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True.  It could certainly result in some healthy reform.

I've little doubt there are Reps in Congress and the Senate who'd be happy to ditch the wingers and be members of a more reasonable conservative party, not wholly unlike what the Blue Dog coalition stands for.

Certainly I think it'd result in more responsible policy-making in DC.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Sun Jul 12th, 2009 at 12:41:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
the trouble is, this fragile planet doesn't have the time to wait for slo-motion seismic shifts of amurkan politics. Do you believe there weren't Romans who didn't know the end was nigh?

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
by Crazy Horse on Sun Jul 12th, 2009 at 01:05:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Actually I do think that many romans, particularly the more senior ones couldn't see what was coming. The sense of entitlement was so intense that, rather like Bear Sterns in 2007, they simply couldn't imagine a world without their pre-eminence.

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Jul 12th, 2009 at 01:09:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]
agree, i only meant there would likely have been a small minority who saw it clearly.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
by Crazy Horse on Sun Jul 12th, 2009 at 01:15:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The more senior ones didn't really lose preeminence themselves, and were quite often recycled into the feudal society...

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sun Jul 12th, 2009 at 08:42:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Beyond Hammurabi and Pillars of Classical Republics, Or Cognitive Evolution FAIL.

They collected clues against suspects by interrogating them and their acquaintances, checking public records, organizing reenactments and applying physical coercion, generally in the form of beatings.
    Then, as is still the fact today, most crime was of the petty variety, but in a society where most people lived much closer to the edge of abject poverty, even small thefts might be a serious matter. A memorandum describes such a robbery

perpetrated by the workmen of Nakhu-m-Maut. They went into my house, stole two large loaves and three cakes, spilt my oil, opened my bin containing the corn, stole Northern dehu-corn. They went to the house in the wharf, stole half the killesteis (a kind of acid bread) yesterday [baked], spilt the oil.
    In the third month of the Shemu-season, the 12th day, during the crown feast of king Amen-hotep, l.h.s., they went to the granary, stole three great loaves, eight sabu-cakes of Rohusu berries ..... They drew a bottle of beer which was [cooling] in water, while I was staying in my father's room. My Lord, let whatsoever has been stolen be given back to me.

    --Egyptian publications of Mariette G. Maspero, Etudes de mythologie et d'archéologie égyptiennes vol. 3, 1898

Better connected people or those, whose pleas had been ignored by the local authorities, might petition regional officials or even the king himself



Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 12th, 2009 at 05:00:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
from further down that

Law and order in ancient Egypt

Tax evasion was of serious concern to the authorities as were attempts to dodge the compulsory corvée work, on which the proper flow of the Nile waters and the upkeep of the temples and palaces depended. [8]
It was Amasis too who established the law that every year each one of the Egyptians should declare to the ruler of his district, from what source he got his livelihood, and if any man did not do this or did not make declaration of an honest way of living, he should be punished with death.


Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Jul 13th, 2009 at 07:24:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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