[Skybird]

Trump's statements in CNN's townhall do not bode well. Mercy God America and everyone else if this mentally deranged crook were to become president again. Which seems too likely. It would be an intellectual bankruptcy of America even greater than six years ago.


Man darf sowas nicht für Machtausübung legitimieren. Man darf es ganz einfach nicht.


Maybe some Cicero, anyone?

{1.} [1] L "The commonwealth of Rome is founded firm | On ancient customs and on men of might." **
Our poet seems to have obtained these words, so brief and true, from an oracle. For neither men alone, unless a State is supplied with customs too, nor customs alone, unless there have also been men to defend them, could ever have been sufficient to found or to preserve so long a commonwealth whose dominion extends so far and wide. Thus, before our own time, the customs of our ancestors produced excellent men, and eminent men preserved our ancient customs and the institutions of their forefathers. [2] L But though the republic, when it came to us, was like a beautiful painting, whose colours, however, were already fading with age, our own time not only has neglected to freshen it by renewing the original colours, but has not even taken the trouble to preserve its configuration and, so to speak, its general outlines. For what is now left of the "ancient customs" on which he said "the commonwealth of Rome" was "founded firm" ? They have been, as we see, so completely buried in oblivion that they are not only no longer practised, but are already unknown. And what shall I say of the men ? For the loss of our customs is due to our lack of men, and for, this great evil we must not only give an account, but must even defend ourselves in every way possible, as if we were accused of capital crime. For it is through our own faults, not by any accident, that we retain only the form of the commonwealth, but have long since lost its substance.

https://www.attalus.org/cicero/republic5.html


The West is heading into deep and worrisome inner conflict, it may not openly break out during my remainign lifetime, but it will happen during late this century, I am sure. You cannot mount so much inner tension into a structure without expecting it to burst sooner or later.