On this day in 44 BCE, Casca and Cassius were making their final plans for the assassination of Julius Caesar, which would occur the following day. And you might ask, why didn’t I just wait until tomorrow to talk about the assassination? For one thing, I don’t care about the assassination. I’m much more interested in the plays about it than the actual event. That’s the thing about power: there always other powerful people who want to kill you. This is why I like my quiet little life.

But Casca and Cassius made a fateful decision on that day. They decided that Mark Antony should be kept alive. Okay people, here is the lesson of the day: do not keep people alive who will hunt you down and kill you. Certainly, that is what Mark Antony did. So it was really important that he was alive. Oh, I’m just kidding! It made no difference whatsoever. But it is interesting what they were thinking. Their idea was that the Roman Republic was on its way out and they were trying to save it. So they didn’t want to turn it into a blood bath. They just wanted to get rid of Julius Caesar.

But it just goes to show that history isn’t about people. The Roman Republic was on its way toward the Roman Empire, and there were a lot of reasons that had to do with that. Julius Caesar’s being dictator perpetuo was not the problem. The problem was that the Senate felt the need to make him dictator perpetuo. And if it hadn’t been Julius Caesar, it would have been someone else. I don’t blame Casca and Cassius for thinking this.

Actually, most people today believe the Great Men theory of history, even if they don’t know that the theory exists. And I’ll admit: personalities do play some role. The fact that Hitler was alive meant something different to Germany than if he hadn’t been alive. Just the same, something bad was going to happen in Germany in the 1930s. And today: Trump doesn’t bother me. The fact that we have a good chunk of the population that is just begging for an authoritarian like him is what bothers me. And don’t fool yourself: the same authoritarian tendency that drives Trump supporters also drives Cruz supporters, so the Republicans are an authoritarian party.

But within two decades of the assassination of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony would be dead, and so would the Roman Republic. On the other hand, we never would have had I, Claudius.

On this day in 1912, the Girl Scouts of the USA were formed — although they were then called Girl Guides. Let me just start by saying how much I love that. They should have been called, “Girls Taking Charge.” We could use a lot more of that. Not to mention cookies, but I digress.

For a long time, I thought that the Girl Scouts were just the female equivalents of the Boy Scouts. But then I learned otherwise. Since 2011, they have been open to transgender girls. Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts will fight tooth and nail to avoid entering even the 20th century. You can find out some of my thoughts on the Nazi Youth Boy Scouts in, Why Boy Scouts Have Always Bothered Me. But I have a different opinion of the Girl Scouts.

The thing is, I wish it weren’t done in terms of gender. When I was a boy, I heard about what the Boy Scouts were doing and what the Girl Scouts were doing. And not surprisingly, what the Girl Scouts were doing sounded like more fun. (I’m probably remembering the Cub Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls — I’m not that clear about all the distinctions.)

Of course, I’ve always preferred to hang out with the girls. I don’t wish to hammer this to death (and after all these years, if it isn’t dead, it never will be), but so much of male culture is based on the idea of proving that you aren’t gay that I’m not interested. Would it be asking so much for male culture to accept that there are different kinds of men — far removed from sexual orientation. If other men have hangups and secretly think that they are gay, they really should get some help with that. But barring that: just stop acting like idiots!

Here’s a funny thing: the two most clearly healthy heterosexual men I’ve ever known — men who love women and are loved in return — are both kind of, well, effeminate. I’m not saying that typically masculine men are latent homosexuals; I’m just saying that they are boring. Really boring. Deadly boring. Like: I’m in fear of life boring.

Women don’t tend to have this problem. This isn’t to say that women are perfect. But it isn’t surprising that the Boy Scouts are a dysfunctional organization that teachers noxious lessons to boys and the Girl Scouts is mostly a force for good — generally a group that doesn’t look back on itself a generation and cringe. There’s a lot to be said for that.

Afterword: Girl Scouts and Women in General

Let me note that it is always a bad idea to leave men alone. We really need women around to humanize us. Otherwise, we don’t behave well. As Donald Trump would say, “Really! It’s true!”

Because of our good friend 13-year-old porch pisser Dzz, we had no anniversary post yesterday, so let me double up. Yesterday in 241 BC, the Roman Republic defeated Carthage at the Battle of the Aegates Islands — thus ending the First Punic War (thus named because it wasn’t the last — there were three of them). And then, on this day in 1387, Padua defeated Verona at the Battle of Castagnaro. None of it really matters to me in any personal way. I could do military battles every day for ten years without repeating myself. There’s always a war, always a battle.

What stuns me is that roughly 10,000 years ago, humans settled down and invented agriculture. In many ways, since that time, we have become far more civilized. Yet the wars just keep on coming. The United States is now on a constant military campaign. It’s absurd to talk about Congress declaring war because we don’t start wars; we just have a single war, it is global, and it will never end — at least until the American empire falls (which is coming).

But all this time! Thousands of years and we keep thinking that war is the way to solve our problems. And it always turns out the same. People think wars are a good idea to start with and then afterward, it is never clear what everyone was in such a big rush for? I’m very fond of Norman Soloman’s documentary, War Made Easy. The subtitle of it is, “How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” That really is what it’s all about. In general, I am convinced that people just want to go to their jobs, raise their kids, have the occasional barbecue, and that’s about it. But there are always powerful people around who have “bigger” ideas.

The following table from War Made Easy is sobering:

If you want to put it in the most basic of terms: it seems that war is becoming more dangerous for children. You would think after all these thousands of years, we would have figured out how not to fight wars. But maybe it is just too basic. I do think of humans as just machines. What are we to do but what we are programmed for? So the Battle of Castagnaro or the Battle of the Aegates Islands. It doesn’t matter. Humans just like to kill each other.

On this day in 1831, the French Foreign Legion was established to — What else?! — fight to maintain their imperial dreams in Algeria. But what makes the French Foreign Legion interesting is that it is a part of the French military that is made up of foreign nationals. We have no such thing here in the United States, although I’m sure with all our private military contractors (mercenaries), we get more or less the same thing.

But to me, the French Foreign Legion means one thing and one thing only: it is what young love sick men went off to join in the films and stories of my youth. In fact, it seems to me, that Huckleberry Hound even joined the force to forget his lost Clementine. So that’s really the extent of what it means to me. But it makes sense. You know: running off to war is one of the primary stupid things that young men do when the women of their dreams do not return their affections. So it isn’t surprising that the French Foreign Legion would be used as a kind of trite plot device for low brow entertainment.

What’s most amazing is that the thing continues on to this day. There are apparently almost 8,000 people. Until 2000, women were mostly barred from being in the French Foreign Legion. But it isn’t clear that any women have actually joined since they’ve been allowed. It must be because women deal with being scorned better than men do. After all, the song is, “Oh My Darling, Clementine”; not, “Oh My Darling, Benjamin.”

But hey, this ought to change. There are always lots of Muslims in Algeria who need killing. And it really doesn’t matter if it is a woman or a man who is doing it. Supposedly, French Defence Minister Alain Richard said he wanted the French Foreign Legion to have 20% women by 2020. I think they’re going to miss that target by, oh, 20 percentage points.

On this day fifty years ago, the first Selma to Montgomery march took place. It became known as “Bloody Sunday” after the marchers were attacked by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It is one of the iconic moments of the Civil Rights Movement. It reminds me of something I read yesterday by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Gangsters of Ferguson. In it, he wrote, “The residents of Ferguson do not have a police problem. They have a gang problem.” And that’s exactly right. But don’t expect to hear anyone say that on the nightly news.

But I’m sure you already have heard people on the television news saying roughly the same thing about the troopers and the “county posse” who committed those unconscionable acts of violence fifty years ago. By that time, the Civil Rights Movement was highly advanced, so it got covered and it outraged a lot of people. Two years earlier, I wonder. And I further wonder how today’s media would cover it. Over the last forty years, I’ve seen such a trend in this country toward accepting anything done by someone with a badge.

There was to be no one from the Republican Congressional leadership attending the Selma fiftieth anniversary this weekend. But apparently, at the last minute, even the Republicans realized that it wouldn’t fly — that the questions would continue to be asked. So they send the House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. I’ve noted this before about various attempts by the Republicans to woo minority groups. What is the point of doing anything when it is clear that you only go kicking and screaming?

With McCarthy coming, that puts the entire Republican contingent at 24. There are expected to be over a hundred members of Congress at the event. Let’s have some fun with our old friend arithmetic. That means there will be at most 24% Republicans at the event. And they represent 56% of the Congress. That means that 8% of their caucus is going and at least 32% of the Democratic caucus is going. That seems about right: a four-to-one ratio.

But I’m glad so few Republicans are going to the event. I hate to see hypocrisy. Every time I hear some Republicans going on about Lincoln and how terrible slavery was, all I can think is, “You would have been a slavery supporter if you had lived back then.” Conservatism is a relative thing. It isn’t that modern conservatives are just smart and they would have been liberals if they had lived in the 19th century. No. It is an attitude. They are against the powerless. And that’s also true of Bloody Sunday. They would have been the ones saying, “Well, they were ordered to disperse; they got what they deserved.” So they are right to stay away now. The less hypocrisy, the better.

As for the march itself, all I can say is that those people had a lot more courage than I do. But maybe I can be forgiven. The thing about great social movements and unions is that they give us courage. The power elite since that time have gotten much better at defining dissent as unthinkable. But as we see in Ferguson, the same problems exists. And the same people are there to claim that it is nothing. African Americans would be fine if they were just “twice as good”; women would triumph if they only “leaned in”; and workers would be rewarded if they just worked like dogs without a peep. But it isn’t true. And it seems to be a constant struggle just to stand still.

But just imagine where we would be if they hadn’t succeeded fifty years ago.

On this day in 1857, Dred Scott v Sandford was decided incorrectly. In a 7-2 decision, it found that African Americans — even free ones — were not citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court. Dred Scott was a slave who had been taken by his owners to free states — that is: states where slavery was illegal. Dred Scott argued that once in a free state, he ought to be able to walk away. That’s a good argument. That’s why the Court decided to claim that African Americans just couldn’t be citizens.

In dissent, Justice John McLean noted that there was nothing in the Constitution that said that African Americans couldn’t be citizens. He noted that in five of the states at the time the Constitution was ratified, black men could, in fact, vote — indicating that they were, in fact, citizens. What’s more, there had been a case two decades earlier, Marie Louise v Marot, which was basically the Dred Scott case, but before the Louisiana Supreme Court. And it was found the opposite way.

The great villain in all of this is Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney — usually number one on the list of worst Chief Justices in history. And he didn’t stop at simply declaring all African Americans ineligible for citizenship. He did what the Roberts Court did in Citizens United v FEC — greatly expanding the scope of the case. In Dred Scott, he greatly expanded the power of slave states and indirectly hastened the Civil War. The other dissenting opinion by Benjamin Robbins Curtis was basically that if the Court had no jurisdiction, then it should shut up about territorial matters. That’s a good point, although hardly the morally and legally clear argument that McLean had made.

(Let me just note something that I think is telling. When Sarah Palin was asked what Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with besides Roe v Wade, she had no answer. Neither Dred Scott nor Plessy v Ferguson (“separate but equal”) came to her mind. This is the very definition of white privilege. Over 600,000 people died in the Civil War — our deadliest war for obvious reasons. But she just wasn’t interested in that. There were zygotes that had to be saved!)

I think today, Dred Scott v Sandford is generally considered the worst Supreme Court decision in history. And that’s saying a lot. Because as an institution, it has generally represented the most conservative impulses — stopping the country whenever it tried to expand freedom and empower the powerless. Taney and Scalia and Roberts, for that matter, are not exceptions; they are the rule.

On this day in 1857, England and France started the Second Opium War. Reading Wikipedia, you would think it was complicated. And I suppose in a sense, it was complicated. Everything is. But I think it is one of the most honest wars we’ve ever seen. Basically, it was about trade. The west wanted to keep that sweet sweet trade going because England and France were making a fortune. Forget that it was largely made selling opium. The vilification of that drug is the only reason that the two opium wars today are thought of negatively.

But wars are almost always about economics. It’s not like the Chinese government was the good guys in the Second Opium War trying to keep opium out. They were trying to keep Indian opium out of their country. And that was their right! If countries don’t have the right to control their borders, then they aren’t really countries. And that’s pretty much the way the world has gone since then. We aren’t a world of nations anymore; we are a world of corporations. We are living in a William Gibson dystopia, but no one is willing to admit it for what it is.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not keen on borders and countries. But the Second Opium War was just a matter of might makes right. And it is absolutely what the United States is all about. I still find it extremely frustrating that people don’t think we have an empire just because it doesn’t look like empires of old. Would we have gone to war in the Middle East if it wasn’t for oil? I think I’ve made this analogy before, but the American empire is like the hypermodern chess openings. In the old days, in order to win you needed to occupy and control the center. In hypermodern openings, you only need to control — you don’t need to be there.

In a William Gibson novel, corporations would have their own armies. In the modern world, they don’t need them; the government provides that service for free.