'Barack for Abdul'

And, uh, I wanna begin today's podcast by, uh, revisiting our theme [laughs] and, uh, telling you what we're talking about.

Uh, we're talking about the crises of the third century.

And, uh, the crises of the third century is what historians have, have described as this period of time in the third century of the Roman Empire where the Roman Empire, uh, experiences many crises.

Uh, civil wars, economic c- uh, crises, foreign invasions from the barbarians, uh, debasements of currency, political instability.

Um, m- again, migration.

That's the barbarian invasions and assassinations.

Many, uh, assassinations of, uh, Roman leaders during this period of time.

Plague.

Uh, and it was a series of crises that, again, historians have dubbed the crises of the third century.

And the United States is currently in our third century, and we are also in crises.

We have m- uh, many crises.

So far we've identified the, uh, crises with our elections, uh, which is political crises, our education crises.

You- we- we've got a seriously dumbed-down country, and it's intentional.

All these crises are intentional.

That's, that's the point that I've been making.

And the, the, the other part of the theme is that, uh, we have been brought to this moment of crises here in the United States, which is different from, uh, what happened in the Roman Empire.

I don't believe that there was this, you know, cabal working to undermine the Roman Empire intentionally.

This is just, you know, what happened.

In the Roman Empire, uh, the crises of the third century, it came after a period of time in the Roman Empire that, which is known as Pax Romana.

Pax Romana means the Roman peace, and this is a 200-year period in the Nerva and Antonine dynasty where, uh, some historians have called this the, the, uh, best time to be alive in all of human history, living in the Roman Empire during Pax Romana, that it was the closest to utopia that human- that humans have ever come during the period of Pax Romana.

And talked about this millions of times on this podcast, um, relating to this history because if you watch the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe, the first movie is about the death of Marcus Aurelius.

Marcus Aurelius is the last of what is called the Five Good Emperors.

The Five Good Emperors in the Nerva and Antonine dynasty is what makes up this period of Pax Romana.

And, um, it was the high point of the Roman Empire.

This is when they reached their, their zenith.