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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Continued from above:
They adopted a revolutionary idea expressed by John Locke that citizens possessed natural rights to life, liberty, and property, independent of the laws of society, and that men were naturally free. Locke believed that governments exist by the consent of the people to protect the rights of the people and to promote the common good. When governments fail to do so, they can and should be replaced by new governments.
It was an extraordinary idea with profound implications that changed the course of the world. Our Founding Fathers gave us freedom, a universe where meritocracy ruled in place of kings, where birthright and bloodline meant little, and talent and hard work would define your success. It was a paradigm shift in the world order.
Two hundred forty-seven years later, our country resembles the Fall of Rome more than the Roman Republic.
Historians attribute many reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire. Among them are barbarian invasions, institutional corruption, economic crisis, overexpansion, moral decay, and diminishing Roman legends… They are lucky they didn’t have our modern institutions of education, social media and popular culture, and the mainstream media. The collapse would have been much swifter.
Today, American university students condemn our Founding Fathers for not living up to contemporary prevailing standards and their modern WOKE apotheosis. They champion terrorists who shoot and behead infants, kill children, rape, murder and mutilate women, kidnap and slaughter the elderly, and celebrate the deaths of innocent civilians burned alive in their safe rooms. This new generation of students is insulated in their ignorance by decrying free speech, civil debate, and the free exchange of ideas, and they hide in their safe spaces clutching their participation trophies. Instead of being educated, they are being indoctrinated.
In my speeches, I always talk about the three pillars of influence:
Education
Popular Culture
The Media
Liberals have used these institutions to change the fabric of our nation.
The emphasis of education is no longer on fundamentals but rather on social engineering. Teachers introduce children to new social preferences and principles rather than reading, writing, history, civics, math, and science. Popular culture, movies, television, streaming shows, music, social media, and the web embrace these progressive ideals and sell and legitimize them. Then, an agenda-driven, liberally biased media certifies them to be true.
Education, popular culture, and the media are now progressive tools to indoctrinate, advocate, and validate the liberal agenda.
A new aristocracy of Wokeness has replaced the authoritarian Monarchy. Disagree with their views, and you are canceled. Cancel culture is designed to limit any challenges to these spurious ideas because they know they are easily disposed of when challenged.
If you can’t win an argument, then ban your opposition.
So, it is not surprising to see our so-called institutions of higher learning produce generations of students defending the vile, barbaric actions of terrorists and offering some moral equivalence of these actions to the policies of Israel and the United States.
It reflects the abdication of educational institutions to teach impartiality, integrity, or good judgment.
In their ignorance, the indoctrinated feel the same Founding Fathers who gave them liberty and the freedom to voice their opinions are evil… but the terrorists, who would gladly take those freedoms away, are now their champions. The barbarians are now at the gates…
Et tu, Brute.
Have a great week.
Best wishes,
-m
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Mr. Ramirez - spot on as usual. Decay from the inside out, but I always end up wondering what the defining idea is for such a disassembly. Is it deliberate? You may find this essay entertaining...
https://open.substack.com/pub/joelelorentzen/p/declaration-of-dependence?r=1p5p1m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
So uh were you dropped on your head as a child or are you just completely ignorant of actual history?
Don't answer, that's a rhetorical question.