unchecked, this war will make corpses of us all.

iraq? yes. but that's not the whole war and really not the one i mean. i'm alluding (albeit extremely obliquely) to the war in america. sides are being chosen. the rhetoric is as vitrolic, hate-filled and irrational as that before the civil war. when sides are chosen and lines are drawn, wars happen. which line are you behind, red our blue?

methinks the old republic will die in the throes of a modern civil war and the re-animated corpse of our nations will come to be known as empire. rome was a republic until it choked on its own pettiness and greed, stagnating in special interests just like our bureaucracy has today. it became an empire when the people gave up their own sovereignty and bestowed it upon an emperor. it became the bane of free men and the martial state we all know once it consolidated its power into one usually syphilitic madman.

people always liken the fall of rome to what they think is happening to america. wrong. america isn't what rome was when it fell. yet.