18 Comments
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Lefty Mark's avatar

The seeds of the West's downfall were sown when Europe abandoned the hunter-gatherer economy and replaced it with an agrarian one. Also too it was forged when the inhabitants switched from stone tools to metal ones. And finally its extinction was bred when Europeans failed to secure their southern border and allowed a flood of <i>H. sapiens sapiens</i> immigrants from Africa to overrun their continent and displace their traditional Neanderthal culture. People similar to Swanson tried to warn them -- if only they had understood speech and had listened!

Lefty Mark's avatar

What would be the modern inflation-adjusted value of one denarius today?

My guess: one-half of a sheaf of wheat and a goat skin.

Lefty Mark's avatar

Jesus advised his followers to pay their taxes.

𝔅𝔢𝔢𝔩𝔷𝔢𝔟𝔲𝔟𝔟𝔞's avatar

Certainly all the justification needed for "right to work (for peanuts)" states.

Chris Grrr's avatar

Strom Thurmond got left off the "shameful tradition of illegitimate babbies" list.

bobbert's avatar

I just read that as "be fearful and multiply". Which also works.

Ikimizi's avatar

If Swanson had a business, I bet none of his workers would show up until quitting time.

Joshua Norton's avatar

<i>Continuing in the shameful tradition of Descartes and Rousseau, he produced a child out of wedlock</i>

Not to mention 90% or the Gilded Age robber barons, European royalty, a majority of the patriarchs in the bibble, high ranking Republicans, priests and popes going back to the dawn of Christianity, the Virgin Mary.... What was his point again?

PubOption's avatar

That would have been an artful dodge.

Ikimizi's avatar

In my attempts to read "Capital", I've always found it a no-nonsense description of how capitalism works, and in large doses, kind of boring, like any other economics text. Somehow, I seem to have missed Marx's uncontrollable rage. Or maybe Swanson meant it made him furious.

PubOption's avatar

The money of the Roman imperialists. Commie Jesus should never have approved.

𝔅𝔢𝔢𝔩𝔷𝔢𝔟𝔲𝔟𝔟𝔞's avatar

It's not a metaphor -- it's a simile. Which is really, really hard to ignore, even for a fuckwit like Swanson.

Zippy W. Pinhead's avatar

Sadly, a denarius doesn't go as far as it used to

Jared James's avatar

The growing totalitarian state won't allow comments about state-run institutions on the interwebs, which are of course a public project paid for by The Taxpayers.