my objections to this essay spring from the fact that Biden doesn't actually say anything about history in that off-the-cuff comment you quote, and yet you attribute this elaborate historical theory to him with no evidence that he believes it, or has ever even thought about this subject. Biden was just expressing concern about the recent mass shootings, and responding to a common argument against gun control.. The essay would have been much better if you had just left out the Biden quote. I did think the image of Biden as Xerxes was a pretty impressive piece of photo shopping, even if I disagreed with its implied message.

There are some points in your essay I disagree with. Sparta was an oligarchic monarchy, not a democracy. I'm reasonably sure that the only democractic City State in Greece at that time was Athens. There is a tremendous difference between an enemy who has a lot more swords than you do, and an enemy who has Nuclear weapons when you don't. And the examples you gave of little countries beating big countries were all examples of people fighting on their own soil. It would be much more difficult, in fact I would say impossible, to overthrow the US government on its own soil with nothing but AK-47s. That was Biden's point, and he was right. It has nothing to do with all this ancient history.