Hounds of Hubris

Here in the Happy Little Kingdom, I have been following a program about the Brits and the history of their troubled isles. Yesterday, the theme was about the time after the Union and the last Jacobite uprising.

At that time, fed up with centuries of endless wars over power, religion and fine points of succession, they revelled in peace, freedom and a certain prosperity -- and the vision was to share this with the rest of the world.

However, in short order, the United Kingdom dominated the world with what, up to then. was the greatest empire the world had ever known. In short order, millions and millions were enslaved, impoverished, even dieing of starvation to feed the machine that fed the empire.

With an historian to guide you, it's easy to see how it happened, but it's harder to understand why it, almost inevitably had to happen.

Similarly, today, we have our Arrogant Empire which grew both quicker and with ever so much more fragility, and has begun to collapse hardly before being recognized for what it is.

Hoping I will not be accused of snark, I can thankfully say that we have already learned our lessons and Arrogance will never be hounded by the hounds of hubris.