Labor, Pietas, and Fatum
The great Roman Poet Virgil summarized the virtues of the Roman Republic in three words:
These three words played a vital role in shaping Colonial America and in essence led the American culture up until the Civil War.
When Virgil wrote of the Romans in the Aeneid these three words were used to describe that best of Roman character:
He used the word labor to describe the concept of self-reliance and ownership. Taking care of one’s self without government intervention. For the American founders, the roman general Cincinnatus was the ultimate model of manliness and the concept of self-reliance.
Today Pietas or piety means to be a good church-goer. To the Romans, it was a deep sense of devotion and duty first to family, community, then to the state or nation. It was the sense of a connection to your past ancestors and to the future, to those who would yet come into the family after you where gone. Pietas was a deeply felt cultural norm during the 200 years of the Roman Republic.
And Fatum was the sense that Rome had a divine mission to bring peace and prosperity to the rest of the world.
Virgil and many other roman authors were read extensively by the American founders. The Founders called themselves “ the New Romans.”
The problems we face today in America are directly related to the disregard or complete ignorance Americans have of these concepts.
The concepts of Labor, Pietas and Fatum or in other words, self-reliance, family, national legacy and Manifest Destiny are what made America the greatest country in the world.
But when did we forget?
When did we choose to stop taking care of ourselves in favor of constantly looking for hand-outs from the government.
When did we stop feeling responsible to set an example for our great-grand-children yet unborn? When did we stop thinking about the future of our families; two, three, even four generations into the future?
When did we stop seeing ourselves as a blessing to all nations? To the less-fortunate huddled masses in the communist and totalitarian countries around the globe?
It all starts with us; you and me. Things get better in America—when and only when they first get better in our homes and communities.
American education gets better—when and only when you and I as adults and parents decide that we need more education and choose to lay down the TV remote and pick-up a book.
I love my country and my fellow-citizens. I love my family. I believe that you love these same things. It is time for us to take our lives back. It is time to take our destinies into our own hands and re-commit to become New American Founders.