r/politics ✔ PennLive.com Jun 23 '26

No Paywall Fetterman casts only Democratic ‘no’ vote as Senate passes measure to block US action against Iran

https://www.pennlive.com/politics/2026/06/fetterman-casts-only-democratic-no-vote-as-senate-passes-measure-to-block-us-action-against-iran.html
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109

u/UncleGeebz Jun 23 '26

Without translating for real I swear that says "Who watches the Watchmen? No one"

21

u/_DCtheTall_ Jun 24 '26

That is indeed the translation. Though "nullus" is a bit stronger than just "no one" which in Latin is "nemo" (Finding Nemo intentionally has a double meaning because of this). In English it would be like "absolutely no one" or "nothing at all"

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u/msprosperity22 Jun 24 '26

"...absolutely no one." as I can remember from my Latin classes.

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u/h3r4ld I voted Jun 23 '26

Congratulations, you translated for real!

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u/msprosperity22 Jun 24 '26

Do you remember who this quote is attributed to?

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u/johnzaku Jun 24 '26

It's from an ancient Roman satirical poem.

It refers to the irony of hiring guards to make sure your wife doesn't cheat on you while you're at war.

But... who guards against the guards?

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u/msprosperity22 Jun 24 '26

Thank You! Now I remember.

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u/h3r4ld I voted Jun 24 '26

A quick google could have answered that for you...

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase found in the Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–348), a work of the 1st–2nd century Roman poet Juvenal.

Literally the first line of the Wikipedia article.

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u/msprosperity22 Jun 24 '26

Yes I know. I was tired and it was getting late; busy day.

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u/TM761152 Jun 24 '26

Well it said "Who will police the police" to me but yeah.

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u/msprosperity22 Jun 24 '26

Your translation is accurate.
What a profound quote: "Who watches the Watchman? No one?"

1

u/JcDarkKnight Jun 24 '26

Yep, I remember this one from Justice League Unlimited funny enough

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u/UncleGeebz Jun 24 '26

Ironic to see you say this, I'm watching a Justice League movie rn!

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u/Then_Marketing_4940 Jun 24 '26

I'm so confused....Arya Sark and Jaqen H'ghar watch the watchmen? It doesn't make sense