Gladiators

 I remember from my history classes that when gladiators first started fighting in the games, a lot of rich spoiled romans from the upper classes saw how the masses adored successful gladiators and they decided that they wanted to fight in the arena too.  What came next was a slaughter and the upper classes were quickly banned from the arena for their own safety.  

Fast forward to now.  I moved to a well off area.  I'm surrounded by people covered in tattoos, that are cut, and walk around looking hard.  To me they are the wannabe gladiators of the past.  The tattoos mean they are people of means, those tats aren't cheap.  Cut, means they have time to hit the gym all the time, again a product of having leisure time which is usually generated by wealth.  And the hard look to me is all them wanting to appear like gladiators.  But just like the Patricians of old pretending to be hard Plebeians, if the enter the arena they will fold.

Macro this out to American society in general.  We have a lot of machismo rich males thinking they are rambos.  Once we face a "near peer" in a conflict I worry all these idiots will fold.  Most are painfully oblivious to the decline of their society.  They are from the upper crust and their interest are secured, so they can drive their jeeps out in the desert, shoot their guns once in a while, bang the stupid bimbos that are attracted to them, and fantasize about being hard without any real cost to them.  All the while their non-participation and non-attention to the various problems in society causes those problems to fester and grow.  Less tats more attention to what is going on would be nice.

These tattoo covered idiots are just starting to bum me out.  Rich kids in role play.  Note I know people from the streets that look similar, but on the inside are true gladiators that have overcome serious challenges to achieve much.  What are these idiots that clog up the coffee shops during the week and the desert off road trails on the weekend achieved other than living on the wealth generated by ones that left it to them, either in the form of trust funds or businesses already built that run themselves?

These guys bum me out.