<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, as quoted in William Appleman Williams' Empire as a Way of Life:<BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">"It may be said that the new Constitution is founded on different principles, and will have a different operation. This form of government, in order to effect its purpose, must operate not within a small but an extensive sphere. ...Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all to feel it .... to act in unison with each other."<BR>
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<B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> John W. <jbw292002@gmail.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> Ron Szoke <r-szoke@illinois.edu><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Cc:</SPAN></B> E.Wayne Johnson <ewj@pigs.ag>; peace discuss <peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Mon, August 9, 2010 6:04:09 PM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [Peace-discuss] has Congress become Useless?<BR></FONT><BR>
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<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Ron Szoke <SPAN dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:r-szoke@illinois.edu" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:r-szoke@illinois.edu">r-szoke@illinois.edu</A>></SPAN> wrote:</DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class=gmail_quote>The book referred to is _The Coming Caesars_, by Amaury de Riencourt<BR>(Coward-McCann, 1957, 384 pages)<BR><BR>"It is the contention of this book that expanding democracy leads<BR>unintentionally to imperialism and that imperialism inevitably ends in<BR>destroying the republican institutions of earlier days; further, that the<BR>greater the social equality, the dimmer the prospects of liberty, and that<BR>as society becomes more equalitarian, it tends increasingly to<BR>concentrate absolute power in the hands of one single man" (p. 5).<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<DIV>That's absolutely fascinating. I don't know if the thesis is always correct (it seems counterintuitive on its face), but the writer must have been brilliant to come up with a theory like that, and argue it cogently.</DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class=gmail_quote>This might be compared with<BR>Cullen Murphy, _Are We Rome?_: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of<BR>America (2007).<BR><FONT color=#888888><BR>-- Ron</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
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