This is what Marcus Tullius Cicero must have thought as he walked into the burned out wreckage of his villa and looked at the stolen Greek statue hastily erected to repsent Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. Publius Clodius Pulcher, whose mob had burned Cicero's villa to the ground and constructed the false temple to keep Cicero from reclaiming his property if he ever returned from exile, was like all fraudlent populists. His definition of the word freedom was the polar opposite of its true meaning. The goddess of Roman liberty had been replaced by the whore of populist outrage.

Pulcher, a former patrician, who abandoned the class to become a tribune by being adopted into the family of a "father" ten years his junior, was a demagogue. His method of political accomplishment was to whip up violent mobs and use that populist rage to coerce the state to give him what he wanted. Confiscation of property, bullying of public officials, forcing grain allotments as essentially bribes to the violent mob... The ends of the political aims were always secondary to the power obtained from weaponizing the mob. His purpose was to pursue power for himself. Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Antony, Augustus, Pulcher... all of them sought by various schemes of bribing the mob to tear down the institutions put in place to protect the freedom of the people.

Marcus Cicero was the light of the late Roman Republic. He was a brilliant orator, a disciplined scholar and a true champion of the common people and the rule of law. In some ways, he was ill suited for the brutality of the times. Cato, hero to the founders of the American Republic, was probably better equipped to combat the evil and violence of the populares. He understood what Barry Goldwater would articulate two thousand years later: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." His suicide in the face of Caesar's clemency was a shining example to the future generations of freedom's apostles. Unfortunately... he failed in the present.

Cicero was arguably the better politician, certainly the better orator and consequently, his legacy is marred in the eyes of some by his willingness to compromise for the greater good. Putting to death conspirators without a trial, forging alliances with first Pompey and then Caesar, fleeing Rome at times of crisis... he is easy to criticize. Cato was unbending but in the end, neither man escaped the wrath of tyrants. 

We find ourselves in times much like late republican Rome today. Whether it's Donald Trump whipping up the fear of his base against the invading brown immigrants or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warning of the end of life as we know it lest we end commerce as we know it; the combination of identity politics and lynch mob tyranny is the primary weapon of politics today. Politicians no longer forge coalitions and work across the aisle. They frighten their base with specters of "those jerks over there." 

Of course, the jerks are always some simplified caricature of reality. The very individuals themselves are de-emphasized. Today, you're a black man or an immigrant woman or an old white guy and whatever category the accidents of your birth and the ravages of time have assigned you defines who you are, what you intend to do and what you should be doing. We're all just playing a part for the puppet masters in Washington.

Pulcher's whore has come back with a vengeance in modern America. Free college, free health care, tax cuts for you, subsidies for them, stop the evil brown immigrants, stop the evil white police... all of these garbage gimmicks have nothing to do with freedom. In fact, they represent quite the opposite: bribes to various factional mobs in pursuit of power for those who sponsor them. They create nothing but division and discord for us and positions of power and authority for the ambitious and unscrupulous. "Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle," as PJ O'Rourke eloquently put it.

In the Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek noted the stark contrast different factions applied to the word freedom. Cicero would have appreciated it:

“To the great apostles of political freedom the word had meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the arbitrary power of other men, release from the ties which left the individual no choice but obedience to the orders of a superior to whom he was attached. The new freedom promised, however, was to be freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us, although for some very much more than for others. Before man could be truly free, the ‘despotism of physical want’ had to be broken, the ‘restraints of the economic system’ relaxed. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth.”

When George Washington stepped down after his second term as president, he was looking to the legendary example of the ancient general, Cincinnatus, who famously laid down the fasces of dictatorship upon his victory and returned to his farm. The entire fictional plot of Gladiator centers around this tradition. All Maximus wanted to do was go home to his farm and his family, which is why Marcus Aurelius chose to pass the power of the emperor to him over Commodus. While that movie is pure fiction, the characters are taken from accounts of real historical individuals. The movie embodies the American tradition taken as a lesson from the Romans and the Greeks before them: power is evil and the greatest among us are great because they know when to set it aside.

America's place in history is that she perfected the ancient freedoms of the Roman people by tempering them with the humanity of their Christian usurpers. Christianity was, for example, the most significant intellectual force behind the ultimate abolition of American slavery. The secular left is fond of casting religion aside by focusing only on its sins. They are now casting aside the Constitution and American history for the very same reason. That reason, of course, is that their ultimate goal is power and, as Peter Jackson put it: There is only one Lord of the Ring and he does not share Power. The State will suffer no rivals. 

Liberty is the animating spirit of the human condition. It is what Cato gave his life for, pulling his own guts out of his stomach rather than submit to the "mercy" of Julius Caesar:

"My life is grafted on the fate of Rome:

Would he save Cato? Bid him spare his country. 

Tell your dictator this: Tell him Cato

disdains a life which he has the power to offer."

Death before slavery is the legacy our Founders learned from the Romans and left to us. Will we rememer?