Sorry if we're sidetracking your thread Soledad, but I happened to get this from a friend yesterday, and it's pretty relevant as far as I can see.

“Patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Samuel Johnson, a British writer (1709-1784), once called patriotism "the last refuge of a scoundrel", but Julius Caesar, the Great Roman Emperor (102 B.C. - 44 B.C.) had a more illuminating insight into the phenomenon of patriotism:

"Beware the leader who beats the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is a double-edged sword. It emboldens the blood and narrows the mind.

And when the drums of war have reached fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need to seize the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."

He certainly knew what he was talking about, and he was frank about it.
His life is also an important lesson to Mankind, and to modern would be emperors, that empires do not last forever.



I think this lesson should be taught to Presidents and Prime Ministers too!