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July 27, 2003
Do words of war come with rules?
War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means."I sure hope I got that one right! I have to watch out with these quotes, because some of my readers are better scholars than I am, and, much as I love accuracy, whenever I am wrong it makes for more work. (So Clausewitz had better not have appropriated the above observation from Sun Tzu or somebody or I'll be in more trouble!) John Jenkins is quite an authority on the famous Roman motto, "Si vis pacem para bellum." ("If you seek peace, prepare for war.") I attributed the quote to Cicero (who doubtless used it , as would have almost every Roman in a position of authority at one time or another), and I supplied a URL for it. Mr. Jenkins immediately took notice, and emailed me as follows: I believe the quote which you attributed to Cicero was actually by the general Vegetius,(http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_preparewar.htm).Naturally, this caused me to scurry around. The following was my reply: I researched the hell out of this last night, and you are right; the motto did originate with Vegetius. But there are additional problems in that the original quote was paraphrased by later Romans. This creates confusion, and the situation is further compounded by the adoption of the paraphrased quotation as the official motto of the Roman legions. If this isn't getting complicated enough, consider something that very few people in modern America ever think about: the prohibition on "Igitur"! Feel free to use my name. It gets better though: Igitur is supposed to be a postpositive conjunction that can't appear at the beginning of a sentence, but it does here. Whew! At the rate this is going, I'll be a full time researcher instead of the crazed blogger I wanted to be. Any research volunteers? When a quote becomes famous enough to gain wide circulation, it can easily be misattributed, and of course, it gets worse when the quote is paraphrased. Even the phrase, "the best defense is a good offense" expresses the same sentiment as "si vis pacem para bellum." So, to make things easier, I am going to use the paraphrased version, and I think I'll just call it the Roman Legion motto. But wait! The Imperialist Dog has also raised another very important issue: the curtailment of free speech under the guise of new political campaign laws. You have to read this website for about five minuted to know that I'm not a Howard Dean fan. By extension, you might also conclude that I don't often agree with professor Lawrence Lessig at Stanford. But this horseshit is just plain wrong.He's right of course. This issue has nothing to do with Howard Dean, but the sinister over-reaching of Big Brother -- this time taking the form of "FEC regulations." Every blogger should take notice of this deeply disturbing development. If you don't think that big government, Bigger-Than-Ever-Consolidated-Big Media, and the regulatory thugs who work for both wouldn't love to either wipe out blogging completely, or at least emasculate bloggers so that they are unable to reach out and touch certain institutions or political developments, think again. In Europe, so called "fair comment" regulations are already in the works, and if you don't think it could happen here, consider again the FCC's ominous reclassification of cable and phone based broadband providers as information rather than telecommunications services: The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996. Michael Powell and the Bush FCC are continuing that assault today (see the June 2nd ruling).Whoa there! I just cited Howard Dean! Hell, I would cite Pat Buchanan for the same principle. What say ye, bloggers? Do you think the bastards are already trying to snuff out our newly born presidential campaign in its crib? I can't resist closing with another ancient slogan: Silent enim leges inter arma. [Laws are silent in times of war.]Cool! Now I think I'll paraphrase it: FEC, FCC, this is war! So blow it out your ass! posted by Eric on 07.27.03 at 06:13 PM |
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