Recent scholarship and Peter Heather again focus on the Barbarians.....

Gibbon blamed the Christians.....Rome was fine until after 313 C.E....

Effective movements have always existed outside of the party system. It's a matter of survival. Movements make parties react, not vice versa.

On the flip side of cleverness are people who presumably worked - legally - for the things that were taken from them; I don't find that admirable in anyone, but maybe that's my honest streak showing.  

I know that part of - maybe a lot of - your admiration comes from your contempt for authority, for always wanting the individual to triumph over the law, for wanting people to be free to do their thing, unencumbered by rules and laws.  I get that.

But where is your contempt for those, like Harris-Moore, whose "thing" is stealing what others have worked and sacrificed for?  Put in the hours and kept nose to the grindstone and played by the rules - only to have some cocky kid, too lazy to put his brilliance to work in a real job, take from them?

seriously I dont get it?

should the questions have said something like "how much will you love showering with a gay man?"
or "how many ways will serving with gay people enrich your life?"

to me, that doesnt mean anything except they are curious what the rank and file think.  as we said, not because they care beyond being prepared for it.

Unfortunately though for young women, very unsure of themselves and probably even blaming themselves in the beginning, that path is not so clear.  And older women are not usually the target.  We don't make good targets anymore.  We know too much and we usually have some sort of history in dealing with rape and much better support systems.

A recent addition to my life is Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, who also breeds and shows dogs on the same circuit I do.  I had read about what she was doing before knowing who she was in real life, and I feel like her current work can be considered controversial but will not deny that we should do all we can if there is anything that can be done.  She is overseeing the Army's newest resiliency training, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness that is supposed to teach emotional and psychological fitness to be used in combat.  Part of her combat experiences

Cornum isn't just a theorist on the subject of mental toughness.

A physician and flight surgeon in a helicopter unit during the Persian Gulf War, she was shot down in February 1991 while on a search-and-rescue mission. Five soldiers died, and three were captured by the Iraqis, including Cornum.

She was physically abused and sexually fondled by her Iraqi captors and returned to the U.S. with numerous injuries. They are facts, but Cornum doesn't spend much time talking about them.

Instead, she says living through the experience made her a better wife and mother, made her a more sympathetic physician and a better commander.