A Small Defense of Keith Ellison

What is being handed over in this illustration is the fasces, the Roman symbol of power. Look up “fascist” in the dictionary, if you wonder where the word came from.

I was on vacation two weeks ago and so missed most of the tempest in a teapot blown up by Keith Ellison’s conflation of Bush’s exploitation of 9/11 with Hitler’s exploitation of the Reichstag fire to set the stage for his assumption of power in Germany.

Ancient historian and author Robert Harris wrote a piece with a similar thesis almost a year ago for the NY Times. But, instead of invoking the Reichstag fire, he dredged up the Lex Gabinia, which was used by Pompey Magnus to basically seize dictatorial powers in ancient Rome. Mediterranean pirates raided Ostia, the port of Rome. And although they were small in number, the pirates were made out to be such a threat that the Roman Senate emptied the treasury, raised a huge navy, gave Pompey the means to gain unlimited power, and sent him after them.

Of course, until Julius Caesar came along just behind Pompey, there was no actual dictatorship in Rome, but Pompey and Caesar were both able to wield absolute power by virtue of the wealth they were able to accumulate because of their ability to use the military to plunder provinces and, in turn, influence elections.

Since it’s no secret that the fathers of this country were students of the Roman republic, and modeled our form of government after the Roman system, (right up until it was destroyed forever by Julius Caesar,) it wouldn’t be a bad idea to at least consider Harris’s contention that al Queda bears a striking resemblance to the Mediterranean pirates…and that Dick Cheney is the very reincarnation of Pompey. (Actually Harris doesn’t say that; I do.)

Never happen here? But there’s one more parallel to note. The pirates, some of whom were Roman citizens, disappeared into prisons on an island not far off the coast of Italy, never to be allowed trials, never to be released.

Sicily it was then. Not Guantanamo. We’d never do anything like that.