Think Right

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

So wrote the greatest of Roman lawyers, statesmen and orators Cicero in 55 B.C.

Forthright in every sense, his statements found the ever power hungry men of his time uncomfortable, as he exposed their corruption. Finally he was murdered by Mark Anthony who had his head and hands cut off and his head was set on a spike in the Forum and a nail driven through his tongue.

A warning to others to be more careful with their words.

Dissidents here speak out against the inflation, the unnecessary, unjust and destructive EMS tax, the sacrifice of productive farms and other atrocities.

Newspaper essays on proposed reprisals indicate that such protesters may soon suffer a similar fate to that of Cicero as the anti-industrial environmental movement flexes its poisonous influence.

Ronald Kitching