The traitor is the plague.

[Louis1895]

A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city.

But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero, from a speech given to the Roman Senate, recorded in approximately 42 B.C. by Sallust.

http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/07/cicero-treason-from-within.html

[dchill]

1. Word!

[klook]

2. "The Imaginative Conservative"?

Surely there's a better source for a Cicero quote.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Isn't "imaginative conservative" an oxymoron?

[Louis1895]

4. I thought the source was a bit ironic! n/t

[Akamai]

5. And so all the Republican leaders are traitors as well. It's not clear the hour and day they sold

themselves, their souls, their families, but they have done so. And they are very willing to sell all of us as well.

[msdjg]

6. Rep. Leaders as guilty as trump

It has become more apparent since trump has been elected that the rep. party has indeed SOLD OUT. They have put party ahead of the country they were sworn in to serve and protect. A sad day for this country, along with all the actions of this administration. I pray this mess will be over and soon..

[DesertRat]

7. Amen

And welcome to DU!

[Hortensis]

8. +100. They have lost their way and have been

voting the logo on their caps instead of the vaunted "values" they pretend to cling to for a long time now.

Welcome to DU, Msdjg.