Well we're in agreement, I'm saying nearly exactly the same thing as you, except using "Caesar" to replace "ninja".
"The problem with that thinking is that the skills that ninja used are still practiced by people today, doing the exact same type of missions, some even using the actual ninjutsu skills learned from Japan."
Some techniques had to have been added or changed (not necessarity ALL of them though), because I find it very difficult to believe that ninja techniques have not been altered at all over the centuries with the advancement of technology (every other surviving martial art seems to have changed over the years, why didn't ninjutsu?). If not then theoretically we could take a ninja from ancient Japan with all his equipment and tell him to sneak into the Pentagon without any additional knowledge or skills necessary to complete his mission.
We constantly discuss on these forums how TMA's are not actually traditional, since they are continuously improving and changing to fit our current time period and needs. If ninjutsu does not do this, then it's only a miracle that it survived...
"Riflemen do not exist.
in the 1700's, during the American Revolution, there were riflemen. Their methods were almost completely different from modern riflemen, and it's been a long time since those guys were around. Therefore riflemen do not exist, right? Wrooong."
How is this any different than what I said about Caesars?
How is it any different than this? "In its historical sense, Ninja, similar to samurai, ceased to exist as a social and military group. . .Just as arguing that soldiers in Japan's modern army are in fact samurai is a baseless argument."
So here we are in agreement again.
"Ninja skills are universally applicable to every situation requiring infiltration. As such they have never been lost and the people called ninja still exist."
So is the idea of being a Caesar, the next king of England will in essence be a "Caesar". But this is still VERY different from a Caesar in the Empire, 1st most obvious thing being that England is a democratic Monarchy.
Again in agreement.
"Being fixed on definitions will cause a person to think, 'Because he does not infiltrate castles or houses using a rag doll, he can't be a ninja'. That's the wrong way to look at it and it shows clearly that the word "ninja" is not understood by that person."
Hence the phrase "historical context". Once again, we agree with each other...
"It's a concept, not a fixed definition. Ninja will exist as long as humans infiltrate using ninjutsu techniques, plain and simple"
As long as 1 person retains rule over a country, then so will Caesars.
Were there any women ninjas?
cause that could change a whole lot of what we are discussing. Otherwise, again with agreement.
If you want another example besides Caesar (and more of a concept than a fixed definition), think of the word Spartan and all that it entails in today's connotations. That definintion is very different than the definition of actual Spartans in Classical Greece.
Hint: What does it mean to be Spartan? What would actual Spartans say in response to this?
"It's a concept, not a fixed definition. Ninja will exist as long as humans infiltrate using ninjutsu techniques, plain and simple"
Again, have ninja techniqes changed over the centuries at all? Has the Execution of these techniques changed at all? What is the ancient ninja technique to not getting caught by security surveilance cameras then?
In this day and age, this is certainly a legitimate infiltration question, which the ninja of mid. Japan would not be able to answer.
All in all, I think we are basically saying the same thing in a different light, I say ketchup, you say catsup (can't really do the "tomAto Tomotto" one over the internet
).
Maybe we should declare a ceasefire and agree to disagree...
cause this is about as effective as discussing whether or not the Trojan War existed.....
Edit: can't believe I missed this one...
"Roman legionaires and the like, they ceased to exist because they were a defined fighting unit that flourished and then completely stopped existing. The techniques were lost, the units became useless, disbanded, whatever. "
Ok, using Roman Legionaries as a concept then, they still exist. The idea of breaking a large army into several smaller units commanded by an officer with standardized training and equipment at the expense of the state is the basic core concept of a Roman legion, and in that sense, the U.S. army is a Roman legion, its soldiers being Roman Legionaries.