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Saturday Morning Quiz
To [him] the art of government meant the promotion of any measure, however inconsistent with his previous or even present professions, that promised to advance the next step in his plan; his only long-range objective which can be definitively identified is the enhancement of his power. For this he indulged in a lifetime of double talk, professing slogans of democracy, while debating and destroying democracy, while debasing and destroying the powers of the electorate, and insisting on constitutional technicalities, while persistently undermining the constitution. In the end, his prescription for government turned out to be a surpisingly simple one: to reduce its mechanism to the simplest and most primitive of all institutional forms, personal absolutism, and to employ it for one of the simplest and most primitive of all purposes, foreign conquest.Follow up question: who do you think I was thinking of when I read this piece?
7 Comments:
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It's written about you.
By
You thought it was about Andrew Jackson.
, at 10:36 AM
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I doubt it is anyone from the US, "foreign conquest" doesn't mix well with our isolationist tendencies. (Though I was tempted to say LBJ, though the prescription for govt was off) With democracy--- someone roman?
By
And of course I'm guessing you were thinking Dear President bush.
Weezy, at 12:47 PM
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Shrinky: Hey!
By
Rebecca: Right about who I was thinking of. But it wasn't written about Hitler.
Weezy: Ooh, you're smart. Yes it was written about someone Roman. Arbitrista, at 2:27 PM
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There are so many Romans to choose from! I'm not smart enough to guess. But, I will go do a google.
By Penguin, at 5:03 PM
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Half right, then. May I buy a vowel, Pat?
By
Oooh, a Roman. Hmmm. Thanks for the hint, because my next guess was going to be Napoleon.
I think I'll have to pass. It's probably whoever managed to control England for awhile, but I don't know who that is. And I'm not at all familiar with the Romans. I mean, I can't even think of that many.
Let's see, Caligula was the cruel one, Caesar the succesful one - until, you know, et tu and all that, Nero was the retarded one and Marc Antony got all involved with that tramp. Nope, as you can see, my ignorance of Roman history knows no bounds.
Still, I don't really think Zippy's goal is to take over the world. I think the Iraq thing was partly to make up for his dad not going in at a time when it might have been a good thing, but mostly for his and Cheney's pals at Haliburton. Between Afghanistan and Iraq, I bet he's wishing we could turn isolationist right now - except he still finds it fun to make cowboy threats to the remaining bad boys.
Have you noticed how bad Laura Bush is looking lately? I think she can't wait to get out of there and hubby's going to be pretty relieved, too. It probably won't be long now before he just pretty much gives up and resigns himself to his lame duck status. Of course, I don't know any more about that than I do about Romans, so this is not opinion I care much about defending. If I am wrong - again, then so be it. :) Rebecca, at 5:45 PM
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It was about Julius Caesar - the one who in the end managed to finally destroy the Roman Republic.
By
Penguin: Google is cheating!
Rebecca: Yeah I don't know if the Shrub really wants to conquer the world. But he sure does love conquest!
PrairieOyster: Meanie. Arbitrista, at 7:27 AM
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Yes, it would have been, so, I didn't. I was going to guess Cesar (really, I was) but (a) wasn't sure of the correct spelling and (b) which Cesar!
By Penguin, at 1:32 PM
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