Cicero’s first oration against Catiline is a rhetorical classic. In translation it opens something like this: “How far will you [continue to] abuse our patience, Catiline? For how much longer will that rage of yours make a mockery of us? To what point will your unbridled audacity show itself?”
Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka puts me in mind of Cicero’s famous oration in his letter to Governor Walz this past Friday asking how much longer he will continue to exercise emergency powers under one-man rule. Anthony Gockowski reports on the letter here for Alpha News.
Anthony quotes the conclusion of Senator Gazelka’s letter: “I strongly suggest you identify and communicate to all Minnesotans the criteria that will be used in determining when we are no longer under a peacetime emergency declaration. We have flattened the curve, no Minnesotan has been denied necessary medical treatment, and, thankfully, our hospitals have not needed to use their surge capacity. There is no longer an emergency.”
My translation: For how much longer will that rage of yours make a mockery of us, Governor Walz?
Day 169 of Gov. Walz’s emergency powers #mnleg pic.twitter.com/Mnh3VVFAYR
— Paul Gazelka (@paulgazelka) August 28, 2020
