In 6th century B.C. during the early years of Rome, wars for regional
dominance prevailed constantly between the Roman troops and neighboring
tribes such as the Etruscans. In 508 B.C., the Etruscan king, Lars Porsena,
marched on the city of Rome in hubristic hopes of taking the city itself and
becoming its ruler. Upon meeting Roman troops at the banks of the Tiber
River, his superior forces proceeded to slaughter the weaker Roman army
attempting to defend the city outside of its gates near the Pons Sublicius
Bridge.
The proud Romans were devastated in face of the slaughter and began to
scatter in retreat. But one noble young officer, Horatius, stood his ground
and tried to rally his fellows to stand with him to defend the bridge so
their fellow comrades could escape to within the walls of the city. Two other
officers joined with him, and the trio held off the superior Etruscan army
with unrivaled bravery that has been immortalized down through the ages as
the quintessential act of valor in face of “overwhelming odds.”
The 19th century historian and poet, Thomas Babington Macaulay, is surely
the most renowned of the scribes to record the fearless feats of Horatius in The
Lays of Ancient Rome. Because of Horatius’ heroic stand with only two
comrades against thousands of enemy troops, the narrow Pons Sublicius Bridge
was held and then destroyed before Porsena’s troops could cross.
The tale of Horatius has been told by numerous historians and surely
romanticized. Some accounts have him dying on the bridge. Some have him
diving into the river and successfully escaping back to Rome where he was
celebrated duly for his deeds. All reputable accounts depict him as living.
But how the battle actually ended and what the fate of Horatius was is not
the real significance. The importance of the legend is the incredible
gallantry of Horatius as a shining light of example to humankind in the
tribulations of their lives? Horatius is the epitome of intrepid citizenry
defying insurmountable odds.
Collectivist Enemies at the Gate
In face of the relentless march of collectivism today upon the citadel of
American freedom, we need to resurrect Horatius from the halls of irrelevance
that he has been consigned to by modern nihilism and its ruling oligarchs.
Why this is so crucial is because American patriots today are destined to
become a hated minority in a future country comprised of leftist
malcontents if we fail to stop the mobocratic despotism developing in America
today. We will be the scapegoat for the ineptitude of crybabies, wimps,
socialists, sluggards, rock throwers, and protest harpies who resent the
rigors of life in a nation based upon freedom, persuasion and merit (i.e.,
capitalism) where one’s status is earned by productivity, rather than confiscated
by mobs of voters.
What is coming will be somewhat akin to the Luddite revolt against
technology in early 19th century England, where the lower classes rampaged
throughout England smashing all the machines of capitalism in the factories.
Today’s collectivists are hell-bent to smash the achievements of
capitalist society because too many of them don’t excel within its requisites
of creativity and entrepreneurship. They lack the skills to rise highly, and
thus they fall prey to the Marxian myth that it is capitalism that is suppressing
them, when ironically it is American capitalism that has allowed them to rise
above the socio-economic levels of life in history’s primitive societies and
tyrannies.
But goaded on by liberalism’s obsession with the rabid egalitarianism
taught in the schools, today’s collectivists are bound and determined to
bring about the reducing of all men and women to the lowest common
denominator. Thus Venezuela is coming to America via liberalism.
A Miracle Needed
Can this be averted? I believe it can. Miracles happen constantly
throughout human history because of spirited, courageous men and
women. If President Trump can win a second term, he can appoint three
more Supreme Court judges, which would stave off the collectivization of the
country via the courts that has been taking place so insidiously for the past
80 years. The Democrat Party would then become the minority party, and if the
rising Freedom Caucus could take over the House we would at least have a
Congress that was favorable to ignoring the leftist drive to smash the
achievements of capitalist society.
So as bleak as things appear to be today, I believe we have a chance
to turn the country around – but only after it crashes in the coming
Depression. It is then that the people will be susceptible to examining
the flaws in liberal egalitarianism and collectivism. It is then
that the people will entertain doubts as to the Marxist-Keynesian
ideology they have given their lives to over the past 80 years. It is
then that they can be turned back toward the Founding Fathers as we
climb out of the crash. Until the crash comes, however, the people will
continue to believe that the stat freaks and short-term mentalities of MSM
are correct – i.e., the economy is sound, our mountainous debt is irrelevant,
one must “buy the dips.” This mindset can only be changed in the throes of a
horrendous convulsive crisis, which is precisely what is coming.
America’s fate will be determined by how courageous we are as
we confront this looming debt-spawned disaster that will be far
worse than that of 2008. We now have no choice but to fight vigorously
for true freedom, to basically abandon conventional conceptions of the good
life. After all what meaning can our lives have if we allow primitives and
tyrants to win over the country by default? If we allow the greatest nation
in the history of mankind to disappear because we prefer to cavort through a
life of hedonism and indulgence?
Impossible Odds
So we must take up the fight against seemingly impossible odds like Rome’s
Horatius at the Bridge in Lord Macaulay’s famous poem:
Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods…
“Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path, a thousand may well be stopped by three:
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?”
We must emulate Churchill who loved Macaulay’s poem, and ingrained it into
his inspiring message to the British people in the coming war against Hitler
in his overpowering speech to Parliament in June of 1940:
“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us
many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our
policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our
might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous
tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.
That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is
victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory,
however long and hard the road may be.
“We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on
the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing
strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall
fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall
never surrender.”
Patriots in America today face the same “impossible odds” that the Brits
faced from the swelling tides of Naziism that were taking over Europe in
1940. Yet all is not lost. As long as we have the right to speak and write,
as long as we have the right to assemble, to galvanize, to form into partisan
groups, then we have a chance to rally our fellow citizens to restore freedom
and sanity.
While the hoi polloi do not grasp the nature of what is happening,
all intelligent activists do. And history is determined by its
intelligentsia, by its activists. They are the ones who, at least,
subconsciously believe there are truths that we must abide by even though the
statist schools have obliterated them from their curriculums. The
activist intelligentsia is still out there in America. They can be roused to
fight. We need only to reach them with sufficient inspiration as to
the requisites of freedom and the evils of egalitarianism.
In other words, until we lose the right to speak, write and assemble,
there is always a chance to turn things around. And if the rights of free
speech and assembly should fall to the grim darkness of Orwellian tyranny,
then we must go underground. Then we must go into the hills as Churchill
urged.
The Titanic Fight
This is what has been decreed to our generation – the role of
Horatius at the Bridge. We will be judged by how we wage this titanic fight
confronting us as Western civilization’s 21st century on planet Earth begins.
Though great nations rise and fall down through the ages, the grandeur of
TRUTH remains eternal even though we have deleted its rightful acknowledgment
from our fashionable lexicons and lectures today. Men and their idiocies,
their cruelties, their pomposities are the ephemerals of life. TRUTH is the
exalted permanency. When we rediscover this perspective we, as a nation, will
begin our trek toward possible salvation.
Horatius stands stalwart forever from out of our past. His kind can never
evanesce. His ilk is what carved out of our primeval wanderings our rise from
the cave, our adoption of law, our formation of justice. The great concepts
that sustain existence for humankind come from the deep and dauntless drives
of life’s heroic individuals. Horatius is not just a brave historical figure
preserved by our scribes and scholars to illuminate the majesty of life; he
is the sine qua non, the great mysterious substance of the Creator
himself permeating earthly travails. Horatius beckons to us today. His lesson
is desperately in need of rediscovery by the country that was forged on the
lofty pillars of his persona.