Calilasseia wrote:An item that came to my attention recently, pointed me to an interesting historical character, whose florid behaviour somehow failed to feature in my history classes. Namely, one Lucius Aurelius Commodus, who was Roman Emperor from 180 CE to 192 CE.

Reading about this individual, I discover that he was, in effect, a curious blend of Trump, Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin. Is this why I was pointed to him, I ask myself?

For those who need some pointers in this vein, here's the connections:

[1] Like Johnson, he received an expensive education, courtesy of some of the finest teachers money could buy. Several of them were intellectual celebrities in their era, perhaps the most stellar of them all being none other than Galen, the physician. And, like Johnson, he pissed his expensive education down the toilet, through indolence and entitlement, preferring instead to spend his time on vainglorious pleasures.

[2] Like Trump, he was a pathological narcissist, a megalomaniac with a boundless appetite for ego preening, and sought to have all manner of things named after him, including the months of the calendar. Like Trump, he couldn't be bothered with the hard work of administration, preferring instead to spend time at his own Roman version of Mar-A-Lago. He also eagerly courted public popularity through the most vulgar and bombastic spectacles, and was also pathologically unfaithful to his long suffering wives, though he took this further than Trump by owning his own private brothels. Commodus shared with Trump another disturbing feature: a penchant for abusing disabled people for his own entertainment, and for political purposes.

[3] Like Putin, he fancied himself as some sort of physical superman, and arranged to take part in gladiatorial combat (which, needless to say, was rigged in his favour), as a means of parading his manhood.

Like all three of the above, he also encouraged and facilitated the development of a personality cult around him.

in 192 CE, the Romans finally had enough of him, and he was removed from office in the most vigorous manner possible, courtesy of his assassination. Details of which are every bit as tacky as the minutiae of Trump's sordid sex life.

Enjoy learning more about this character.

Though there is no evidence for the requisite etymology, I'm tempted to suggest that this character provided fuel for the use of the word "commode" to describe a pot you shit on.

Attorney General Bill Barr: "This is not decay. This is organized destruction. Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion & traditional values."

Attorney General William Barr blamed secularism in society for a series of problems such as drug overdoses, violence and poor mental health while speaking at Notre Dame's law school.

Barr, in a speech largely focused on the role of religion in law, decried what he described as an effort to drive religion away while promoting secularism.

"We see the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism," he said. "Basically every measure of this social pathology continues to gain ground."

He described several social issues as "consequences of this moral upheaval."

"Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence and a deadly drug epidemic.

"Over 70,000 people die a year from drug overdoses," he added. "But I won't dwell on the bitter results of the new secular age."

Barr also slammed "so-called progressives," saying that many are "among the militant secularists."

A spokesman for the university told the South Bend Tribune this week that the topic of Barr's speech would be "religious freedom."

Take It From a Former Moonie: Trump Is a Cult Leader

On the afternoon of Nov. 18, 1978, Jim Jones called his followers to the central pavilion of Jonestown, a sprawling outpost in the jungles of Guyana, and ordered them to drink a lethal mixture of cyanide and fruit punch. Over 900 people perished that day, more than a third of them children. As he lay dying of a bullet wound to the head—a less painful way to go than cyanide and one that he probably orchestrated—Jones told his followers that it was “all the media’s fault. Don’t believe them.”

Those words, uttered so long ago, sound disturbingly familiar as we approach the 41st anniversary of Jonestown. We have a president who regularly disparages and blames the media, calling it “fake,” “false,” and “phony,” and who calls journalists “enemies of the people”—epithets that seem especially frenzied in the wake of the whistleblower complaint and the launching of the House impeachment inquiry. It might seem an outrageous proposition to compare Donald Trump to a murderous cult leader. And yet there are alarming parallels. Like Jones and other cult leaders, Trump exhibits features of what psychologist Erich Fromm called “malignant narcissism”—bombastic grandiosity, a bottomless need for praise, lack of empathy, pathological lying, apparent sadism, and paranoia. In short, he fits the stereotypical psychological profile of a cult leader.

I have seen that profile up close. Over 40 years ago, while a junior in college, I was recruited into a destructive mind control cult, the Unification Church, popularly known as the Moonies after its leader, Sun Myung Moon. I rose rapidly through the ranks and was invited to attend meetings with Moon and his top aides, where we knelt and bowed to our leader Moon. Two years later, after three days straight of leading a fundraising team—selling flowers on street corners—I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up as I plowed into the back of an 18 wheeler. Fortunately, I survived. My family hired deprogrammers and, after five days, I realized I had been brainwashed.

Since then, I have devoted myself to studying mind control cults and helping families rescue loved ones from their clutches. I have learned that mind control is not a vague, mystical process but, instead, is the result of a concrete and specific and systematic set of methods and techniques. Cult leaders may seem crazy, but they are cunning masters of manipulation, employing an arsenal of these techniques to render their followers dependent and obedient. It’s what I call the cult leader’s playbook.

As I argue in my upcoming book, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How The President Uses Mind Control (Simon & Schuster), Trump has gotten where he is today in large part because he has exploited tactics straight out of that playbook. These include his grandiose claims, his practice of sowing confusion, his demand for absolute loyalty, his tendency to lie and create alternative “facts” and realities, his shunning and belittling of critics and ex-believers, and his cultivating of an “us versus them” mindset. These are the same methods used by Moon, Jones, and other cult leaders such as L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology), David Koresh (Branch Davidians), Lyndon LaRouche (LaRouche PAC), and, most recently, convicted trafficking felon Keith Raniere (NXVIM).

continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/take-it-from-a-former-moonie-trump-is-a-cult-leader

A video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort last week, according to footage obtained by The New York Times.

Several of Mr. Trump’s top surrogates — including his son Donald Trump Jr., his former spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis — were scheduled to speak at the three-day conference, which was held by a pro-Trump group, American Priority, at Trump National Doral Miami. Ms. Sanders and a person close to Mr. Trump’s son said on Sunday that they did not see the video at the conference.

...

willhud9 wrote:Goes to show how much his supporters support the use of political violence to “save” the country.

And they act like the left is all authoritarian.