Cord Byrd: “let us go back 2,000 years to the small family farms on the Italian peninsula. Those small family farms produced the…”

“let us go back 2,000 years to the small family farms on the Italian peninsula. Those small family farms produced the rugged soldiers who helped ancient Rome to conquer all of the countries around the Mediterranean basin. Those family farms produced men and women who believed in the gods. They were pagan gods, but those ancient Romans believed in those gods, venerated their forefathers, their ancestors, taught their children to respect authority, to respect law, to respect the state. And the ancient Romans felt that the gods had in mind a particular destiny for their country. Each Roman felt that it was his duty to help to promote that destiny of his state. And then came the latifundia, the great corporate farms. Senators bought up land. They became huge farms. The farmers, the peasants, left the land and migrated into the cities and became a part of the mob that sought the theater and free bread. And when that happened, remember that the Roman legions, which constituted the greatest military fighting machine of that time, were able to get their recruits from the farms. When the peasants left the land, left the home, and the home deteriorated and the belief in the gods dimmed and faded, the great Roman Senate weakened, lost its way, lost its nerve, and without being forced to ceded to the dictators--the Caesars, and later the Emperors--the power of the purse, that was the beginning of the end. Rome collapsed. The same thing has happened here in America.…”