On Hating Horatio and The Liberal Mind

These two articles, I believe, share a common thread and are worthy of contemplation.

The first:

HATING HORATIO

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler

Wednesday, 24 January 2007

Ancient Rome's greatest historian was Titus Livius, known to us as Livy (59 BC-17 AD). In the Second Book of his monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), he tells the famous story of Horatio at the Bridge. In 510 BC, Rome was threatened with destruction from an invading army of Etruscans. All Romans living in the countryside had abandoned their homes and fled for protection inside the city. The city walls were heavily garrisoned, but the most vulnerable point was a wooden bridge, the Pons Sublicius, across the river Tiber and into Rome. When Etruscan forces focused their attack on the bridge, the Roman troops guarding it fled in fear - save for one man, a soldier named Horatius, whom we call Horatio. "Proudly," says Livy, and all alone, "Horatius took his stand at the outer end of the bridge; conscious amongst the rout of fugitives, sword and shield ready for action, he prepared himself for close combat, one man against an army. The advancing enemy paused in sheer astonishment at such reckless courage." Horatio bellowed to his fleeing comrades that they burn and chop down the bridge while he fought the Etruscans off. Livy continues: Read the rest.

And the second:

The one big question I wake up with and go to sleep with each day is: How deeply into the psyche of America is this Marxist hegemony wedged? And is there a deeper level yet not touched by its vileness? For America’s sake, and the world’s, I hope so. I know that there are many in the Western World who do not fall for the false hopes of a Godless solution to the world’s ills. Will that be enough? I hope that the values engendered by 2000 years of Judeo-Christian values, which produced Europe and America, and instilled in our societies will be sufficient to recognize and to answer the call to throw off the false secular ideology of cultural Marxism.

I don’t believe there is a secular solution, but rather a spiritual solution is necessary. Spiritual solutions always begin with oneself. And the problem there is that we have rejected most of the spiritual archetypes of our ancestors. I see this as failure of pedegogy and of the clergy the world over. So we are left with raw emotion, raw courage to enter the arena, and hopefully, an innate living memory instilled by God. And yet we are doing it - we are living our lives, trying to follow the good. We have had the freedom to live and possibly to grow spiritually - because of our forefathers’ stand for liberty. What we are fighting for now is our children’s and their children’s freedom to do the same. But we must understand that in order to grow spiritually, we need to wake up and look within ourselves in honest appraisal. We are a society too focused on our own goals. We need to open up the boundaries of our own limited goals to include the world’s needs, as well.

What was once a solid, Republican base has now become tarnished by its own greed and ambition. Since there is no viable third party whose values reflect a moderate, conservative platform, we are kind of stuck with the Republicans for the foreseeable future. And there are yet good, strong voices on the right. I pray that the agenda of the cronys leave some room at the table for clear-minded leaders to come to the fore.

Read the rest.