Monte Testaccio, an ancient Roman garbage dump, stands as a reminder of the city’s consumption and trade practices. Located on the outskirts of Rome, this massive mound of broken pottery reaches the height of the Pantheon, towering over the warehouse district. The majority of the pottery shards that comprise Monte Testaccio are remnants of amphorae, specifically those used for transporting olive oil. An estimated 53 million amphorae were discarded here, with a significant portion originating from the province of Baetica in modern-day Andalusia, Spain. At Monte Testaccio, An Entire Mountain is Made Up of Roman Trash 1800-Year-Old Roman Amphora of Olive Oil Contains Quote from the Legendary Virgil During the first to third centuries AD, vast quantities of olive oil were imported to Rome. These amphorae, each capable of holding approximately 70 liters of oil, were shipped from Spain and North Africa. The journey of these amphorae began on estates in Spain, where both free laborers and slaves worked the olive groves. After being filled with oil, the amphorae were transported via river and sea to the bustling harbor of Portus, near Rome. Read moreSection: NewsGeneralEuropeAncient PlacesVideosHistoryRead Later 

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Many today would consider the adjective in the phrase “cynical politics” to be a pleonasm. We may look back wistfully at periods in history when statesmen rose above politics; when those running for public office were not afraid to campaign and govern on noble principles; when an office-seeker’s political career took a back seat while he stood up for what was right; when politicians placed a higher value on morality than on demagoguery and the latest public opinion polls. Lest that sound too gloomy, let us remember that history often moves like a pendulum. We may long with hope and optimism for a future when statesmen will make a comeback over today’s bankrupt ethos of selling your soul if that’s what it takes to win. (READ MORE: Mr. Netanyahu Goes to Washington, and Mr. Biden Comes to Jesus) For the present, though, we must reckon with the utter amorality of the Democratic Party —which is not to assert that there are no amoral individuals in the Republican Party. In a democratic system in which presidents and legislators gain office by winning elections, the goal of winning becomes paramount. Indeed, all other principles and values recede into the background. Today’s Democrat has one cold calculus: Win regardless of what innocent people may be hurt. Joe Biden Has Hardly Approached Politics With a Moral Compass President Joe Biden epitomizes the amoral politician. A lifelong mediocrity of limited ability and questionable ethics (people who went to law school with him remember him as an intellectual dullard and a plagiarizer), Biden went all-in on learning to play the political game at an early age. Like others who have no skills or talents that could translate into achieving distinction in the private workplace (think Bernie and AOC), Biden found a lucrative career in politics by using what can only dubiously be called a “talent” — the ability to spout out glib gobbledygook that pushes voters’ emotional hot buttons and exploits their ignorance, prejudices, and fears. Joe learned the one all-important political lesson: Go along with the leftist mob and pay attention to which way the wind is blowing in the polls. In Biden, we see a Catholic who found it expedient to reject his church’s teachings on abortion and align himself with the politically powerful pro-abortion forces. He would publicly abuse, bully, and humiliate judicial nominees at Senate confirmation hearings (Judge Robert Bork comes to mind) and subsequently approach the devastated family with a smile and the lame explanation, “Don’t take this personally; it’s just the way the game is played.” (READ MORE: The Bloodless Coup of Joe Biden Will Not Work Out Well for Democrats) In decades in the Senate, Joe Biden never crafted any significant legislation. He simply bided his time, watched the polls, and went with the flow. As president, his actions have shown us just how dangerous a politician’s self-serving amorality can be. The President’s Self-Serving Amorality Is Dangerous for Americans Think of the incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan: American servicemen and many Afghani friends of America died simply because Joe wanted to score political points by announcing the withdrawal on Sept. 11, 2021 — the 20th anniversary of 9/11 — an artificially rushed date that left our forces without time to organize an orderly withdrawal. Biden has greatly depleted the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that we maintain to keep us supplied in an emergency. Why? To push gasoline prices lower to mollify voters who were angry about rising gasoline prices. Gaining votes for Democrats was more important to Joe than national security. Biden has treated the lives of American allies (Israelis) and friends (Ukrainians) as expendable, presuming to tell those allies not to fight for victory. Why? Because he needed the votes of Americans who side with Hamas or want to appease Putin. (READ MORE: To the Glue Factory — Go!) In a case of stunning poetic justice, the win-at-all-costs prime directive has come back to bite Biden in the rear. His fellow Democrats turned against his reelection candidacy — not because they objected to his amoral policies, nor because they are opposed to having a doddering, semi-coherent older man struggling with glaringly obvious senility if it advances their socialistic agenda. Once it became inescapably obvious that Biden could not win the November election, and that his candidacy would cause the Democrats to lose key seats in the House and Senate — only then did his fellow Democrats turn against him. They abandoned Biden like rats jumping off a sinking ship. The cold, amoral calculus of doing whatever is necessary to win asserted itself, so Biden had to be dumped. I had thought that Biden might use his recent bout with COVID as a face-saving way to exit the presidential race. Instead, Biden tried to sound like a statesman, solemnly stating that he felt he had to step aside for the good of others. Alas, playing the statesman is an unfamiliar role for Biden. He is a partisan through and through, and so he announced that he was withdrawing for his party’s sake first and his country’s sake second. (His exact words were, “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down…”.) Biden’s departure is no victory for our country. His party will nominate someone similarly amoral in his place. The post Joe Biden and the Democratic Party Are Amoral appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.