Michael Ramirez Essay: Fall of Rome 11-05-23
From America's Premier Editorial Cartoonist
THE FALL OF ROME
by Michael P. Ramirez, November 5, 2023
I was going to start this off by writing about how Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle laid the foundation for Western thought and jump into the Scientific Revolution, Newton, Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Locke, the impact of the Gutenberg press, and how the natural world can be explained through logic, abstract thought and scientific evidence, which led to the Period of Enlightenment, and then dive into Hobbes, Humes, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Adam Smith and their influence on our Founding Fathers… but it’s Sunday and the last thing you want to read is a dissertation on western philosophy, so let’s stick to some quick observations about history.
Our Founding Fathers designed our modern republic with all these influences in mind. It was an amazing experiment in the context of history that would change the world. It was defined by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The central doctrines of the Enlightenment were incorporated into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It was a blueprint for a government advocating democracy, individual liberty, religious tolerance, and resistance to tyrannical authority based on the framework of classical Greco-Roman institutions, Cicero, and the virtues of liberty.
It is important to note the context of the American Revolution and the War of Independence in the history of the world. Before our revolution, monarchies ruled countries, and your role in society was dictated by blood lineage and the Divine Right of Kings.
The work of our Founders changed the institutional relationship and the rules between the governed and the government…
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