Message from Caesar

It has been bitter cold lately in Belfast, Maine -- but notwithstanding, eight or twelve or twenty people have regularly been gathering for the Sunday afternoon peace vigil. The scene is convivial, despite the group's grim reason for standing there. For the most part, passers-by who support the Administration's war effort tend to be quite subdued in their response to the vigil. Those opposed flash a smile and a bit of right-on fist, discreetly.

Last week, an old man in a rickety pickup truck drove up. He stopped nearby and came running out, brandishing a handwritten sheet of paper. As the man tried to present it to the group, a couple of them noticed that his truck was beginning to roll backward -- but he seemed unperturbed. "All right, all right, I'll get it. Now, you make sure you read that!"

As the grizzled gentleman went to retreve his errant pickup, and the folks at the vigil passed around the following message.

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch, and the blood boils with hate, and the mind is closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.

Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all their rights ot the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

Julius Caesar, 102-44 B.C.

-- Lindy Davies, February 1, 2003

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