Rome handed out free grain to 40,000 citizens in 73 BC. By 46 BC, Julius Caesar found 320,000 people lining up for their monthly ration. That eight-fold expansion happened in under three decades, and it shows you how welfare states actually grow.
No Roman senator stood up and announced a plan to addict a third of the city to government bread. It happened incrementally, through political competition. Each magistrate who wanted votes expanded eligibility. Each expansion normalized the next one. The citizen who once considered the dole shameful eventually expected it, then demanded it, then organized politically to protect it.
This is the core mechanism free market thinkers have identified across every era: once you create a transfer program, you create a constituency for that program. Recipients vote. Administrators build careers. Grain merchants who supply the state develop a stake in keeping the contracts flowing. The political economy locks in.
Caesar, to his credit, actually cut the rolls back to 150,000 through verification audits. It was one of his more economically coherent moves, though the Senate still murdered him. His successors quietly let the numbers climb again.
What did the dole require? Massive grain imports from Sicily, Sardinia, and Egypt, organized through state logistics at state expense, funded by taxation and conquest. When the conquest revenue dried up, the obligation remained. Rome had written a check against future military success, and future military success eventually failed to arrive.
The lesson is not complicated. Distribute a benefit and you distribute dependency. Distribute dependency and you distribute political power to whoever controls the distribution. The grain dole didn't weaken Rome overnight, but it made every subsequent reform politically impossible.
@stoolpresidente@drink_phx You’re a terrible athlete who runs a company comprised of a bunch of dorks who are terrible athletes (with the exception of a few) and you opine about the best athletes in the world. You’re good at marketing though, I’ll give you that.
The veil has been lifted on the great Ponzi scheme that is the US tax system.
Congressmen make $174K a year and turn it into $30, $40 million because those bullshit appropriations like we see with USAID is a clever way to launder tax money.
American taxpayers are fraud victims.
Ilhan Omar wasn't some poor, oppressed refugee that Americ saved.
Her family was part of the TYRANNICAL Somali government that was EJECTED from Somalia.
Her family WERE the oppressors.
@GenFlynn@LizCrokin 🤞”conservative party” better start acting conservative. “America first” party better start putting America first. Otherwise, there will be countless voters disenfranchised and the Dems will take over forever. Our country as we knew it and hope it to be will be forever ruined.
People are like wE gOtTa WiN tHe MiDtErMs lol my brother in Christ they covered up the Epstein files, we pay 60% of our income in taxes, the fraud is 5000x bigger than Child Care Centers in Minnesota and your tax dollars just bought 25 fighters jets for another country
@metsbian Queer means strange or odd. The only one with the football is the queer bc he’s the odd one of the group. They don’t try and tackle him bc they think he’s gay……
As American citizens, we are sick and tired of
The money laundering
The corrupt politicians
The endless wars overseas
The twisted woke left
The state funded mainstream media
The pharma industry
The food industry
The defense industry
The DEI
The illegal aliens
The skanks in the house and senate
The list goes on and on
We hired President Trump, Vice President Vance, their cabinet, and open collaboration from Elon Musk with one task: Giving the country back to the American people.
I’ve got to give it to the Democrats—they could probably sell ice to Eskimos and still convince them global warming is their fault.
They’ve somehow managed to swindle people out of their tax dollars for years, get caught red-handed, and then convince those same people that the real problem is the guy who exposed them. And just for good measure, they’ve also got them protesting, doxxing, and demanding that he stop telling the truth. It’s not politics—it’s wizardry!
THE DAYS OF THE UNITED STATES GETTING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF HAVE TO END:
We need lower our reliance on international trade and build more factories in America.
We need to withdraw from international treaties and organizations that try to dictate our healthcare, environment, and overall way of life.
We need to stop sending foreign aid across the world and pull out of armed conflicts for political gain that simply create more enemies for the United States.
We need to ban foreign entities and governments from acquiring farm land in the United States and start taking it back.
If other countries want to work with the United States and it provides us with a net-benefit, great. However, it seems like we always end up worse off.
It’s time to begin scaling back the globalist agenda in the United States.
- Negative drip
- Absolutely zero aura
- Lives in a log cabin in Minnesota
- Only wears quarter-zip pullovers
- Bio says 'Isaiah 6.8 Football & Fishing
Yeah bro is about to be a sure fire Hall of Famer