In a daring move that completely ignores the results of the election that just happened last night, I’m going to talk some more about Roman History! I know that the Tiberius Gracchus article was a huge hit with my readership, so I’ve decided to write more about Roman History… more specifically, the Greek historian Polybius and his analysis of the unwritten constitution of the Roman Republic. Polybius (born in Macedonia then taken to Rome during the Third Macedonian War) lived from 200 to 118 BCE, and his work The Histories details the rise of the Roman Republic’s power between 220 and 146 BCE. An important section of the work is in Book VI, where he outlines three distinct “branches” of the Roman government and discusses why the Republic works. What surprised me when first reading this excerpt was how easy it was to compare Roman governmental roles to modern-day American ones.
According to the historian, the Roman Republic was a success because it was a “mixed constitution” with elements of a monarchy, democracy, and aristocracy, much in the way that our modern day constitution has a similar mix of these elements in the President (monarchy), House (democracy), and Supreme Court (aristocracy). (Side note: it’s debated as to how one should categorize the Senate—some scholars argue that the Senate counts as the “democracy” aspect along with the House because they are elected by the people, not electorates, but others argue that they belong in the “aristocracy” category because senators were not originally elected directly by the people in each state.)
In Polybius’ analysis of the Roman constitution, the “monarchy” was consolidated in the position of Consul. Rome had two consuls, reelected every year, who were both in charge of legions of the Roman army and who had the power to summon assemblies and introduce various measures to the Senate. The equation of consuls to kings is a bit strong, considering that Polybius recognized two other branches of government, but the fact that they have nearly-unlimited control over the Roman War Machine does indicate that they had significant power similar to that of Greek kings who Polybius would have learned about. Our “monarchy”—the President—is similar to consuls because of his position as Commander in Chief and because both positions had to be popularly elected; however, consuls did have lower officers that answered to them, but they did not have anything like a Cabinet or analogs to our modern-day departments (such as the DOJ or HUD).
According to Polybius the Senate represented the “aristocracy,” and this assertion is sensible. The senate in Rome was made up of the city’s wealthiest population (as I discussed in my last Rome-related article) and it was its own social class; it also included individuals who had previously held public office (such as consul, praetor, or other positions on the cursus honorum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_honorum). It was unquestionably a place for Rome’s elites, and these elites controlled the treasury, presided over many judicial matters, and were in charge of foreign affairs aside from the actual process of waging war (e.g. sending emissaries abroad and deciding when to declare war). Our American Senate is similar to Republican Rome’s because as part of the larger Congressional branch of government it plays a major role in foreign policy and does have a say in the budgeting process. It could also be argued (as I have done in occasions past) that our Senate is an elitist body just as Rome’s senate was and that much of America’s population is not fairly represented. What separates Rome’s senate from ours is the fact that our judiciary is its own branch, where in Rome the senate served many judicial functions that were augmented by other courts. Also, senators in Republican Rome were literally their own social class that lorded itself over and closed their ranks against the lower class citizens; our social classes are less rigidly structured and all-controlling than those of Rome.
Finally Polybius arrives at the “democracy” aspect of Rome—a vague discussion of what he calls the People. He places the power of the people in their ability to vote, which gives them the opportunity to “bestow office on the deserving,” approve or reject laws, agree to go to war, and ratify treaties. Interestingly, he neglected to mention the fact that most votes conducted in Rome were largely slanted towards the wealthiest Roman citizens due to the way Roman voting worked (see my previous article regarding Rome or this useful page http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/romerepublic/qt/052611-How-the-Romans-Voted-in-the-Roman-Republic.htm). It seems that Polybius’ description of the Roman People is comparable to a mixture of our House of Representatives and Senate (approve/rejecting laws, ratifying treaties, and agreeing to go to war), but his description of the people’s ability to “bestow office on the deserving” invites a comparison to the general American public that is able to vote for public officers, from town comptrollers to President of the United States.
In looking at the similarities between Polybius’ analysis and our current governmental system, it’s easy to see the text and/or ideas from which the Framers of the Constitution drew inspiration. What’s even more impressive, though, was Polybius’ innovative explanation of checks and balances. (Examples of these checks and balances were: consuls had no power without their armies, but the senators paid the soldiers in each army; the tribunes of the people could veto senatorial decrees and the people had to confirm these decrees; and the people had to submit to the will of the senate and consuls because they had to serve under consuls and rely upon the senate for funding to build public works and for the distribution of farmland.) Polybius names these checks and balances as the main reason for the Republic’s success—in his eyes, because each branch holds the other two accountable, no one part can grow powerful “out of proportion,” and thus the interests of the state as a whole are best preserved.
The United States Constitution is shaped in the same way: we are so successful (or at least moderately successful) because each branch of government is able to check the other two. No one branch can ever get out of control—the President could never run away with the armies and wage war on his own government, as consuls eventually would during the fall of the Republic, because Congress would probably impeach him and if a case was brought against him in the Supreme Court he would lose. Also, two of our three branches are directly accountable to the American People and if they get too out of line the people can vote them out of office, as Tuesday night proved with Senator Todd Akin. Many individuals view checks and balances as a hindrance to our country’s success because Congress and the President are usually in gridlock and very little legislation is passed, but I think that the Framers were right to follow the lead set by Polybius’ constitutional analysis. Without counterbalance between the democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical aspects of our government, we might very well end up with a situation similar to that which ended the Roman Republic and started the Empire. For a democratic republic like ours to work, power has to be spread equally and easily stopped.
Ways To Make Money At Home If You Are Disabled And Unable To Work http://alipotec.ga
If you’ve been unfortunate enough to be someone that struggles to work a regular job as a consequence of an illness or even an accident, you understand how frustrating it could be emotionally, financially, and physically. When a car wreck left me with chronic pain that’s so bad that I was not able to return doing its job a supervisor at a Mail Transport Equipment Company, I knew that there was no way I would be able to settle the debts by sitting home bust. I knew that this chronic pain left me physically can not do the things I i did so everyday, like driving a forklift, moving trailers having a Yard Dog, and lifting mail equipment. And it would take many pages to clarify the emotional toll it took on me.
Depending upon your disability, there are many of how that I would like to share that I have discovered to earn money to help you supplement your disability check, if actually you will get approved. I was lucky enough to happen to be able to provide enough medical evidence to Social Security that I was approved initially I applied. That is rather rare, because so many people have to get a lawyer and fight because of their to disability. So whether you’re on disability or just trying to make ends meet if you are looking to get approved, here are a few things I have found to create a little extra money to settle the debts.
The first and easiest thing we did was begin with checking out the shop and garage and finding items that we really didn’t need, but merely kept around because we’d never did anything with them. If it is possible to find enough things, you can have your hair a garage sale. There are many folks on the market that need to find a good deal and yes it seems to get true that one man’s trash is an additional man’s treasure. I can’t tell you the amount of issues that I thought should go to the trash, but we insert them in our sale and they also sold!
If you don’t find enough what to have a yard or garage sale, an alternative choice is usually to sell many of the things you find on Craigslist and even any local paper. More and more people are seeking used things due to the economy, of course, if you own an old microwave or playstation or another electronics, you can purchase pretty easily quite often through classifieds, in both the local paper or online.
You can also sell just about anything you discover on Ebay. There are people worldwide which use Ebay, and a few stuff that couldn’t survive of great interest to someone in the United States, someone from another country would like to find on Ebay. I sold several things on Ebay when I became disabled and far as it turned out a large part of the items I sold ran out of the united states. One of what I found that sold more to people out from the United States when compared to the U.S. were Stampin’ Up items. Some of the countries don’t possess entry to these things, and so are glad to pay for to own them shipped overseas for many years. It is also a niche of thousands of people, where your neighborhood paper or Craigslist is more community based using a much smaller group of people.
Many people on disability have no idea of this, in reality I was one of these, but even when you are on disability another way you could earn money takes a component time job in the event you are able to work even short periods of time. I had understood that one could not work and collect Social Security Disability, that is not correct. They do allow you to generate a degree of income and then collect your monthly check. You are required to tell the SSA(Social Security Administration) should you begin to work, when you do, they’re going to tell you precisely how much you can make and still maintain disability pay. So that is another option in making money throughout disability.
Another was just isn’t so much earning profits but by spending less. And a few in the ways to save some financial resources are by clipping coupons with your Sunday paper, by looking online for them. There are many sites who have coupons on almost anything you get for your household. Whether it is for food you purchase, cleaning supplies, bathroom items including toothpaste or hairspray, it can save you alot of cash by only finding the time to clip and redeem coupons. If you have 10 coupons and they are all a savings of 75 cents, this is a savings of $7.50. It won’t pay all the debts in one vacation to the store, but any time you rely on them, it’s just one way to spend less, and not having to spend that money it can save you, you truly are earning profits in so doing.
If you are disabled however able to to utilise your pc, yet another way you may make some money is by using the web. There are many approaches to make it happen. You can start a home based business selling different products, use internet affiliate marketing, doing surveys, and that’s just a few of the opportunities that exist online. Taking surveys doesn’t always make you money quickly, however it is one way to create something to help you settle the debts. And there a never-ending amount of survey sites available that supply different amounts of cash to take their surveys, between $.50 for some minutes of energy around longer surveys that could pay around $50.
Once again, you may not break the bank by doing the surveys, but it is sometimes nice only to see money arriving that may help. Affiliate marketing is selling people’s products or services and having a percentage from the sale. There are numerous products accessible to promote in the event you decide you dont want to sell your personal product, and depending on how well you advertise or promote the merchandise you ultimately choose with online marketing, you are able to sometimes might a pretty good income.
Another way of experiencing an online business in case you are disabled or unable to work away from your house is starting your own personal internet business. There are numerous affiliate marketing companies offering web space and other tools you should get started without having to pay on their behalf. If you don’t have a product of your own personal in promoting or sell, you can promote the item that they can offer, and several pays you to sell the product or service they’re offering by referring people to do the same thing. This is also a different type of online marketing you could generate profits with.
So if you have grown to be disabled and can’t work away from home, i have listed a number of the ways that I was able to make money without leaving the house. Whether you clip coupons, possess a garage sale or start an internet business, being on disability doesn’t prevent you from gaining access to least a modest amount of income getting into all your family members. Although becoming disabled can sometimes cause emotional roller coasters of feeling up and after that down, being capable of contribute for some reason can sometimes go ahead and take a sense helplessness away.
While the car crash that left me with chronic pain took away my capability to perform the things I was in a position to do before, another thing this didn’t eliminate was my ability to become creative in finding various ways to help you offer my family. And that can be a big plus for some of the emotions that sometimes have creating a disability.