I thought Gladiator was pretty good, but the storyline fell out toward the end and got too predictable.

And I almost forgot one of the best WWII movies I have seen (or more like a series) - Band of Brothers. Schindler's List is also very moving, as is The Pianist (all of a sudden I'm remembering all these movies).

I haven't seen Gettysburg, but about a month ago I watched Gods and Generals, which is supposed to be the precursor to Gettysburg. I thought that Glory was also a good Civil War movie.

I saw a documentary not too long ago that talked about the true story behind Enemy at the Gates. I think it said that there was a good number of female snipers for the Soviet Union during WWII.

Good historical movies are hard to come by, yet when they do they can make for some of the best films.

Yes, I agree that those are the manifestations of conservativism/liberalism in modern times. Now taking this back to de Tocqueville, I think that the bare essence of what he admired (in the passage I provided) is represented more in conservative thought than in liberal (one might say that conservativism is therefore more in line with traditional Americana than liberalism). De Tocqueville saw that people care more for what is near them; they take more responsibility for their decisions and actions when their personal lives are affected by those same decisions and actions.

I think that it is the cumulative effect of local community action that spurs the great results. The centralized systems of Europe that de Tocqueville referred to can only macromanage to achieve results; however, these results won't be the kind that is associated with the greatness of a truly decentralized system where all the parts of the machine are producing.

That’s a good list of “key ingredients” that make up a strong civilization. However, I’m not sure that Europeans necessarily had a “head start” on all the NW civs.; the Maya were building structures near 1000 B.C., which would have placed them before even Rome. As far as natural resources, I think that the Inca, Maya, and Aztec Empires were not deprived of such, and as they were all located near oceans, and they had access for trade and development. The NW civs didn’t experience war the same as European nations did, yet they had their own battles. This lack of regular war – or relative confinement from other superpowers -probably played a huge factor in their development.

Your point about Christianity and prosyletizing is well taken. Such activities require proactive steps to travel and go outside one's confines - yet one could argue that Christianity only began after the Romans has already built a good transportation system and had already mastered the art of war.

One thing of note - the NW civilizations were all essentially warm-weathered people; Europe, however, developed in a largely cold-weathered world. Perhaps this had something to do with technology advancement in terms of food, shelter, and community.

I haven’t studied the issue, but based on my readings of Greek texts it did seem like a common occurrence. What I meant by saying the homosexual references in Plato’s Symposium were “contextual” was that they weren’t there as the main thrust of the book, which was an attempt to determine the meaning of “love”, philosophically-speaking. In other words, I doubt it was a gay apologetic work.

Having not seen Alexander the movie, I can't really comment on it; however, given the nature of modern socio-political agendas, I wouldn't put it past Oliver Stone to put that stuff in his movie for reasons other than mere historical accuracy.

As far as the Symposium, I think the homosexual references are merely contextual as the guests discuss their definitions of love. Although I would have to read it again to develop and refresh my insights, the book presents an interesting dialogue when we separate mere “belief” (embodied by most guest dialogues) from “knowing” (embodied by Socrates’ dialogue). The Republic is another good book, though I haven’t studied that one in depth quite as much.

As far as Marcus Aurelius' quote - yes, it sounds like it's something the British might have used later on in the justification of governing norms. I'm sure there are essays out there linking the two.

I have heard about McDermott and he has a point. His arguments are clearly borrowing from J.G.A. Pocock’s The Machiavellian Moment where he argues that the Florentine Republic (Catholic of course) served as a political model for Jefferson and Madison. However, the ideas that formulated the synthesis which created the Declaration of Independence and later the Constitution, came from the Scotish Enlightenment (Berkeley) and of course John Locke (though many historians wish to efface him from the formula all together). Other influences were Lord Bolingbroke who received quite a large amount of affection by Jefferson and I have to toss in Montesquieu. Rousseau should not be forgotten entirely either. Locke covered the arguments of natural law quite well saying that moral law is paramount to the vitality of virtue and necessary for government to be efficacious. Natural law would fit more into Machiavelli’s world and the world of Thomas Hobbs. Of course Aquinas would have made a good Calvinist since he found Predestination and Providence to be complimentary aspects of the human condition. The synthesis could also include David Hume where human inquiry is involved, but this is much harder to prove. I think Calvinism and evangelicalism played a crucial role by the time of the Constitutional Convention, but perhaps not so much for the Declaration of Independence.

For constitutional arguments that led to the Declaration of Independence, see John Phillip Reid. He has a book on the Constitutional Arguments of the Revolution which basically proved that the colonists felt their charter remained in the hands of the king and that Parliament held no claim to them. Also, Reid argued that the colonists were still clinging to property rights instead of title rights as Parliament was so doing. In other words, the colonists viewed their rights rested in material possession (and so with the king who owned all of the land), whereas Pariament held the title of the sovereign via the Commons which "virtually" represented colonists 3000 miles away. Good stuff really....check him out.