I've just started this meaty book by Adrian Goldsworthy and will eventually post a full book review. For now, I found this quote in the preface rousing:

The Roman Empire did not fall quickly, but as part of a very slow process, and this should warn us against magnifying current events and their likely consequences on the long-term fortune of countries. Britain has been a fairly depressing place in the last decade or so. Ministers caught out in incompetence, corruption or blatant deceitfulness cling on to power like limpets, first denying everything, before finally apologising and expecting this to be enough. Bureaucracy and regulation continue to grow apace, while the basic efficiency of institutions declines, rendering them incapable of even the apparently simple tasks. Yet while the number of civil servants rises, the size of the armed forces shrinks at the very time they are more committed to serious campaigns. It would be easy to draw parallels with the Roman Empire in the fourth century. The self-righteous tone of so much government legislation certainly chimes with late Late Roman imperial decrees, as does the apparent failure of so much of this to achieve its aim. Such comparisons are unlikely to assist our analysis of the Roman Empire, and would be no more than the author indulging himself. Understanding the history must come first.

And as soon as I read the word limpets I thought about this post at Instapundit (and hyenas).
Our elected officials are like a pack of hyenas (Dodd and his sweetheart loan from Countrywide). I can just see Obey and Waters standing over the carcasses of hard-working taxpayers, forcibly extracting money as payoffs to special interest groups and to engorge their own private coffers. These are filthy people.

en·gorge
- verb (used with object), verb (used without object), -gorged, -gorg·ing.
1. to swallow greedily; glut or gorge.

Labels: books, dodd, history, quotes