Monday, March 1, 2021

Quote of the Day: Tyranny Edition

He who would establish a tyranny, first establishes a bodyguard.

- Aristotle, Politics

 


9 comments:

  1. No, they are waiting for the March 4th edition of the insurrection. Then they will begin to demobilize.

    Unless they also get word of another threat.

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  2. While there are references to bodyguards for Peisistratos in Athens, and he was a tyrant, I don't see a citation for that quote in a quick STFW.

    I don't disagree with the sentiment at all, nor with the bromide that dictators in the 20th century preceded their reigns with civilian disarmaments, but as a (relatively ignorant) student of Greek history, I'd *love* to get an accurate citation and quote.

    Kurt

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  3. Better watch out for the Praetorians though.

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  4. Those darn Ancient Greeks and Romans. No matter how much many people would like to banish them, they keep coming up.

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  5. Kurt, it was book 3 of Politics:

    These [asiatic] kingships therefore are for these reasons of a tyrannical nature, but they are secure because they are hereditary and rule by law. Also their bodyguard is of a royal and not a tyrannical type for the same reason; for kings are guarded by the citizens in arms, whereas tyrants have foreign guards, for kings rule in accordance with law and over willing subjects, but tyrants rule over unwilling subjects, owing to which kings take their guards from among the citizens but tyrants have them to guard against the citizens

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  6. Ed,

    The coup started on Election Night.

    Which is what they told us they were going to do.

    Remember "Trump may win on Tuesday Night but we'll win two weeks later"?

    They planned the Coup, or started planning the Coup, as soon as the 3rd Impeachment Attempt failed (1st in Committee, 2nd in the House, 3rd in the Senate, 4th (and very illegal one) in the Senate.)

    The sad thing is, as 'conspiracy nuttical' as this all sounds... it's all true.

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  7. Borepatch - thanks for that.

    I really have to get the complete works on my shelves, to go with my other volumes.

    I read a number of his works in translation back in college (mid '70s), but got kinda busy after that.

    Kurt

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  8. Good chance it started with China and dems colluding to get Trump out.
    Release the virus =
    Do lockdowns and restrictions =
    Massive mail-in ballots =
    Massive ballot/vote fraud.

    imo

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