The Hades of Hubris – LRC Blog

Not only is Robert Barnes a master litigator and top-notch attorney but one of the most in depth, articulate, well read and street-smart experienced political analysts in the nation. Whether it involves the institutionalized criminal machine cartels of the Democrats and Republicans or the deep state, he is a true polymath reminiscent of Murray N. Rothbard in his power elite analysis of Realpolitik.

Closing Argument: The Hades of Hubris

• The Greeks warned of it. History repeats with lessons of its own. Scholars and literary authors list it like the heel of Achilles and the wings of Icarus – how the great and mighty fall. The Bible identifies it as the great calamitous sin – from Lucifer’s fall to the Tower of Babel’s collapse, from Goliath’s loss to Nebuchadnezzar’s judgment. Hubris, the “haughty spirit” that beckons a deep fall, now infects the leaders of the west, even the President himself, and now its consequences threaten us all.
• The clinical definition of hubris typically develops in individuals who hold significant power. Its characteristics encompass:  a magnified, embellished view of one’s own capabilities; obsession with personal image; contempt for criticism; loss of contact with reality; a reckless, uncalculated disregard of risk; a denial of dissent. An infection of the soul, an illness of the mind, rather than a permanent trait of a stable personality.
• The tell-tale signs of Hubris include – recent overwhelming success or power; dis-sociality disregarding others from one’s own traditional community; disinhibition into impulsiveness without calculated regard for risk; condescension, and even contempt, for others and any form of criticism; a belief in oneself above others beyond reason or wisdom.
• The decaying, declining empires frequently feature hubris, as Professor Paul Kennedy first penned in his Rise and Fall of Great Powers. The empire’s hubris — overconfidence in their “specialness” tends to overextend themselves in risky expressions – manifest in multiple manners, such as imperial overreach; mismatch between resources & risks; overestimation of their own capabilities; military operations globally as a nation’s global military deployment exceeds its resource capacity; persistent debt and deficits, in public and private sectors, including in balance-of-trade and budgets, as dependency on foreign adversaries rise; diverting resources to overseas adventurism diminishes the public infrastructure, human and physical; a declining industrial sector, replaced with financialization and services, often shifting its dependence on real goods and labor, it’s true capital, to foreign nations; deepening internal divisiveness, as competing interests vie for diminishing resources; bureaucratic infighting as the parasitic state replaces the functioning private economy for material wealth and moral purpose; a moral decay in the institutions of society, religious, social and communal, as the material foundation for that moral prosperity fades and fractures.
• What happens when you survive two impeachments, four indictments, and near assassination? Could the seductress of Hubris distract your soul and deceive your mind? Does this not well capture much of the modern west, and even Trump’s six-month flirtation with Hubris as his north star?
• The cure remains the same as the Scripture teaches and the Greek myths proclaim – a needed nemesis to teach us humility as the answer to hubris. Avoid the fall; abandon the arrogance, and listen again, to the people who truly were his wall against wrongdoers.

1:18 pm on November 12, 2025

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