patrick.net

Philippus, during his tribunate, when he proposed the agrarian law (which he readily suffered to be rejected, behaving in the matter with great moderation), while in defending the measure he said many things adapted to cajole the people, did mischief by the ill-meant statement that there were not in the city two thousand men that had any property. It was a criminal utterance, tending to an equal division of property, than which what more ruinous policy can there be? Indeed, states and municipalities were established chiefly to insure the undisturbed possession of private property; for though under the guidance of Nature men were brought together, still it was with the hope of guardianship for their property that they sought the defence of cities. ...

Those, therefore, who desire to be popular, and with that view either attempt agrarian measures,1 that the occupants of the public domains may be driven from their homes, or advocate the remission of debts,2 are undermining the foundations of the state, — in the first place, harmony, which cannot exist when money is taken from some and debts are cancelled for others; in the next place, equity, which is utterly destroyed, if hindrances are laid in the way of men’s keeping their own property. For, as I said above, this belongs to the very idea of a state and a city, that the protection of every man’s property should be certain and not a subject of solicitude. Moreover, by measures thus ruinous to the state men do not gain the favor that they anticipate. He from whom property is taken becomes their enemy. He to whom it is given conceals his desire to receive it, and especially in the case of debt cancelled, hides his joy, lest he may be suspected of having been insolvent. On the other hand, he who is wronged remembers it, and keeps his grievance in full sight.1 Nor if those to whom property is wrongfully given are more numerous than those from whom it has been unjustly taken, are they therefore possessed of more influence; for these matters are determined, not by number, but by weight. ...

The reason RW Young Men are so isolated and alone is any other generation they'd be able to form In-Person single sex, ethnic-exclusive ideological clubs and built intensive social trust that way.

In the 1850s or early 1900s they could form ideological militia regiments.

but today they face Fed threat.

This posed a great challenge:

How can radical right wing young men network without minorities and chicks ruining it?

How can they build trust that they aren't feds?

How can they avoid Rico Charges and government suspicion?

One man found the answer.

In what way in the modern world can networks of young men pour endless hours into Maoist Struggle Sessions, demonstrations of loyalty, ideological radicalization, wargaming of tactics and weapons, physically demanding group outings, and political purification... All without attracting the interests of Feds or Women? All without being observable by the NSA? All while actually interacting with their fellow human beings IN PERSON?

It was an impossible question... With the most extraordinary of answers.

Book Club.

it was on the tip of everybody's mouth... That legend just gave it a name.

Right now in hundreds, maybe thousands, of cells across America, young men are attaining the classical educations the longhouse, cathedral, synagogue, and bathhouse would deny them, whilst attaining a level of radicalization hitherto unknown in the history of religion and ideology.

All by following their trademark rules under threat of death.

The First Rule:
You do not talk about book club.

The Second Rule:
You do not text or message about book club

The Third Rule:
You do not bring your phone to book club.

The Fourth Rule:
You do not fail to do the reading.

The Fifth Rule:
If it's your first night at book club, you have to do a dramatic reading.

With these 5 simple rules, hell was unleashed.

Already Book Club cells are acting as mercenary hitmen for the cartels and have networked into special operations groups from Special Operations Forces, to the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, to the French Foreign Legion, to Wagner Group...

Already Ukrainian conscripts have met their end when behind them a voice whispered:

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"

But these are not the stories that are most keenly whispered through the Book Club rumor network.

The stories they love most are the stories of loyalty.

A young member of Book Club in Minnesota fell afoul of his fellows. Whilst reading Caesar's Gallic War's for the second time ("great books must not only be read, they must be reread" Book Club Maxim XIX), the young member misspoke mistaking the Helvetii and Belgae. This provoked the accusation that he had not done the reading, and panicking, aiming to prove he had done so he confused the Germanic Suebi with the Cimbri from Plutarch's life of Marius.

This not only seemingly confirmed his failure, but that he had failed to read the gallic wars even the first time...

For this grave offense they beat him within an inch of his life and ditched him on the streets of St Paul's Near George Floyd square. however he survived, and when roused by the doctors and questioned by police this delirious 17 year old stuck to his training and remained loyal. He insisted that he had been set upon by two black Tim Walz supporters in "I'm with Her" shirts. That as they attacked his "Privileged Cracker ass" they kept saying "This is IVF country”... and that when he came to he had a Coat Hanger around his neck... And just kept screaming and screaming in flashback to the abortion a teacher tried to persuade his mother to have.

The police got nothing. And that 17 year old was allowed to return next week this time making no mistakes when asked about the finer details of the circumvallation performed by Caesar at Alesia.

Others are not so lucky. One fed claimed to have done all the readings. Claimed to be a loyal member, but after rumors of him speaking with mysterious sunglasses wearing normies surfaced, something had to be done.

Taken on "book club tour" he was led to the desert where he believed they were digging up a dead drop weapons cache. Whilst digging he was asked for his opinion whether he thought it right or wrong that Napoleon had failed to break the siege at Borodino and free Massena and his men, instead opting for a strategic opening that may have won the campaign...

The suspect answered that he thought it wrong to leave Massena and his men starving in Borodino when they had so loyally held out against all odds.

Wrong answer.

Napoleon had left Massena starving in GENOA! In Italy. Borodino was a battle in Russia.

It was the second time he was mistaken that day. He thought he'd been digging a weapons cache. In reality he'd been digging a grave.

Through such whispered stories has it become a truism in Book Club:

Feds can't read.

Whether the high pace of reading book club demands is simply incompatible with full time federal work, or whether the raw hours of attention required is incompatible with leading a double life and trying to relax on downtime... Or if it simply is true that the Feds hire only 115 IQ midwits incapable of true deep reading and understanding of 130 IQ classical texts...

Either way, the iron rule remains the same:

Feds can't read.

And in the bloody logic of book club this implies the Aristotelian inference:

Those who don't read are Feds.

It takes an iron resolve and a mind like a titanium safe to make it in Book Club... but for that rare breed amongst even them who would rise to leadership, who would be entrusted with knowledge beyond the tightly air-gapped cell network of individual book clubs, for those who would join the overlapping network of Centurions... The standards are even higher.

In One rumoured election ceremony, after gaining support amongst his brother readers.... A candidate, without prior notice, was stripped naked and observed for physical imperfection and/or body fat percentage above 12% (it is said candidates cut aggressively in anticipation of selection), he then submitted to having makeup placed over his face like some Egyptian whore and was given only a bathrobe and a wooden Gladius, thus this Pseudo Gio Scotti was booted out of a car a few blocks from a Hells Angels clubhouse.

His mission?

To return the 200 miles to book club before sunrise with one of the hell's Angels full-patch vests without getting captured, hospitalized, or receiving any assistance not taken via threat, fraud, theft, or force.

He succeeded.

This is what these people consider a joke.

What the ultimate goal of book club is, what they aim to achieve... It is said one can only truly understand that once one has memorized the campaigns of Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, and Generalfeldmarschall von Moltke the Elder, and become fluent in Greek, Latin, Anglo-Norman French, and 19th Century German.

Some argue their goal is Chaos itself, that once they have become the Classically Educated men they aspire to be, only unending war itself could truly be their home country, that peace could only disappoint such Gods of the battlefield. That should they conquer the world their fun could only continue by fighting yet more conquests against each other.

But who could dream up such madness? Who begat the first book club? Who taught the first apostles of the codex and raised the first centurions?

People are always asking me if I know Alexander Trajan Augustus Barbarossa Trump the 3rd...