Siege Mentality

(Siege Mentality)

What might say when retail institutions like Target or Wal Mart have to secure their merchandise for fear of chronic shop-lifting ?  Why is there a rejection of reality on the state of the border or the economy ? The Inflation Reduction Act that does not reduce inflation / And. why is there a President who forgets his trip to Ireland even though he has been given study aids ?


It is an interesting question to ask what happened to the average Citizen of Rome on September 5th, A.D. 476, the day after the end of the Roman Empire in the West. What had been Roman cities in Gaul and Hispania, suddenly finding themselves occupied by barbarian hordes of one type or another with no further guidance from the "Eternal City." One can say that a similar situation is being played out in this country. What is lacking today is the same thing that ended Rome. A loss of centralized control.


One used to point to law enforcement to deal with crime. The images of a San Francisco Target with its wares secured behind plexiglass because "smash and grab" has been elevated to an art form. If one can expand the analogy, Target is being raided by largely teen "barbarians" who are sweeping through store pillaging everything from A-Z. However, as this is the Bay City, soft on crime attituded are abundant and if Target needs to shield its product line behind plastic, then so be it.


The border is an easy comparison to the old Roman Frontier. Millions of illegal migrants have crossed into American territory over the Rio Grande the same way Goths, Vandals and the like coming over the Danube or the Rhine. There has been some scholarship that the Roman Empire did not actually fall but was "absorbed" into several barbarian kingdoms that had no desire to carry on Rome's legacy.


Rome did have a last Emperor, one who was retired, more than anything else. President Biden is like that last Emperor. He is being handled and that is why he needs cheat sheets. But Biden, despite his cognitive failures, is surrounded by an infrastructure that all but assures his return to Office with the defeat of the greatest Barbarian of them all. Donald Trump.

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