Don Wildmon

AFA/AFR founder

August 1996 – I stood again last Spring in the ruins of the Colosseum in Rome. As I did, my mind wandered back to what that Colosseum represented in its day. There people, 50,000 of them, would gather to watch man and man, or man and beast go against each other to the death. It was a national pastime, officially endorsed and encouraged by the powers that were.

The crowd went there to see blood, and they weren’t often disappointed. After two humans (considered nothing more than animals by the Romans) fought until one had conquered the other, the conqueror waited while the Caesar and/or the crowd made the decision – life or death. More times than not, it was death. Blood. Red. Real. Gushing. Blood. Spilled on the earth, rushing over the body. The crowd delighted in that. Cheers went up as the blood came out. It was a thrilling, exciting sight to behold in ancient Rome.

There were some who spoke against the ritual. But they were a “small, vocal minority” in the eyes of those who controlled the event and gained financially from it. After all, “it was what the people wanted to see.” No one was forced to attend the event. It was “just entertainment, nothing more and nothing less.” And those who put on the show certainly had done nothing they were ever ashamed of. Their job was to “give the people what they want.” And that was violence. Gory. Sadistic. Cruel.

Not far from the Colosseum was the Caesar’s palace. Ah, the glory of Rome. There they had their sexual orgies. No holds barred. The people were only animals and “sex was a part of life.” There was no morality attached to sex. Adultery, fornication, bestiality, sodomy, incest –  take your choice. In Rome it was all accepted. Rome had no hang-ups, no “narrow minded prudes” trying “to force their values on others.” Rome was sexually liberated.

The glory of Rome. Freedom without restraint. Freedom without responsibility. Pure, complete, absolute freedom. No discrimination. Total and complete acceptance.

Today the glory of Rome is gone, nothing more than a dot in the history book of time. The glory of Rome faded, replaced by memories. Memories and destruction.

We don’t have the Caesars such as Nero, Tiberius and Titus today. Today we have ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Instead of the blood in the dust of the Colosseum now we have it in our living rooms in full “living” color. Our sex isn’t relegated only to the palaces today. Now it comes with increasing visibility into our homes and our minds.

Some speak out today. But they are “prudes, a small vocal minority who try to force their values on others.” And our violence and sex, just as it was in ancient Rome, is a real money maker. After all, someone has to “give the people what they want,” to “satiate their desires.”

The glory of Rome. It can never happen again, can it? The unbridled use of freedom. Humans being what they are, they learn from past experiences. They know what lies ahead if a certain path is followed so they follow other paths. We have learned from history. Right?

Culture is taught. And, I might add, also sold at a handsome profit. Rome will never fall again. That doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is that perhaps two thousand years down the road a writer might perhaps sit at his computer and write a story about the “glory of America.” It will probably begin like this:

“I stood again last Spring in the ruins of the studios of CBS….”