As we approach a major upcoming election maybe we should ask ourselves what makes a good leader. For that I want to turn to Marcus Aurelius, Philosopher/Emperor of Rome and thought by some to be one of the best leaders of the ancient world. At a time when our future may well be decided by what kind of leaders we choose to lead us; a time that will determine the future of our Republic; and, determine whether we will be ruled by a manipulative totalitarian oligarchy of the rich and powerful who emotionally buffet public opinion with spin and half-truths or whether we will have a government of, by, and for the people guided by virtue, pietas, and the wisdom of great leaders coming together and sharing ideas.
As you know, Freedom Troopers, from a standpoint of evolutionary biology, humans have not changed biologically for 200,000 years. We still have the same vices and same virtues. I know I have told the story before but perhaps never quite as completely as I will here:
In the 1990s my district superintendent asked who my “informing theologian” was. In other words who inspired my ministry and preaching. “Well,” I said, I like Jurgen Moltmann and his metaphysics, and I also like Paul Tillich and his description of God as “the Ground of All-Being.” But I have to say, if I was to pick one person who inspired my ministry and preaching more than any other it would be John Wesley.” I, at the time had read two books of John Wesley’s sermons, and several books and taken classes on Wesleyan Theology. If you have, or will be here for any length of time, you will eventually hear me offer quotes and ideas from him. He is also considered to be the “founder of Methodism.” Don’t hold that against him. The United Methodist Church has strayed so far from his ideas that they should just drop “methodist” from their name, in my opinion. But, anyway, my District Superintendent said, “Don’t you think we have learned a lot since John Wesley?” At the time the scandal of President Bill Clinton having sex with the White House college Intern Monica Lewinski and additional scandals of the Clinton Foundation in Haiti were all in the news. I looked at my superintendent and said, “I read the news this morning. It actually seems to me, based on the news, that we haven’t learned anything since Moses gave us the Ten Commandments.”
That was an un-politic answer and it didn’t go over well with the political “company man” who was my District Superintendent at the time. I tend to speak from the heart and not in a politically correct manner, but if you wanted political correctness you would watch the lies on corporate media and not be reading here. Human nature has not changed. We evolve slowly so the wisdom and sayings of yesterday still can speak to us. This is what started my series “What Your Father Should Have Taught You.” As one commentator recently said, “We know what makes good men and women. Our civilization has been producing them for thousands of years. But 60 years ago Progressives turned everything on its head and replaced time honored methods with unproven theories with no evidence behind them except they “sounded plausable.” That was no basis on which to change a successful and powerful society and our experimentation has brought our society to the brink of destruction in less than 60 years. Rule by “experts” has utterly failed. We have learned some things but what we have forgotten is too much. We have lost more than we gained.
As I told my Platoon Sergeant Knowles said, when I was in the Cav and after I had just told a general what I thought of the armies maintenance facilities and efficiency (or lack thereof,) “If he didn’t want to know my opinion he shouldn’t have asked me. Besides,” I said. “I have heard you say the exact same thing about the amount of vehicles we have down for maintenance issues and how hard it is to get the work done.” “Yeah,” he said, “But you don’t tell a general that!” Then he clapped me on the back. Later that week he said, “Hey, Dan,” he laughed, “did you notice that all of our down vehicles are in the repair shop all of a sudden?” I have always had the bad habit of telling the truth, even at times it was unpopular or inconvenient. I wish we had more leaders who did that. That is what I like about Trump. Even if it is unpolitic you know what he really thinks because he just blurts it out without filters. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. It wasn’t long after that when our colonel formed a Recon Platoon for our cavalry squadron and called for the best scouts in the squadron to serve, SSG Knowles recommended me for a position in that, which opened the door for me to work with the S-2 (Intelligence division of the Squadron,) and ultimately to switch to Counterintelligence.
Technology has changed, our nature has not. In the days of Rome, they dealt with sophists and others who “parsed words” and talked all around issues distracting discussions with “rabbit trails” that focused on minor (and sometimes irrelevant,) details or who spoke in broad philosophical terms without answering questions at hand. They had scandals and treachery, they dealt with pedophiles and womanizers, scheming women, and duplicitous men. Just as today the failings of society could be generally traced back to greed, pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth found in both sexes and magnified when a person had power. Unlike the iconoclastic left we know that no one is perfect. Heroes are not heroes because of perfection but because the great things they did they managed in spite of their human failings. Their successes dramatically outweigh their mistakes. That is really the best any of us can hope for. We learn by trial-in-error. Sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. If life is too easy we never get strong. Just as muscles become stronger only when they meet resistance we too grow in that way.
So, as we approach an election, that more than any other in my lifetime, will determine whether we live free or slide deeper into the darkness of corruption, let us look to one of the greatest leaders of Western Civilization to see what makes a good leader so we can use that to guide our own decision in who to elect, and how we should live our own lives. Because in the end, how we live, and how we teach our children to live and make decisions, is the best guarantor of our future freedom. Next to that, it is how we vote and hold our leaders to account for their actions.
Marcus Aurelius guarded the fringes of the Roman Empire and was the last emperor to “hold the line.” After him things began to fall apart. He is one of a series of about 4 emperors that, if he had not written us the meditations, we would no little about. History is largely a list of the mistakes of civilization. It is event after event of things that went wrong. These emperors had peaceful quiet reigns and so little history was written about them. Counterintuitively, they were good men who led well so we don’t hear much about them. We hear about those who screw up or those who, like Marcus Aurelius, hold civilization together against the forces that constantly seek to tear it apart. Civilization is the exception of history and not the rule. It fails when people take it, and all the work and strength it took to build it, for granted.
So, for What Your Father Should Have Taught You, this week, let us look at what Emperor Marcus Aurelius learned from his father before he came the next ruler of the Roman Empire; he writes in Book I of his book Meditations (paragraph 16 to ) and then we will take a closer look at the details after I let him have his say:
“The qualities I admired in my father were his lenience, his firm refusal to be diverted from any decision he had deliberately reached, his complete indifference to meretricious honours; his industry, perseverance, and willingness to listen to any project for the common good; the unvarying insistence that rewards must depend on merit; the expert’s sense of when to tighten the reuns and when to relax them; and the efforts he made to suppress pederasty.
“He was aware that social life must have its claims: his friends were under no obligation to join him at his table or attend his progresses, and when they were detained by other engagements it made no difference to him.
“Every question that came before him in council was painstakingly and patiently examined; he was never content to dismiss it on a cursory first impression. His friendships were enduring; they were not capricious, and they were not extravagant.
“He was always equal to an occasion; cheerful, yet long-sighted enough to have all his dispositions unobtrusively perfected down to the last detail.
“He had an ever-watchful eye to the needs of the Empire, prudently conserving its resources and putting up with the criticisms that resulted. Before his gods he was not superstitious; before his fellow-men he never stooped to bid for popularity or to woo the masses, but pursued his own steady way, disdaining anything that savoured of the flashy and new-fangled. He accepted without either complacency or compunction such material comforts as fortune had put at his disposal; when they were at hand he would avail himself of them frankly, but when they were not he had no regrets.”
“Not a vestige of the casuist’s quibbling, the lackey’s pertness, the pedant’s over-scrupulosity could be charged against him; all men recognized in him a mature and finished personality, that was impervious to flattery and entirely capable of ruling both himself and others. Moreover, he had a high respect for all genuine philosophers; and though refraining from criticism of the rest, he preferred to dispense with their guidance. In society he was affable and gracious without being fulsome. The care he took of his body was reasonable; there was no solicitous anxiety to prolong its existence, or to embellish its appearance, yet he was far from unmindful of it, and indeed looked after himself so successfully that he was seldom in need of medical attention or physic or liniments. No hint of jealousy showed in his prompt recognition of outstanding abilities, whether in public speaking, law, ethics, or any other department, and he took pains to give each man the chance of earning a reputation in his own field. Though all his actions were guided by a respect for constitutional precedent, he would never go out of his way to court public recognition of this.
“Again, he disliked restlessness and change, and had a rooted preference for the same places and the same pursuits. After one of his acute spasms of migraine he would lose no time in taking up his normal duties again, with new vigour and complete command of his powers.
“His secret and confidential files were not numerous, and the few infrequent items in them referred exclusively in matters of state. He showed good sense and restraint over the exhibition of spectacles, construction of public buildings, distribution of subsidies, and so forth, having always more in view the necessity for the measures themselves than the plaudits they evoked.
“His baths were not taken at inconvenient hours; he had no mania for building; he was quite uncritical of the food he ate, of the cut and colour of the garments he wore, or of the personableness of those around him. His clothes were sent up from his country seat at Lorium, and most of his things came from Lanuvium. His well-known treatment of the apologetic overseer at Tusculum was typical of his whole behaviour, for discourtesy was as foreign to his nature as harshness or bluster; he never grew heated, as the saying is, to sweating-point; it was his habit to analyze and weigh every incident, taking his time about it, calmly, methodically, decisively, and consistently. What is recorded of Socrates was no less applicable to him, that he had the ability to allow or deny himself indulgences which most people are as much incapacitated by their weakness from refusing as by their excesses from appreciating. To be thus strong enough to refrain or consent at will argues a consummate and indomitable soul – as Maximus also demonstrated on is sick-bed.”
This was what he wrote of his father. It is part of a meditation where he seems to be going through the list of friends, acquaintances, and possibly even his enemies and listing what he learned from each of them. This passage is the longest and it is what he learned from his adopted father. The one who prepared him to succeed him as emperor. He, like the founders of America, was well versed in the greatest minds of Rome, such as Cicero and other great orators.
First, let us note his respect for the man who raised him and prepared him to serve as Emperor of Rome. While I have noted that not everyone has had as good a home life as I had growing up I consider respect for your elders and parents while not allowing yourself to be treated in any manner that is undeserving, abusive, predatory, or criminal. It is natural that we love and trust our parents. If we don’t then it is a sign that something has gone horribly wrong in our lives.
I have noted that there is a great deal of disrespect by some young people directed to their elders as well as a great deal of dismissal of observations and denigration of the abilities of the young by elders. To often people judge a whole group by the negative examples and assume that they are stupid, out of touch, and undeserving of respect, while simultaneously complaining that they do not get the respect that they themselves deserve as a human being…
You should never dismiss, condemn, nor applaud all people of any age or category based solely on the group they belong to. While all deserve common courtesy, unless they are blatantly rude or condescending, we should still, as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, judge people not by the color of their skin or their status but by the content of their character. Likewise, to continue to trust or assume the best of people who have repeatedly lied to you or taken advantage of you is equally foolish.
“Okay boomer” and “Millennials (or whatever generation you find annoying) are useless and fragile.” As I have reminded many people who have said some of these very things that it was hundreds of thousands of men and women from these “useless” generations (including my two oldest sons,) that gave their livelihood fighting a twenty year war for America in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, whatever you may feel the war was about the soldiers who fought it, almost universally fought it so that the murder and chaos over there in broken cultures did not come over here to break this one.
Much in the same way we see Marcus Aurelius and Maximus on the borders of the Roman Empire trying to prevent the chaos of the barbarian tribes from breaking into the borders of the Empire. The Romans were the first to build walls to keep out those who didn’t fit in their society. They may have fell eventually but they lasted for over a thousand years. Rome was said to be founded by Aeneas from Troy, or Romulus and Remus in 753 BC AUC 1 (Ab Urbe condita – from the founding of the city making this year 2024 year AUC 2776). When I was in school we were taught that this traditional date, like so many others in ancient history, was just made up. Of course now that archaeology has gotten better, we know that the Domus Publica (one of the earliest public buildings in Rome was build between 750 BCE while the first traces of a wall for the city seems to be 730 to 720 BCE. Like so many other things, it seems, tradition is not so far off., similarly, despite the views that prevailed from the 60s through 90s, way more Biblical stories have found to be rooted more in historical event than in myth as well. Rome did not fall until 476 AD when the Germanic tribal king Odoacer toppled the last Roman Emperor and the Senate sent the imperial seal of the Roman Empire to the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople. So, while Democrats say “walls don’t work” (even as their most powerful leaders live in walled estates with armed guards,) they did work for 1229 years to preserve the Roman Empire while lowering our own border security has overwhelmed all of our public works, schools, and support networks in only three years.
Many of the things I say here could lead us to be “black pilled” and give up. Indeed, there is so much negative out there I have to fight the feeling myself. They are highlighted every where we look. Too many have abandoned the duties of citizenship in a Republic and Patriotism for hedonism and personal comfort. This is blaring all over our entertainment, news shows, and social media. HOWEVER, we must remind our children and ourselves that what we see on our “screens” is not the real America. Real American values are still found in the South, the Great Plains, the Midwest, and the mountains communities of rural and suburban America…areas that our so-called elite dismiss as “fly-over states.” in their arrogance. Areas where people still know their neighbors and help them out. Just a couple months ago our dry grass and a bush caught fire on the 4th and a neighbor knocked on our door to tell us. By the time my son and I got outside my neighbors had stamped out the fire with their boots and a bucket of water. America is not dead, it is only sick and it is sickest on the coasts and big cities. The rest of America knows the value of team work and traditional Western Values and freedom.
The news regularly talk about Red States and Blue States but as I look at the maps of votes I see no Blue States anywhere. All I see are some scattered blue counties which are centered on big cities and huge urban centers. “On the street interviews” we see on social media highlighting dumb answers of the general populace usually take place in major urban areas and not rural America. It is the cities, as it has been in every nation in history, that are out of touch with national values and reality. It is the cities that over and over in human history lose touch with the land and each other and slip into chaos, disillusionment and degeneracy. Shows like Fresh and Fit, and media that sets us against one another are not true reflections of what America is (but perhaps a warning to what we will become if parents and grand parents don’t parent, teachers don’t teach, and regular Americans keep silent about what is right and what is wrong. The problems that are highlighted are mostly, although not all, the problems of cities. They endanger our youth and our country because they are brought into our very homes by our “screens” and our children and friends are in danger of thinking that is all there is. It is not.
There are failings in this county however, and they are spreading. but far from the media portrayal that it is the fault of colonialism, whiteness, religion, the constitution, or patriarchy it seems to me that all of our dead end ideas and suicidal trends have come from our self-proclaimed elites and experts who we mistakenly allowed to make decisions for us.
Today, there is a growing counter-movement to return to our values. What I refer to as a kind of Foundational Neo-Vitalism where we reclaim the foundational ideas that built the West and return to the vital truths that made us great in the first place. If all cultures are equal where are the great civilizations challenging the West. India was pulled out of poverty and into the modern world by British Colonialism whose scholars revitalized Indian ancient teachings and established India as a modern state. China is currently ruled by a Marxist Government (again a philosophy developed by a white westerner…albeit a delusional and selfish one.) We should “follow the white rabbit” as the movie the Matrix would say to see past the lies and deceit and return to the values of our civilization. Without exception the problems with capitalism, un-free enterprise, and totalitarian control all come from deviating from the foundational principles of our society, our constitution, and the foundational ideas of our society. Principles such as the Golden Rule (no, not those who have the gold make the rules – although we have allowed them to do so far too often by not keeping the control of our own Republic,) but “treat others as your would want to be treated” and “all are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights” and “in Christ there is not Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but all are one in Christ Jesus.” It was our Christian values (held generally even by atheists in our society,) that kept the most predatory aspects of robber baron capitalists in check but as we turn away from our faith in America, in a Divine Creator and Architect, and in each other we allow the elite oligarchy to gain more control. Our media, and universities try to tear us apart and separate us into victim groups, tribes, race, and gender, economic status, and religion…anything they can use to keep us apart because the elite, and the media they control know that there are not enough of THEM to keep control of all of US unless we allow it to be so. That is why they spend billions of dollars to addict us to consumerism, social media, and distract us with ideas like fighting over who uses what bathroom or how many genders there are while they spend billions in killing, destroying the environment, exercising more and more control, social engineering, suppressing our birth rate toward extinction, and poisoning us with unhealthy processed food.
Because of these failings, and other issues, in general I agree with my sons that the Boomers lost our Republic and too often failed to raise their kids with the values that made Western Civilization the richest, most powerful, safest, and most educated society on the planet. But the foundational and vital ideas of the West have not been wholly suppressed. It is just up to us to find them because your schools failed you and lied to you.
In my What Your Father Should Have Taught You series you know that I spent times talking with my kids and my father and mother did with me as well. (Whether on walks or drives we maintained communication. I have friends that seem to resent their kids and the time they take but I have always loved spending time and talking with my kids. They are such interesting young (and some now middle aged,) people.
Current generations have been betrayed by the Department of Education and Federal bureaucratic bungling that has destroyed not only an excellent educational system (just watch movies or TV series from the 70s and 80s about how universities and high schools used to function in this country,) but placed us in a totalitarian bureaucracy that tells us what kind of light bulbs can be sold to us and what and how we can buy allergy medicine while enabling Big Pharma to fleece us with high prices, fraudulent patenting practices, and forcing vaccines that weren’t vaccines and treatments that are ineffective on the majority of the population. Too often, the descendants of “the Greatest Generation” and the caretakers of our Republic and its liberties (which includes all citizens,) have “dropped the ball” and “checked out” allowing day care and a floundering and too often dogmatic Leftist education and university system raise and shape our kids. To many have abandoned the Liberty of the Republic by their obsessive self-interest. Even today, the chief reason given for not having children is that it would “change their life style.” The Bait and Switch continues as the congress puts forward bills with nice sounding names that do the exact opposite of what the title says (as their immigration “reform” bill institutionalized the influx of thousands of illegals a day before anything would even be attempted to stem the tide and how media tries to wrongfully connect Trump with the conservative Project 2025 instead of Trumps own Agenda 47 – as if Trump would give up his own plan for that of a bunch of eggheads.) But lies are the mainstay now of the major television networks and anyone who continues to trust them is simply asking to be lied to.
Again, what I say does not apply to all people and even less so to my readers. My guess is if these descriptions fit you that you wouldn’t be here. However, you are here. My readers are “a cut above” and they are the ones who see the danger. We are the ones who need to work to fix it and stand for what is right. I posted a new play list called The Cavalry is Coming on the songs page. In the description I said might see our society crumbling around us and wish the cavalry would come riding over the hill with flags flying, bugles blaring, and sabers and pistols flashing, to set things right with courage and plenty of testosterone. I have good news and bad news. The Cavalry is coming to save us. The bad news is, just like in 1776, you’re it. No one will save us if we don’t save ourselves.
But there is hope. That hope lies in that we can recognize the values highlighted by Marcus Aurelius almost 2000 years ago as still being of value today. The values of Western Civilization are not dead only muted in the “noise” of hedonistic media.
I think we have come to an end of where we can look at people, the environment, animals, or even the body or brain as a machine and need to realize that organisms and machines do not function the same. Their may be similarities but organisms are living systems while machines are not. Too many, of our society have not figured this out.
We have also come to the end of where we can trust our government, leaders, or news services to do our thinking for us. We “farmed out” our responsibilities as citizens to other groups to keep the Republic for us and it didn’t work. They bungled it and only by getting involved at every level can we get it back.
Finally, we have come to the end of rejecting everything that came before us for anything new. There is something pathological in tearing apart the foundation of the building that you are living in simply because it is old and you didn’t think of it yourself.
Again, I know production has been slow. I am a one man operation nowadays and I have been trying to redo old posts and update my graphics from jpg to png files so that you can more easily copy them and use them in social media and send them to others. It is time consuming. I also am trying to restructure the site so that things will be easier for you to find and search for. The search function is good but I want you to be able to find articles in areas by theme. this worked fine when we started but we have been accumulating articles multiple times a week for three years and it is a lot to go over for one man. If you find things that don’t work or need to be updated let me know. Also, we have closed our PO Box since it wasn’t being used. You can contact me at Daniel.Saber@Sabersedge.Online to let me know if you have any suggestions or find broken links or things that need updating.
Tune in next week as we continue to look at what Marcus Aurelius wrote, this time we will dissect and analyze his train of thought, explaining concepts that are not as familiar today – again thanks to educational failure – concepts that were explained to us in school and by our parents 50 years ago when I was growing up. We will make it concise and put it into a form that is more orgnaized, coherent, and useful .for our lives today. This time with much less editorializing by me. Also, this week, if nothing else pops up I will show you a glimpse of the real immigration problem we are facing and also a close look at two countries Haiti and Nigeria and how the rule of law has failed in those countries and how we may be bringing their problems en masse and unfiltered into our own country.
Until then Freedom Troopers, ride to the sound of the guns, and “sound your bugle” speaking truth to power and money so the enemy knows that help is on the way and they no longer have a free hand to destroy our country and our children.
