Conservative blogger posts Obama photo in chains with fried chicken

[freshwest]

22. Thanks. IMHO, libertarianism leads to patrician governance:

See if you see the simliarities to the way the GOP wants and is running things. Democrats marvel at the corruption, nepotism, bribery and dirty tricks they use, but they shouldn't. Just because we don't have aristocrats as we once did, doesn't mean it won't end up the same.

I've argued online with libertarians in the past and those who are the most honest espouse most of these views here. Some define democracy as 'mob rule' and are against direct presidential elections, etc.

When I pointed out the similiarites with their push for privatization, ending the public sector, not paying taxes, ending all regulations as being turning the control over to a corporate state that is little different from this below, they yell they aren't in favor of monarchy, but you decide if the effect would be the same:

"Early Roman society was made up mostly of free citizens, but there was a core group of aristocratic families. The distinction between the general free population and the aristocrats gradually became clearly defined into ‘orders' known as the plebeians (the majority) and the patricians (the aristocrats). There doesn't seem to have been any ethnic basis for the division. Instead, the distinctions came about through wealth founded on land. The original patrician families became organised into clans (gentes) of families tied together through marriage and by owning so much land they ended up controlling Roman society.

In Rome's early days, the patricians had total control of all political privilege and all high offices including the priesthood. They achieved this out of a powerful sense of social solidarity. They were absolutely determined to hang on to their power and exclude the rest, the plebs, from sharing in it. As you can imagine, this was an arrangement that the plebs - especially the wealthier and more educated ones - resented. A political struggle between patricians and plebs, called the Conflict of the Orders, ensued.

Essentially, the plebeians fought to end the patricians' monopoly on political power and all the chief offices of state. One of the most significant changes came in 455 BC when the ban on inter- marriage between plebs and patricians was lifted. In practice what happened was that patrician families accepted marriage with wealthy pleb families because one of the key ways to keep power was to marry money. These wealthy plebs really became indistinguishable from the patricians and had little in common with the rest of the plebs.

The word plebs just means everyone else apart from the aristocracy. It started out meaning something like the ‘majority' or ‘all the rest' but came to mean the ‘mob' or ‘common rabble', and included everyone except those wealthy plebs who had gained a foothold in Rome's upper class. You can read about them in the section ‘Ordinary Citizens'. The old patrician families struggled for survival as intermarriage and the growing power of the wealthy plebs eroded them.

By Augustus's reign (27 BC-AD 14) only about 15 patrician families were left, and by Trajan's (AD 98-117) just six. In Constantine I's time (AD 307-337) the title ‘patrician' had come to mean anyone who held high office in the imperial court. Because the patricians controlled Roman society, the rest of the population became totally dependent on them, working as labourers or tenants on their land.

Out of this developed the patron-client relationship:

The patron acted like a father figure to his clients, who were often his freedmen (former slaves): He took a personal interest in their careers, financial concerns, and any legal or business problems.

The client had a duty of loyalty to his patron, which meant helping with money if his patron was in public office or had been fined, for example, or if he was captured in war and held to ransom, and generally offering him support.

Patrons and clients could never appear against one another in a court of law, even as witnesses. Having plenty of clients was a sign of status and especially useful to politically-ambitious nobles."


http://romanhistory.hubpages.com/hub/Roman-Patrician-Families#