“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

I have never been a big fan of Cicero. That is probably because my view of him was colored by Colleen McCollough’s Masters of Rome series. I always viewed him as self-important and full of himself. Regardless, even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then. Certainly this quote seems apropos today, especially after the Red Balloon incident.

Seriously, how difficult is it to decide to take down a spy device by a hostile power? The first duty of a government is to protect its citizens from criminals, both individual and national. Yet this administration is letting both do what they will.

China is not ten feet tall and bulletproof. It has serious structural problems and is set for demographic collapse sometime within the next 20 years. (Forty years of One-Child Policy will do that for you.) And yet the administration refused to take immediate action against a reconnaissance balloon in a sparsely-inhabited portion of this country. [It was finally taken out Saturday.]

Similarly, the Democrats as a party side with criminals against honest citizens, prosecuting those defending themselves from thugs while releasing those committing crimes. They are preferring perverts to parents, and sheltering violent fascists calling themselves Antifa, while expending great effort to hunt down nonexistent “white supremacists.”

It is almost as if they are on the other side.

I have always been a big believer in the aphorism, “never attribute to malice what could adequately be attributed to stupidity.” Now? I knew Biden and many of his cronies are stupid, as are many Democrats on the state and municipal level.  Can they be that stupid, though? Or are they Cicero’s traitors from within?

I do not know.  My needle is moving towards Cicero, though.