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Sept. 10, 1996 - Bill Cooper
57:33
''That Every Man Be Armed''
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So, I'm going to play a little bit of it.
This is the Voice of Freedom.
The Worldwide Freedom Radio Network is on the air.
Light the power of the power.
Use this power.
The easiest hour of my time.
And I'm gonna go and use the toilet water to save my life.
I'm gonna go and flush the toilet.
I'm gonna go and use the toilet water to save my life.
I mean, you're listening to the Hour of the Time.
I'm Poe.
You were going to say good evening.
You're on the air, weren't you?
Yeah.
Oh boy.
And I'm William Cooper.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
the the
the The American Revolution was sparked at Lexington and Concord and in Virginia by British attempts to disarm the individual and, hence, the militia.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that the authority of the Declaration of Independence rested on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.
These sentiments, which attacked standing mercenary armies and vindicated the use of
armed force to oppose tyranny, were also reflected in the Bill of Rights, and indeed provide
a jurisprudential commentary thereon.
Aristotle, Cicero, John Locke, and Algernon Sidney provided the philosophical justification
of the armed sovereignty of the populace.
On the other hand, Plato, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, and Sir Robert Filmer set forth the
classical argument in favor of monarchical absolutism.
also among the so-called elementary books of public right, referred to by Jefferson,
were the works of Niccolo Machiavelli and James Harrington, whose analysis of the Roman
Republic and strategy of popular freedom clearly influenced the Whigs of 1688 and 1776, and
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the intellectual harbinger of the French Revolution.
Monesquieu, D'Xeria, Berg, and Adam Smith were influential in the areas of legal theory,
criminology, and of course political economy.
While relying to a great extent on Cicero, who was dubbed the greatest orator, statesman,
and philosopher of Rome, in the words of John Adams, the founders of this nation based their
thinking on the role of the Roman militia in great measure on Machiavelli.
Thank you.
Machiavelli's influence was clear in George Mason's speech to the Fairfax Independent Militia Company, which was composed of volunteers who supplied their own arms and elected their own officers.
When, according to Mason, the essential maxims of the Roman Commonwealth were undermined, their army no longer considered themselves the soldiers of the Republic, but as the troops of Marius, or Silia, of Pompey, or of Caesar, of Mark Antony, or of Octavius.
John Adams prays Machiavelli for his constitutional model for Florence,
which included a popular militia, wherein the sovereign powers lodged both of right and in
fact in the citizens themselves, as he put it.
Considering such influences, it is no wonder that the second article in Amendment affirms
the relation between a popular militia and popular freedom in language directly descended
from that of Markievili.
Thank you.
Now, dear listeners, for constitutional principles of government, the founders of this Republic, our Republic, relied most on the seventeenth-century English Republicans, who themselves had been deeply influenced by Aristotle, Cicero and Machiavelli.
Jefferson saw to it that Locke and Sidney would be required reading at the University of Virginia, for, as he said, as to the general principles of liberty, and the rights of man in nature and in society, the doctrines of Locke, in his Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government, and of Sidney, in his Discourses on Government, May be considered as those generally approved by your fellow citizens of this and the United States.
Relying on Locke to deny any governmental right to be absolutely arbitrary, Samuel Adams related, Mr. Locke has often been quoted in the present dispute between Britain and her colonies, and very much to our purpose.
Like the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, written by George Mason, contains specific phrases from Locke as well as from Cato's letters.
The same philosophers appeared in the Last Will and Testament of Josiah Quincy, Jr.
To my son when he shall arrive to the age of fifteen years, Algernon Sidney's works, John Locke's works, and Cato's letters, may the spirit of liberty rest upon him."
There are no fathers who leave such admonitions in their wills, nor such bequeathments to their sons today.
But to sum it up, the two categorical imperatives of the Second Amendment, that a militia of the body of the people is necessary to guarantee a free state, and that all of the people, all of the time, not just when called for organized militia duty, have a right to keep arms.
derived from the classical philosophical texts concerning the experiences of ancient Greece
and Rome and seventeenth-century England. Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, and the English
Whigs provided an armed populace with the philosophical vindication to counter
oppression which found expression in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of
Rights. In this sense, the people's right to have their own arms was based on the philosophical
and political writings of the greatest intellectuals of the past two thousand years. William Jefferson
Clinton does not hold a candle to such men. An appreciation of the significance of these
elementary books of public right is indispensable to a correct understanding of the meaning
of the Bill of Rights in general and of the Second Amendment in particular. Furthermore,
An understanding of the authoritarian absolutism of Plato, Boden, Hobbes, and Filmer is as necessary as an understanding of classical libertarian republicanism in order to know what America's founders rejected as well as what they accepted.
Those who drafted and supported the Bill of Rights Followed the libertarian tradition of Aristotle, Cicero, and Sidney, and they rejected soundly the authoritarian, if not totalitarian, tradition of Plato, Caesar, and Filmer.
These two basic traditions in political philosophy have consistently enunciated opposing approaches to the question of people and arms, with the authoritarians rejecting the idea of an armed populace In favor of a helpless and obedient populace and the libertarian Republicans accepting the armed populace and limiting the government by the consent of that armed populace.
Speaking as Socrates in the Republic, Plato provided a comprehensive analysis of the social and political consequences of individual ownership of arms versus a state monopoly of arms.
To refute the definition of justice as fulfilling promises and paying debts, Socrates suggested in a counterexample that one ought not to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses, and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.
Since the return should not be made to one, quote, not in his right mind, end quote, repayment of a debt was not necessarily justice because, as he put it, and I quote, a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil, end quote.
By implication, individual possession of weapons by sane individuals was ethically acceptable to Socrates.
Yet Socrates' own definition of justice as the fulfillment of one's proper function, at least as propounded by the more conservative Plato, rejected as degenerate the egalitarian democracy that an armed populace would predictably instate.
An essential element of Plato's explanation of political transformation in the Republic related to the tendencies of the unjust state to win privilege through armed force, and of the armed multitude to abolish the unjust state in question.
According to Plato, oligarchy arises when privilege based on wealth is fixed by statute.
As he put it, This measure is carried through by armed force unless they have already set up their constitution by terrorism.
The abuse resulting from the state monopoly of violence leads to a disunited state wherein the rich and poor continuously plot against each other.
If a war with outside forces arises, the oligarchs are faced with the following dilemma.
Either they must call out the common people or not.
If they do, they will have more to fear from the armed multitude than from the enemy.
And if they do not, in the day of battle these oligarchs will find themselves only too literally a government of the few.
The development of an oligarchy into a democracy requires that the common people be armed.
Former members of the ruling class who lose their wealth and power long for a revolution.
These drones are armed and can sting.
Finally, whether by force of arms or because the other party is terrorized into giving way, the poor majority overcomes and establishes a democracy which grants the people an equal share in civil rights and government.
Liberty and free speech are rife everywhere.
Anyone is allowed to do what he likes.
Plato did not like such a possibility.
While Plato attacks democracy for exhibiting characteristics which today would be considered laudable, some of his remarks are nevertheless directed against a social order that retains political inequality and therefore cannot be considered a complete democracy.
That's why he called his writing the Republic.
Thus, after the old oligarchy is replaced by a society progressing towards democracy, a strong leader arises who Quote begins stirring up one war after another in order that the people may feel their need of a leader and also be so impoverished by taxation that they will be forced to think of nothing but winning their daily bread instead of plotting against him.
End quote.
Sound familiar?
Finally, the despot wins complete victory by reestablishing the state monopoly of arms.
And as mentioned earlier, he's usually accomplished through terrorism.
Political terrorism.
And he says, quote, Then, to be sure, the people will learn what sort of a creature it has bred and nursed to greatness in its bosom.
Until now, the child is too strong for the parent to drive out.
Do you mean that the despot will dare to lay hands on this father of his and beat him if he resists?
Yes, when once he has disarmed him."
While Plato portrays tyranny as the ultimate degeneration of the state, his ideal state,
the reign of the philosopher-king, Where have you heard that before?
Actually resembles tyranny.
Both despotism and the ideal monarchy involve rule by one person, with the only difference being the alleged good intentions of the ideal monarch.
A dubious check on despotism.
Plato himself suggested that a young, educated despot may become the philosopher king.
After attacking the democratic ideal where one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, Plato devised a normative social structure with ruling philosophers at the top, the soldier auxiliaries in the middle, and the working masses at the very bottom.
This Pyramid sets the royal elite over the professional warriors and requires the inferior multitude to mind their own business.
The stage is thereby set for a tyranny, having monopolized the means of force to exploit the majority.
Plato's practical proposals for totalitarianism are set forth in the Laws.
which anticipates a state of just over 5,000 citizens plus numerous slaves.
While at one point designating warriors as a specialized class, Plato elsewhere
anticipates that the director of children and other instructors will discipline
all girls, boys, women and men with compulsory military exercises.
You see, nothing under the sun has ever changed.
In discussing the Phyric war dance, Pankration, which was fighting with hands and feet,
an armed contest, Plato would mandate that the techniques of fighting are skills
which all citizens, male and female, must take care to acquire.
Thank you.
While the possession by the citizens of martial skills would suggest a mode for some form of popular control, The overwhelming power of the guardians of the laws would provide for state domination over every aspect of life.
Unlike Aristotle, Plato nowhere hints that the citizens would have their own arms.
Instead, arms seem to be placed in the citizens' hands only for the temporary purpose of military exercise once per month.
So while failing to foresee that martial arts learned by the citizens may contribute to the protection of popular liberty, the laws insist that freedom from control must be uncompromisingly eliminated from the life of all men.
By following the militarist examples of Sparta and Crete rather than the freer civilizations of Athens, Plato hopes that no one, man or woman, must ever be left without someone in charge of him.
Nobody must get into the habit of acting above and independently, either in sham fighting or the real thing.
And in peace and war alike, we must give our constant attention and obedience to our leader."
So rather than use their arms to protect their interests against the despotism, the people may use their arms solely at the state's command.
Everyone is to have the same friends and enemies as the state.
In sum, in the laws, as in the Republic, Plato advocates an authoritarian state wherein arms and people function solely as brisks.
In the Politics Aristotle critically analyzes the elitist authoritarian regime advocated by Plato.
As opposed to the strict division between rulers, warriors, and workers in the Socratic
dialogue, Aristotle's concept of polity included a large middle class in which each citizen
fulfilled all three functions of self-legislation, arms-bearing, and working.
According to Aristotle, who is known as the father of reason,
there are many things which Socrates left undetermined.
Are farmers and craftsmen to have no share in government?
Are they or are they not to possess arms?
And in accord with his broad philosophical ideal of the Golden Mean, Aristotle expresses a very keen awareness of the true basis of political equality.
The whole constitutional setup is intended to be neither democracy nor oligarchy, but midway
between the two, what is sometimes called polity, the members of which are those who bear arms."
The members of which are those who bear arms.
Plato proceeded to attack again the constitution of Plato's laws because despite its suffrage
it was oligarchical and one of its salient features was a disarmed populace.
Thank you.
Aristotle found the monopolization of arms bearing in the hands of one class to be an objectionable feature of the best state, advocated by Hippodamus planned a city with a population of 10,000 divided into three parts, one of skilled workers, one of agriculturalists, and a third to bear arms and secure defense.
The legal restriction of arms bearing to a given class entrusted with defense would lead to oppression by that class.
And he said, The farmers have no arms.
The workers have neither land nor arms. This makes them virtually the servants of those who do possess arms.
In these circumstances, the equal sharing of offices and honors becomes an impossibility."
The possession of arms, according to Aristotle, is a requisite for true citizenship and participation in the polity.
But since those who possess arms must be superior in power to both the other sections,
the constitution proposed by Hippodamus would breed inequality and discontent.
In analyzing the elusive concept of the constitutional kingship Aristotle commented on its opposite, tyranny, which was founded on a professional standing army.
Thus, a king's bodyguard is composed of citizens carrying arms, a tyrant's of foreign mercenaries, an all-volunteer force, paid and promised a handsome retirement.
The citizens protect the king.
But they need protection from the tyrant.
Even the armed force of the monarch must not be strong enough to overpower the whole population.
Aristotle was a very smart man.
Since all true citizens possess arms, the arms-bearers are not limited to those who defend the state in war.
Just after referring to the class which will defend in time of war, Aristotle declares that It is quite normal for the same persons to be found bearing arms and tilling the soil.
By contrast, oligarchical devices exist in regulations made about carrying arms to the effect that it is lawful for the poor not to possess arms.
The rich are fined if they do not have them.
Since arms were essential to the polity for full participation and principal citizenship ought to be reserved for those who can afford to carry arms, yet Aristotle immediately went on to recognize the ill-treatment of the poor that would result from such a property qualification.
You see, the poor do not have the requisite wealth In a polity each citizen is to possess his own arms which are not supplied or owned by the state.
As Plato had perceived in the Republic Aristotle also saw that a prerequisite to the transition from an oligarchy to a popular constitution is the arming of the people, who would overpower the oligarch's troops.
Furthermore, tyranny derives from the oligarchy's mistrust of the people.
Hence they deprive them of arms, ill-treat the lower class, and keep them from residing in the capital.
These are common to oligarchy and tyranny.
War, taxation, and public works keep the people poor and preoccupied, perpetuating the power of the tyrant.
It is also in the interest of a tyrant to keep his subjects poor so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion.
While recognizing the political implications of material factors, including territory and
military technology, Aristotle contended that conditions promoting the use of cavalry and
hoplites would result in an oligarchy because of the high costs of horses and heavy armor.
The light-armed infantry and service in ships are democratic, and so in practice, wherever
these form a large proportion of the population, the oligarchs, if there is a struggle, fight
at a disadvantage.
Thank you.
The possession of light arms by the people allows them to overcome oligarchy.
It is by the use of light infantry in civil wars that the masses get the better of the and their mobility and light equipment give them an
advantage over cavalry and the heavy-armed."
The End.
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Ladies and gentlemen, every city requires food, tools, and arms, and of course many
Ladies and gentlemen, every city requires food, tools, and arms, and of course many other things, but these are
other things, but these are essential.
Arms are included because members of the Constitution must carry them, even among themselves, both
for internal government in the event of civil disobedience and to repel external aggression.
In polity and democracy, in contrast with oligarchy and tyranny, the members of the
Constitution are many, and all have arms, whether they comprise the few or the many.
Those with arms are sovereign, and I quote Aristotle, for those who possess and can wield arms are in a position to decide whether the Constitution is to continue or not, end quote.
Pretty heavy, isn't it?
But if you read the Declaration of Independence, you'll see that our founding fathers said exactly the same thing.
And that's the way that they intended it.
So that if government became oppressive, or became a tyrant, that people could dissolve such government and institute a government of their choosing.
Because no free man submits to a tyrant, and since rule without consent is neither rightful nor legal, Aristotle deemed arms possession a requisite to obtain or to maintain the status of being a free man and citizen.
Without arms, that status was unreachable, and is unreachable, and will always be unreachable.
In the Athenian Constitution, Aristotle describes the manner in which Isistratus seized power by force and set up a tyranny by disarming the Athenians sent into exile for establishing a tyranny Pisistratus hired soldiers and returned, and Aristotle describes it thusly, Quote, Winning the battle of Polinus, he seized the government and disarmed the people, and now he held the tyranny firmly, and he took Noxos and appointed Lagedamus ruler.
The way in which he disarmed the people was this.
He held an armed muster at the temple of Theseus and began to hold an assembly.
But he lowered his voice a little, and when they said they could not hear him, he told them to come up to the forecourt of the Acropolis, in order that his voice might carry better.
And while he used up time making a speech, the men told off for this purpose, gathered up the arms, locked them up in the neighboring buildings of the Temple of Theseus, and came and informed Pisistratus."
Pisistratus then told the people that henceforth only he would manage public affairs.
Pisistratus was tyrant for almost two decades and was succeeded by his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus.
After Hipparchus was killed in a procession, Hippias resorted to torture and execution.
Aristotle says, and I quote, But the current story that Hippias made the people in the procession fall out away from their arms and searched for those that retained their daggers is not true, for in those days they did not walk in the procession armed.
But this custom was instituted later by the democracy.
In short, the Athenians were disarmed under tyranny and armed under democracy.
Aristotle also described the similar methods resorted to by the thirty tyrants to perpetuate their power.
Under their rule, only three thousand persons who favored the tyranny qualified for citizenship.
Opposition naturally arose from the majority of the people deprived of citizenship.
The multitude found an able spokesman in Theramenses, who the Thirty feared would lead the people to destroy the oligarchy.
After losing an expedition against armed exiles, the Thirty decided to arm the others and to destroy Theramenes, in part by giving themselves absolute powers to execute any citizens not members of the roll of three thousand.
Their minis having been put out of the way, they disarmed everybody except the three thousand, and then the rest of their proceedings went much further in the direction of cruelty and rascality.
The thirty eventually met a violent end due to the success of the armed refugees.
In the theory and praxis of Athenian politics, as expounded by Plato and Aristotle, an armed populace means polity and direct democracy, while a disarmed populace is the essential element of oligarchy and tyranny.
Moreover, Aristotle's concept of individual autonomy through personal arms and a polity may be viewed in light of the nature which impels mankind to develop and possess defensive weapons.
This natural tendency, according to his account in Parts of Animals, which is the title of a book, stems from the human's anatomy.
And I quote, Now it must be wrong to say, as some do, that the structure of man is not good.
In fact, that it is worse than that of any other animal.
Their grounds are that man is barefoot, unclothed, and void of any weapon of force.
Against this we may say that all the other animals have just one method of defense and cannot change it for another.
They are forced to sleep and perform all their actions with their shoes on the whole time.
As one might say, they can never take off this defensive equipment of theirs, nor can they change their weapon, whatever it may be.
For man, on the other hand, Many means of defense are available, and he can change them at any time.
And above all, he can choose what weapon he will have and where.
Take the hand.
This is as good as a talon, or a claw, or a horn, or a gin, a spear, or a sword, or any other weapon or tool.
It can be all of these, because it can seize and hold them all, and nature has admirably
contrived the actual shape of the hand so as to fit in with this arrangement."
Roman philosophy and history embodied significant lessons concerning the social and political
characteristics of armed and disarmed populaces.
Thank you.
On the one hand, Roman citizenship, particularly during the Republican epoch, included a right to keep and bear arms for individual or collective self-defense.
On the other hand, aggression against both barbarians and Roman citizens by Roman tyrants
and empire builders was coupled with the policy of disarming and then eliminating their
opponents.
The use of deception to disarm the populace to be conquered was a technique that early
Roman aggressors learned well from Greek tyrants.
Talus Hostilius, the third Roman king, entered Alba under false pretenses with the intention
of raising the city to its foundations.
According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he ordered all the Alban troops to come to an
assembly after first laying aside their arms.
Thank you.
Roman troops, swords concealed under their garments, surrounded the Albans, who were informed by Tullus that the city would be destroyed.
Upon this, a tumult arose in the assembly, and some of them rushing to arms, those who surrounded the multitude, upon a given signal held up their swords.
Opponents were then slain, and the city was razed.
The institution of an armed populace Whose members would provide and keep their own arms, which initiated by Servius Tullius, the sixth Roman king.
Formerly, the right to bear arms had belonged solely to the patricians.
Now plebeians were given a place in the army, which was to be reclassified according to every man's property.
In effect, his ability to provide himself a more or less complete equipment for the field.
According to Livy, all the citizens capable of bearing arms registered in a census, and these men were required to provide their own swords, spears, and other armor.
In De Re Publica, Cicero relates that Servius organized a large group of knights from the main body of the people, and that the rest of the population was divided into centuries, or groups of one hundred.
Thus, even before the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the republic, the right to keep and bear arms belonged to patrician and plebeian alike.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great philosopher, senator, and lawyer, set forth the most complete discussion in the Roman Republican tradition of the natural right to have and use arms for public defense against tyranny and for private defense against attack.
And this is extremely unusual, for in his quest for power, Cicero was always raising the specter Of treason from within, of armed revolts against the Republic, of men who would take up arms against the Senate.
And in his constant raising of this bugaboo enemy, Cicero stepped up to power.
If he could not make the enemy believable or forceful enough, he would set his thugs to beat and rob Roman citizens And if he needed a rousing political cry, he would raise and burn a government building or a temple.
Just as those in government cry the defense of the Constitutional Republic and of the right to keep and bear arms, they work behind the scenes to subvert that right, to subvert that Republic, and to disarm the people.
Cicero set the stage for this, and those who are doing it today learned from Cicero, and many others, I might add.
Cicero was a master at propaganda and terrorism and raising the specter of armed patriots who would destroy the country.
unbelievable that the same man is quoted now, many centuries and millennia later, as being
a great defender of the natural right to have and use arms for public defense against tyranny
and for private defense against attack.
By contrast, the connection between standing armies, the disarmament of peoples, and foreign
domestic tyranny is well exemplified in the writings of Julius Caesar, analysis in a chronological
context of the orations and philosophical writings of Cicero, and secondarily, of Caesar's
account of the Gallic and civil wars demonstrates the identification of the armed citizen with
the Roman Republic and of the standing army with the Empire.
Thank you.
Cicero delivered two orations involving arms in the turbulent year 63 B.C.
First he defended Gaius Riberius, who was prosecuted for the murder of Lucius Appolicius
Saturninus.
Saturninus was an ally of Gaius Marius, who replaced Rome's citizen army with mercenaries,
and was an uncle and political teacher of Caesar.
Saturninus was killed in 100 B.C. for attempting a coup d'état to destroy the Roman
Constitution.
Forty years later, Caesar instigated the prosecution of Riberius for murder, and Cicero acted as
the defense counsel.
All of this you should read about in the newest, the newest book out, entitled Julius Caesar, and I will attempt to give you the author's name sometime during this broadcast.
You'll see the true machinations and what really happened and how Cicero attempted, truly, to destroy the Republic and institute an oligarchy through the use of that old boogaboo.
Traitors with weapons are dangerous, and traitors are patriots in militia and armed populace.
These Our plotting to overthrow the Senate was his standard line.
While he had not killed Saturninus, like many other citizens, Rabirius took up arms with the intention of killing Saturninus, yet neither the attempt nor the fatal act against the would-be tyrant was unlawful.
For there is surely no difference between the man who kills and the man who takes up arms for the purpose of killing.
If it was a crime to kill Saturninus, then to take up arms against him could not fail to be a crime as well.
But if you agree that the taking up of arms was lawful, then you are obliged to agree that the killing was lawful as well."
To counter the forces of Saturninus, the consuls, headed by Julius Caesar, said, Ordered every citizen who had the welfare of the state at heart to take up arms and follow their lead.
Everyone obeyed.
Weapons were taken from the temples and the public arsenals, and Gaius Marius distributed them among the populace."
Interestingly, Saturninus had originally depended on the backing of Gaius Marius and his mercenaries.
After Saturninus had seized the capital, every single other Roman citizen who existed proceeded to take up arms in the same cause.
Many noteworthy individuals armed themselves to protect our country and its pearl, and men of all ranks took up arms to defend the freedom of every one of us."
The prosecution of Rabirius was eventually stopped, but Cicero applied similar principles
in another oration, during the same year, against Lucius Sergius Catalina.
Catalina had also sought to abolish the Republic.
Cicero personally had assembled forces and bodyguards to protect the people and himself
from Catalina.
For Cicero, having and using arms to protect the Republic was honorable.
Thus he praises the courage to strike down a dangerous Roman citizen, more fiercely even, than they struck down the bitterest of foreign foes.
But having arms specifically to be used for assassination was criminal.
You were illegally carrying arms.
You had got together a group determined to strike down the leading men of the state.
Cicero, in fact, created the circumstances, ladies and gentlemen, to label his political
enemies as terrorists moving to destroy the Republic.
And this is clear in the history of Rome.
There is no mistaking any of it.
was eventually unmasked and driven from power.
He went into exile, where he continued his machinations.
Eventually, he was brought back to Rome, a more subdued, more docile patriarch, forgiven.
But Cicero never ever Many books today claim Cicero to be a great hero, a great proponent of republicanism, of democracy, of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
It is sad how history can be twisted by historians who have an agenda by doing such things, for it was Cicero himself who created the situation that resulted in the laws against the citizens of Rome bearing arms within the gates of Rome.
That is indeed sad.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're coming up to the top of the hour.
And while we're at that top of the hour and doing our network break, I'm going to put
on some music so that I can...
Get Julius Caesar will give you the information you need to read it.
You need to read the book because it describes the situations in ancient Rome that are parallel to the situations that exist today.
and you can see the machinations of the senators and the powerful families of Rome as they
compete for power and as they attempt to undermine each other and as they attempt to take the
reins of control away from the people, the citizens of Rome and create an oligarchy which
eventually leads, of course, to a dictatorship in the form of an emperor and an empire.
You'll see that Julius Caesar begins as a great man in defense of the rights of the
people, of the citizens, and of the constitution of the republic, but as...
you Throughout history, power corrupts, and it corrupts absolutely.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And you can see through the history of Julius Caesar and those who surround him that as they gain power, they become more corrupt.
And no matter their good intentions, the result is the same.
The fostering, the gathering of all power into the hands of a very few and into the
hands of one, ultimately resulting in the fall of the Roman Empire.
The complete destruction of Rome was not due to any influence of some rag-tag scattered
body of a new religion called Christians.
On the contrary, it was due to the decadence, the degradation, the descent into tyranny and despotism of
those who ruled Rome and the attempts of the populace and the people who were crushed
under the thumb of the empire of the legions of Rome to regain their freedom and exercise
it.
Thank you.
collapse of the moral structure.
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