized the government. But she was under no illusion, she knew Libertarian ideas (not to mention parties) had zero chance of penetrating the power structure that is our federal government. Which is why her party admission rung of resignation to our fate.

So this is my really long, elaborate, scenic route to get me here Titus - I agree with you. Our government is so powerful, so large, that when it makes mistakes they are so big that everyone in government is forced to agree that they're not mistakes. Instead, they become the new norm. Jambo wants to convince me that we're not on the back nine. Ok, maybe he's right. But what is undeniable, what he can not argue, is that we will eventually hit that 10th hole. He claims "We've been through worse." But the thing is, whatever does at last do us in, it doesn't have to be "worse." It just has to be last. Just a little bit more than we can take after the long march down. There is no civilization, no defined government or peoples in the history of mankind that did not "end." Then you turn the page... or cue up the next podcast. All we can do as informed citizens, through our vote, standing for office, or launching our post into the cacophony of the vast online universe, is try to slow our march downward. Maybe even bring it to an unrecognizable momentum. But in the end, whether taking the Right's path or the Left's, we will "go away." Our liberties are like frogs in a pot being turned up ever so slowly. Each new temperature is the new normal. And government - under either party - is the hand on the dial.

Don't get me wrong, we can stay that hand for a while. Maybe you get a leader here and there that really does try to do "less", not "more." But at some point our world will begin boiling around us. And like the frogs we will begin saying to each other, "Don't worry, this is normal. We've dealt with worse." And then some wiz kid from the year 2475 will shake his head, turn off his hologram imaging podcact on "The History of America", grab his government approved helmet, and as he hops into his atmosphere friendly hover craft to go pick up his cloned, state issued procreation mate, will mumble, "How did they not see that coming? That could never happen to the United Federation of Gender Nuetral Carbon Based Lifeforms... we're different."

So are we safer? Sure we are. I'm also sure that future boy is safe from an STD...