Coolidge was a decent human being and a progressive, just someone who had an utterly bizarre and antiquated view of federalism.

Didn’t know that’s where it came from, I’ll note it in the body.

RIP. A lot of the best material I’ve reposted/been reposting though.

Multitasking is the name of the game 😎 (i have untreated ADHD please send help)

“No amount of charity in spending such fortunes can compensate in any way for the misconduct in acquiring them.” - some socialist or something idk

“I didn’t take the carapace armor because I don’t want to fat roll.”

"You [PING!]

If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough."

Dohohohoho!

It’s okay. They were pirates. Vile and dissolute creatures, the lot of them!

Okay. Europe and the Northern states don’t exist. Got it.

Explanation: When Caesar was a young man, and a relative unknown, just a fellow from a well-known patrician family, he was captured by pirates and held for ransom. When he heard they were asking for a mere 20 talents of silver, he demanded they increase the ransom to 50 talents - over a ton and a half! A man has to know what he’s worth!

[laughs]

[cries]

[plays Russian roulette]

What’s Germany?

Well, that one he knows at least! He fought with the Germanic tribes, who he notes came from a land called Germania.

“Where’s my Orange Julius”

DAMMIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN SOMEONE ALREADY MADE THAT COMMENT

Oh, I’m being fucking stupid. Sulla, of course, who took indefinite dictatorial power to reform the Roman Republican government to get rid of those pesky democratic plebbish influences, and then legitimately retired to a nice Mediterranean island with his actor boytoy, and died of worms in his gut (good riddance). Though, like the other three, that’s in the context of… not democratic, per se, but let’s say being replaced by constitutional government.

Define normal and peaceful?

Pinochet stepped down after losing a referendum by a margin too large to cover, and with the military unwilling to cover his ass. He spent some time as a free man, a decade or so I think, before his long history of atrocities started to catch up to him.

Chun Doo-hwan managed to step down, though he was pressured by the US, and did serve a criminally (ha) short prison sentence.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk formally stepped down from positions of power and legitimately stepped back from political life to focus on drinking and smoking himself to death, though he remained immensely influential through unofficial channels. YMMV on whether that’s really retirement.

All of those are dictators who stepped down in the context of a democratic government though, rather than of another autocracy. I’m sure there are examples out there, but I can’t think of any at the moment.

That was definitely one of the bigger motivations. Splitting units into unsustainably small sizes (typically about a fifth of what the largely self-sufficient legions were) and centralizing production of military equipment both, theoretically, reduced the potential of generals to independently marshal support and start a civil war. Unfortunately for this theory, this resulted simply in the high-ranking members of the Imperial family who were commanding ad hoc armies to do literally exactly the same thing despite the smaller formal unit sizes.

Other structural military reforms, like the multi-tiered system of troop quality, the focus on border defence, and lifelong conscription + automatic conscription of soldiers’ sons had other motivations. Cost was a big one. Godlike majesty doesn’t pay for itself, after all.

To be more fair to Diocletian, as much as I hate being fair to Diocletian, the Empire at the time was hardly in excellent straits, and while I think most of Diocletian’s choices are dogshit, the idea that something needed to change to maintain the Empire’s stability was far from absurd.

… but economics are not a type of cheese, caste systems are not a solution to anything, getting worshipped as a god is peak megalomania (regardless of how ‘traditional’ the eastern half of the Empire found it), making the Empire’s military systems brittle to save your own skin gives neither imperial protection nor imperial job security, and holy shit FOUR Emperors? How did that ever sound like a good idea?

At least he didn’t fuck the coinage like every other shit Emperor, and some of the good ones too.

You seem to want to push this narrative that leaving slavery alone would have led to a natural conclusion.

Man, I said numerous times, including in that very fucking comment, that leaving slavery alone in the South would not have necessarily killed it. I outlined why moderate abolitionists believed that it would, and why it’s not an inherently absurd idea. Fuck’s sake.

It’s a radical religious thing. Images are imperfect imitations of God’s perfect work, therefore, they are blasphemy.

Obama had the White House , House , and Senate and didn’t close Gitmo as promised.

Did you follow the situation? Gitmo wasn’t closed because there was nowhere to transfer the prisoners. It was attempted, numerous times. There were legal battles over this.

Fuck’s sake.