TGIF!!! Good Morning everybody!!!

[Equalisation]

Tuan, manyak rambut tak ?

 

[Asterix]

writing poem is no small task
only a few can do it well
the rest are simply trying
to make their own testicles swell

Never gave a damn about rhyming
But I note that in your short stanza
Only the second and fourth lines do
And in an obvious primary school way

Substance over form so says the judge
The discerning will see the message
Discontent is good if the Powers That Be
Act to remove the sources of such angst

 

[kopiuncle]

Asterix I agree
Poems need not rhyme
The sky fall
The earth open
You and I and all...

 

[Asterix]

Anti-establishment's not a crime
It is nothing to be feared
For as Machiavelli once said
Conflict between Nobles and Plebians*
Is the source of Rome’s greatness
Powers That Be ain’t worth their pay
If they can’t accept severe criticism

* The relevant passage from one of Machiavelli’s books will appear in another post.

I’ve broken it up into more paragraphs then the original text, but it will still be heavy going for those whose English is not so good.

From Book I, Chapter IV of Machiavelli’s Discoures on Livy:

I say that those who condemn the tumults between the nobles and the plebs, appear to me to blame those things that were the chief causes for keeping Rome free. They paid more attention to the noises and shouts that arose in those tumults than to the good effects they brought forth. They did not consider that in every Republic there are two different viewpoints, that of the People and that of the Nobles; and that all the laws that are made in favor of liberty result from their disunion, as may easily be seen to have happened in Rome, for from Tarquin to the Gracchi which was more than three hundred years, the tumults of Rome rarely brought forth exiles, and more rarely blood.

Nor is it possible therefore to judge these tumults harmful, nor divisive to a Republic, which in so great a time sent into exile no more than eight or ten of its citizens because of its differences, and put to death only a few, and condemned in money (fined) not very many: nor can a Republic in any way with reason be called disordered where there are so many examples of virtu, for good examples result from good education, good education from good laws, and good laws from those tumults which many inconsiderately condemn; for he who examines well the result of these, will not find that they have brought forth any exile or violence prejudicial to the common good, but laws and institutions in benefit of public liberty.

And if anyone should say the means were extraordinary and almost savage, he will see the People together shouting against the Senate, The Senate against the People, running tumultuously throughout the streets, locking their stores, all the Plebs departing from Rome, all of which (things) alarm only those who read of them.

Every City ought to have their own means with which its People can give vent to their ambitions, and especially those Cities which in important matters, want to avail themselves of the People. Among which the City of Rome had this method, that when those people wanted to obtain a law, either they did some of the things mentioned before or they would not enroll their names to go to war. So that to placate them it was necessary (for the Senate) in some part to satisfy them. The desires of a free people rarely are pernicious to liberty, because they arise either from being oppressed or from the suspicion of going to be oppressed.

And it these opinions should be false, there is the remedy of haranguing (public assembly), where some upright man springs up who through oratory shows them that they deceive themselves; and the people (as Tullius Cicero says) although they are ignorant, are capable of (appreciating) the truth, and easily give in when the truth is given to them by a trustworthy man.

http://www.constitution.org/mac/disclivy1.htm#1:04

 

[kopiuncle]

my dear asterix
I am most humbled by your intellect
my brain too small to absorb
my eyes too weak to scan all
thank you nevertheless
profound, very very profound....