Well, it’s election night, 2020, and America is learning that Bado Bozo O’Rourke wins the Presidential political race. As would be expected, the presidential campaign was hard-fought and bitter. A major political victory and upset!
Then immediately after the results become official, President Trump’s weaponized political machine, Fox News, DoJ, FBI, Unions, NRA, GOP, Dollywood, Israel, France, and the Chinese Times set out to totally destroy O’Rourke, his families, supporters, and donors. Then setting up a scam whereby he and his family members, supporters, and donors would then have to spend $500 million dollars on Attorneys to exonerate false criminal charges.
Eight-hundred legal subpoenas go out to O’Rourke and supporters seeking explanations about unverified crimes, money-laundering with Mexican drug cartels, for election meddling fraud, and obstruction of justice charges in labor union voting.
President Trump announces, “They must have bribed election officials and changed election results since it should have been a landslide victory; otherwise, why would the Democrat leadership allow 637 Americans per day to die from drug overdoses allowing drug smuggling across the southern border?” The facts are challenging, but please remain focused.
After 3 years of investigations, a couple dozen of O’Rourke supporters and donors are arrested in swat team style raids held in early morning hours and imprisoned for illegal parking, failure to renew auto licenses, failure to pay property taxes, jaywalking, and parking tickets.
President Trump then declares, “The efforts of his Administration were successful and the surviving Democrat supporters are sufficiently intimidated to pledge loyalty to President Trump and stay out of Democrat politics, forever.” Now that’s the way to handle political losses, right?
Does any of this information seem similar to the past three-years in the lives of Americans? Do you falsely believe this is the first time in History such an event has occurred? These attacks were like a proscription on key Democratic supporters and donors. Proscription? What on earth is a proscription?
In the generation before Julius Caesar, the Italian cities, under Roman rule, rebelled against Rome. They paid taxes to Rome and soldiers for the Roman army, but were treated like second class citizens. They wanted Roman citizenship and a place at the main table – not the back door.
Roman arrogance prevailed and a Social War followed. Two different Roman generals rose to prominence, Gaius Marius, the old veteran, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the younger, were both quite brilliant generals. However, things were not starting too well because Marius and Sulla absolutely hated each other. They began the competition to become the leader of Rome.
As the Social War wound down, Marius returned to Rome and was declared First Consul. He managed to convince the Senate that Rome had to declare Sulla an outlaw. Marius then proceeded to systematically round up Sulla’s supporters and murder them – not for known crimes but for fake accusations, the crime of supporting Sulla. In the meantime, Sulla took his military and conquered a neighboring empire, Pontes.
When the Social War began, Marius was already an old man. When it ended, he died of natural causes. Sulla then returned to Rome with the vast treasures of the Pontes Empire, thousands of prisoners to be sold as slaves, and his six loyal legions. The Senate had no choice but to declare Sulla, First Consul.
Now we will be able to more intelligently understand proscription… “A proscription is a posted notice listing Roman citizens who had been declared outlaws and whose goods are to be confiscated. Rewards were offered to anyone killing or betraying the proscribed, and severe penalties were inflicted on anyone harboring them. Their properties were confiscated, and their sons and grandsons were forever barred from public office and from the Senate.”
Proscription may have been first used by the dictator Sulla in 82 or 81 BC to avenge the massacres by Gaius Marius and his regime. Historical accounts differ, but between 520 to 4,700 leading opponents of Sulla were proscribed and their properties turned over to Sulla’s regime.
It’s important to note that Julius Caesar in 49 BC, proclaimed his own clemency after his victory in the Roman civil wars by avoiding proscriptions and restoring the sons and grandsons of those proscribed by Sulla to full citizen rights. After Caesar’s assassination, his clemency was used as the excuse for the proscriptions of the triumvirs, Mark Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus (43–42 BC).
They used proscriptions to rid themselves of their enemies and to acquire land for their legions and funds for themselves. (One unfortunate Senator was proscribed because the people in power wanted the natural hot springs on his land. When the Senator saw his name posted on the proscription list, he moaned, “My hot springs have killed me.” About 300 senators and knights were proscribed, including Cicero. Many of the proscribed escaped, and more than a few were later restored to their privileges.
Understanding these events makes one ask, “Is American now going the way of ancient Rome?” As soon as one side (Marius) came to power, they destroyed the supporters of their opponents. Then the other side (Sulla) would do the same when they returned to power. Isn’t that precisely the reason US Law demands there must be a crime investigated – not a person to find a crime?
Since the start of Mueller’s investigation, government forces have gone after dozens of President Trump’s supporters, including Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, and, to a lesser degree or with lesser success, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, and Eric Trump. This month, Democrats have issued eighty-one additional subpoenas have been served on other Presidential supporters and organizations. By the way, there is no longer any mention of criminal acts since the Russia Probe has been debunked. The truly sad part of these investigations is Mueller knew the probe was not factual before he took the office. Therefore, it is easy to declare this entire ordeal was a proscription and the parties knew it.
Should we doubt Republicans will someday return the favor? It would be difficult to assume the best and conclude it will never happen again. Politicians in America have long ago lost their moral compass and Godliness is not any longer a part of their character. It’s now all about money and power – voters be damned!
So, America, welcome to the Age of Proscriptions. How soon will it be before some billionaire refuses to go to jail just because he supported the wrong candidate!
