Like all mud fights, Elon vs The Donald has a certain entertainment value. But the more serious issue is not the cracks in MAGA/America First, but the lack of definition to begin with.
Not much has changed since the days Juvenal wrote about the crumbling Roman Republic in the late 1st century/ early 2nd century. 125 and 2025 – times change but people don’t. Human nature is self-serving (for survival) but that is exactly why governments will always grow corrupt.
Your reply made me curious so I asked why the western Roman Republic, then Empire, failed but the Eastern Roman Empire lasted another 1000 years. The last sentence below seems like us; invasion via illegal immigration, political instability and economy weakened by Socialism and unnecessary foreign wars.
“The Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire) survived for a millennium after the fall of the Western Roman Empire due to a combination of factors, including a stronger economy, a more stable government, strategic geographical advantages, and superior military and diplomatic capabilities. The Western Empire, on the other hand, faced numerous challenges like constant barbarian invasions, internal political instability, and a weakened economy. “
Good point. I remember reading about how the eastern empire kept their money based on gold and silver while the western empire debased their gold and silver, adding various other metals to stretch it out, hence making it worth less, along with the other issues.
Thomas Sowell said, "One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. Do we need to keep repeating the same mistakes forever?"
Sowell was amazing. So glad he wrote much down. I had read before about how Rome diluted value by adding other metals to coins. Btw gold and silver 1 ounce coins are way up now; like $3,500 for the former and $43 the latter on apmex
Logic is that the higher our debt, the more valuable the metals.
One of the good things about having Trump in office next year is that the 250th anniversary of the founding of America won't be all "White Fragility" and "1629 Project." We might for once get to focus on the good things that came out of the founding of America.
A shame. Now one can only imagine the procession Harris would have dreamt up for the occasion. Could have at least gotten an encore performance out of Amanda Gorman.
You summed up my thoughts perfectly. "Americans first" needs to be the focus. It's "We, the people", not "We, the corporations" or "We, the oligarchs".
Indeed. American greatness was borne from the courageous Patriots, intrepid pioneers and resilient survivors of the Dust Bowl. It has been ground up far more than top down. For Trump it very much seems to be the symbolic aspects, forgetting the foundation from which those symbols were established.
One of Brezhnev's biggest faults was his inability to keep up with modernize the Soviet Union, holding onto fragments of the past, and so his government became more focused on projecting power than actually manifesting it. Rather than addressing the rot he was more content to spend that effort masking it, and it did work for some time and contributed to the surprise of the Soviet dissolution when Gorbachev realized he inherited a time bomb.
Even looking back to antiquity as mentioned elsewhere here, Commodus tested how much one could indulge into the circuses without a proportional amount of bread.
America is riddled with disease, distrust, and ineptitude. It is hard to say the common man sits on a trajectory that skews upwards. So here's to hoping that semiquincentennial will be focused on offering a vision and a path towards what is yet to be as opposed to chasing an increasingly distance memory of what once was.
Your last paragraph is particularly insightful and articulate. If you have time, could you share how we could move this from a hope to a practical effort? Not only at the strategic level but maybe even include what individuals and parents could focus on?
Well that's a bit much to answer in a single comment. America, and to some extent the rest of the West, has been in somewhat of fugue since the turn of the century (the early 2000s were great, but that's largely because it was a bubble so it's not really counted). For people to believe beyond themselves they must first believe in their self, the self that for many is buried under sickness, hubris, and inattention. To know thyself, in Plato's interpretation.
You fix the self and attain sophrosyne then everything else will be so much easier to attain since the issues are interlinked. I very much put part of the distrust on the loss of individual identity. The hatred of others is often a manifestation of the hatred of the self.
And beyond national initiatives and programs, embodied dynamism from leadership would be much appreciated, but that doesn't seem realistic with this administration. Love Trump or hate him, I don't think it's outrageous to say he's not exactly great role-model material.
The good news is that what an individual can do form themselves in independent of what should be done for everybody else. Advice for the average person is largely useless for an individual since the vast majority of people are not average. But to keep it short, true self-improvement is simultaneously both selfish and altruistic. The humility to strive to be better a person spills over into being a better friend, a better colleague, a better relative, etc.
I think in terms of making America “much better” to at least its potential in obvious and ways not very painful to many Americans.
First - cut foreign aid to ALL countries. Then;
GTFO of Ukraine and Middle East death traps.
Deport illegal aliens, starting w violent ones first.
Build and complete the wall.
Implement the tariffs
Stop welfare to have kids and not work.
Implement charter schools to give kids a decent education and break teacher’s unions that have demonstrated decades of failed results.
Release Epstein files, make arrests and warm up the electric chairs. Explain how a Mossad agent managed to get killed while in our supposedly air tight security.
STOP all foreign funds going to Congress.
Hang traitors who compromise security of Americans and America to benefit a foreign country. Looking at you Congress. Erect the scaffolding now in DC and NYC to make clear the intent and test the nooses.
I agree with all of this suggestions. I have a few more to add to the wish list:
1. A Balanced Budget Amendment - no continuing resolutions, no vacations / breaks / recesses until the budget is passed.
2. Repeal the 16th amendment authorizing income tax. I would recommend using tariffs and a small (~3%) sales tax to fund the federal government. Hopefully that would reduce the size of the federal government by >80%
The Elon vs. The Donald drama looks like a distraction to me. What's going on that they're trying to hide? What's congress voting on that they don't want us to notice? I can understand Elon being upset that all the work the DOGE boys did turn out to be a waste of time but the escalation seems suspicious.
I would bet Bongino / Patel's about-face on the Epstein files is because they were threatened. They don't seems like they're the type of people who would compromise their character for $$. FBI/CIA showed them some pictures of JFK, RFK, MLK, and said, "If we can do this to these powerful people we can do this to anyone we want. You'd better stick with our talking points or else"
As for the Musk-Trump thing being a distraction, that’s been suggested. I don’t dismiss it out of hand. It just seems easier to take things at face value, since face value is equally as likely.
It's a battle I think Musk quickly realized he would not win. Despite having the better resume out of the two, Musk has both a more fragile ego (somehow) and more skeletons in the closet (ketamine, corporate self-sabotage, @ErmnMusk, etc.) than Trump. It's not like either of the two have been shy on calling people out on social media prior to this either.
And not to relitigate the Trump-Epstein relationship, but the two fell out in 2004 over financial disagreements or what was later alleged in court filings in 2011 to be Epstein sexually assaulting a girl at Mar-a-Lago. So the 17 year relationship prior to 2004 is where the focus should be, but that's seemed to turn up empty so far.
Trump being a named member in Epstein's documents is hardly new, if fact he was already listed as a name out of what has already been made public, slotting in between Bob Trossie (construction) and Marty Trust (revolutionized Sri Lanka to be a leading exporter of apparel) in Epstein's address book, a book replete without household names like Bloomberg, Forbes, Ford, Kennedy, Koch, Rockefeller, Rothschild, Soros, Wexner and so many more, including prominent foreign dignitaries. Enough to make anyone's head spin about something larger being at play.
Epstein may indeed have committed suicide out of his own volition or because he was compelled to, but you can't have a high school math teacher draped in gold chains and fur coats turn into a financial mogul out of sight without there being some degree of suspicion.
Perfect information isn't always obtainable when conflicting motivations are present. Even with the current Karen Read trial in Massachusetts where police corruption is all but confirmed, there is hardly a clear and definite timeline of events. What I don't understand is this expectation on JFK or Epstein is that there is anything revolutionary yet to be released. If such a cover-up did exist, how likely is it that the files are just in a box in archives waiting to be unearthed as opposed to being long-burn with their ashes scattered to the wind? The substantive investigation needed to happen long ago as the further this is in the past the harder it will be. I mean a good chunk of the people listed have died since the debacle.
Oh, I don’t think anyone bought off Patel or Bongino. It could be as you say: they’ve been threatened. The other options are that they are protecting people (people other than Trump), or the Trump administration is hanging on to it as leverage.
And you don’t even have to kill people in this day and age. You can easily backdoor some child porn on their computers, and their lives go up in smoke. It’s not impossible.
Times change, but human nature does not.
Not much has changed since the days Juvenal wrote about the crumbling Roman Republic in the late 1st century/ early 2nd century. 125 and 2025 – times change but people don’t. Human nature is self-serving (for survival) but that is exactly why governments will always grow corrupt.
As Juvenal said, “Give them bread and circuses” and they will never revolt: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/give-them-bread-and-circuses-and?r=76q58
Your reply made me curious so I asked why the western Roman Republic, then Empire, failed but the Eastern Roman Empire lasted another 1000 years. The last sentence below seems like us; invasion via illegal immigration, political instability and economy weakened by Socialism and unnecessary foreign wars.
“The Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire) survived for a millennium after the fall of the Western Roman Empire due to a combination of factors, including a stronger economy, a more stable government, strategic geographical advantages, and superior military and diplomatic capabilities. The Western Empire, on the other hand, faced numerous challenges like constant barbarian invasions, internal political instability, and a weakened economy. “
Good point. I remember reading about how the eastern empire kept their money based on gold and silver while the western empire debased their gold and silver, adding various other metals to stretch it out, hence making it worth less, along with the other issues.
Thomas Sowell said, "One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. Do we need to keep repeating the same mistakes forever?"
Sowell was amazing. So glad he wrote much down. I had read before about how Rome diluted value by adding other metals to coins. Btw gold and silver 1 ounce coins are way up now; like $3,500 for the former and $43 the latter on apmex
Logic is that the higher our debt, the more valuable the metals.
Makes sense. The 2029 debt clock predicts over 46 trillion in national debt with gold over 11K an ounce. I'd take 0 debt with cheaper gold!
Didn’t know that the June 14 Flag Day parade is the 250th anniversary of the US Army. Thank you for that. I will share this tidbit.
One of the good things about having Trump in office next year is that the 250th anniversary of the founding of America won't be all "White Fragility" and "1629 Project." We might for once get to focus on the good things that came out of the founding of America.
A shame. Now one can only imagine the procession Harris would have dreamt up for the occasion. Could have at least gotten an encore performance out of Amanda Gorman.
I know. A whole year of guilty white liberals making penance. I’m sorry we have to miss it.
You summed up my thoughts perfectly. "Americans first" needs to be the focus. It's "We, the people", not "We, the corporations" or "We, the oligarchs".
Indeed. American greatness was borne from the courageous Patriots, intrepid pioneers and resilient survivors of the Dust Bowl. It has been ground up far more than top down. For Trump it very much seems to be the symbolic aspects, forgetting the foundation from which those symbols were established.
One of Brezhnev's biggest faults was his inability to keep up with modernize the Soviet Union, holding onto fragments of the past, and so his government became more focused on projecting power than actually manifesting it. Rather than addressing the rot he was more content to spend that effort masking it, and it did work for some time and contributed to the surprise of the Soviet dissolution when Gorbachev realized he inherited a time bomb.
Even looking back to antiquity as mentioned elsewhere here, Commodus tested how much one could indulge into the circuses without a proportional amount of bread.
America is riddled with disease, distrust, and ineptitude. It is hard to say the common man sits on a trajectory that skews upwards. So here's to hoping that semiquincentennial will be focused on offering a vision and a path towards what is yet to be as opposed to chasing an increasingly distance memory of what once was.
Your last paragraph is particularly insightful and articulate. If you have time, could you share how we could move this from a hope to a practical effort? Not only at the strategic level but maybe even include what individuals and parents could focus on?
Well that's a bit much to answer in a single comment. America, and to some extent the rest of the West, has been in somewhat of fugue since the turn of the century (the early 2000s were great, but that's largely because it was a bubble so it's not really counted). For people to believe beyond themselves they must first believe in their self, the self that for many is buried under sickness, hubris, and inattention. To know thyself, in Plato's interpretation.
You fix the self and attain sophrosyne then everything else will be so much easier to attain since the issues are interlinked. I very much put part of the distrust on the loss of individual identity. The hatred of others is often a manifestation of the hatred of the self.
And beyond national initiatives and programs, embodied dynamism from leadership would be much appreciated, but that doesn't seem realistic with this administration. Love Trump or hate him, I don't think it's outrageous to say he's not exactly great role-model material.
The good news is that what an individual can do form themselves in independent of what should be done for everybody else. Advice for the average person is largely useless for an individual since the vast majority of people are not average. But to keep it short, true self-improvement is simultaneously both selfish and altruistic. The humility to strive to be better a person spills over into being a better friend, a better colleague, a better relative, etc.
I can do that! Thank-you.
I think in terms of making America “much better” to at least its potential in obvious and ways not very painful to many Americans.
First - cut foreign aid to ALL countries. Then;
GTFO of Ukraine and Middle East death traps.
Deport illegal aliens, starting w violent ones first.
Build and complete the wall.
Implement the tariffs
Stop welfare to have kids and not work.
Implement charter schools to give kids a decent education and break teacher’s unions that have demonstrated decades of failed results.
Release Epstein files, make arrests and warm up the electric chairs. Explain how a Mossad agent managed to get killed while in our supposedly air tight security.
STOP all foreign funds going to Congress.
Hang traitors who compromise security of Americans and America to benefit a foreign country. Looking at you Congress. Erect the scaffolding now in DC and NYC to make clear the intent and test the nooses.
I agree with all of this suggestions. I have a few more to add to the wish list:
1. A Balanced Budget Amendment - no continuing resolutions, no vacations / breaks / recesses until the budget is passed.
2. Repeal the 16th amendment authorizing income tax. I would recommend using tariffs and a small (~3%) sales tax to fund the federal government. Hopefully that would reduce the size of the federal government by >80%
Approved.
The Elon vs. The Donald drama looks like a distraction to me. What's going on that they're trying to hide? What's congress voting on that they don't want us to notice? I can understand Elon being upset that all the work the DOGE boys did turn out to be a waste of time but the escalation seems suspicious.
I would bet Bongino / Patel's about-face on the Epstein files is because they were threatened. They don't seems like they're the type of people who would compromise their character for $$. FBI/CIA showed them some pictures of JFK, RFK, MLK, and said, "If we can do this to these powerful people we can do this to anyone we want. You'd better stick with our talking points or else"
As for the Musk-Trump thing being a distraction, that’s been suggested. I don’t dismiss it out of hand. It just seems easier to take things at face value, since face value is equally as likely.
It's a battle I think Musk quickly realized he would not win. Despite having the better resume out of the two, Musk has both a more fragile ego (somehow) and more skeletons in the closet (ketamine, corporate self-sabotage, @ErmnMusk, etc.) than Trump. It's not like either of the two have been shy on calling people out on social media prior to this either.
And not to relitigate the Trump-Epstein relationship, but the two fell out in 2004 over financial disagreements or what was later alleged in court filings in 2011 to be Epstein sexually assaulting a girl at Mar-a-Lago. So the 17 year relationship prior to 2004 is where the focus should be, but that's seemed to turn up empty so far.
Trump being a named member in Epstein's documents is hardly new, if fact he was already listed as a name out of what has already been made public, slotting in between Bob Trossie (construction) and Marty Trust (revolutionized Sri Lanka to be a leading exporter of apparel) in Epstein's address book, a book replete without household names like Bloomberg, Forbes, Ford, Kennedy, Koch, Rockefeller, Rothschild, Soros, Wexner and so many more, including prominent foreign dignitaries. Enough to make anyone's head spin about something larger being at play.
Epstein may indeed have committed suicide out of his own volition or because he was compelled to, but you can't have a high school math teacher draped in gold chains and fur coats turn into a financial mogul out of sight without there being some degree of suspicion.
Perfect information isn't always obtainable when conflicting motivations are present. Even with the current Karen Read trial in Massachusetts where police corruption is all but confirmed, there is hardly a clear and definite timeline of events. What I don't understand is this expectation on JFK or Epstein is that there is anything revolutionary yet to be released. If such a cover-up did exist, how likely is it that the files are just in a box in archives waiting to be unearthed as opposed to being long-burn with their ashes scattered to the wind? The substantive investigation needed to happen long ago as the further this is in the past the harder it will be. I mean a good chunk of the people listed have died since the debacle.
Oh, I don’t think anyone bought off Patel or Bongino. It could be as you say: they’ve been threatened. The other options are that they are protecting people (people other than Trump), or the Trump administration is hanging on to it as leverage.
And you don’t even have to kill people in this day and age. You can easily backdoor some child porn on their computers, and their lives go up in smoke. It’s not impossible.
Completely agree; they’re blackmailed and compromised. Only one outfit in the world does it and it isn’t China, Russia or US.