Skip to main content
Well, I took a test today in pursuit of gainful employment. It was the same test I failed on the 13th. I can't do any better. If I didn't pass, then the work is beyond me. You do what you can. That's all we can ask of ourselves.
I'm trying to do this because I need money, and I need to feel useful. It seems like a good opportunity. What doesn't seem like a good choice for me is politics. It makes me angry. It's not that I feel like I am completely devoid of the patience and good humor needed, but what I do lack is patience for stupid people. The sort of people who can opine for 20 minutes about how much they like the president, how he's getting a raw deal, etc. but can't actually tell you one policy they favor or why. I don't despise liberals; it's "default liberals" that annoy me. More than that, some of these people hate their opponents with a fervor only matched by their complete ignorance. Yes, I believe that most people commonly associated with "the Left" in our country are stupid. Maybe not intentionally so, but true nonetheless. That's still better than being called backward, evil, and racist, which just comes with the territory if you are not a leftist. If you're a Christian, just forget it. You might as well report to the re-education camps now. Unless you are confirmed as the sort who won't raise an inconvenient fuss about human dignity, freedom, and proper constitutional processes, among other outmoded ideas.
You might be thinking to yourself, "Oh, boy, another partisan rant from a Republican lackey" and you'd be wrong. I believe in many things old "progressives" used to fight for: No stupid wars, no death penalty, no corruption and waste in our government. Senator Paul Simon and other Democrats used to shame public officials for wasting our money. What happened to that? Super-liberal types could be counted on to automatically oppose capital punishment, rightly arguing that it was unfairly applied. In short, there used to be anti-authoritarian reasons to believe these things, and they made common cause with right-leaning Americans naturally distrustful of government power.
Well, let me be blunt: I forgive anyone the opinion that our Republican Party exists to make war, and to enforce the cultural prerogatives of a privileged race, because it may well be true. Not that the party of Jefferson fares any better; they exist to make war on our own people, to advocate foreign adventures that never actually occur, and to reflexively oppose those begun by a Republican, though undertaken for the very humanitarian justifications they proferred previously. Their belief in personal autonomy is absolute, unless of course you desire it to extend to the wealth that, by hard work, you have been made a steward. (Or to the defenseless.) As I said, they may permit you to be a "Christian," provided that you don't actually believe it, or you don't oppose any of the State's grand goals on principle. If you had to sum up what the Democratic Party stands for, you might be able to do it in two ideas: social democracy (or worse) and sexual deviance. That's barely worse than the GOP main ideas: empty rhetoric and symbolism. As long as we appear OK, then we are.
You might be thinking to yourself: "Ah, another facile retreat to the 'Pox on both your houses' defense." And I might be guilty of that, it's true. But if I just said that our political class was equal parts corrupt and stupid, I'd bet a lot of folks would agree. But maybe some of my friends are right; I take politics too seriously; I'm too passionate, too immoderate. Sorry; it's just that public affairs has become a talent show with no talent, and I feel like I should say so. I'm neither inclined nor allowed to sacrifice truth or life on the twin altars of politeness or diplomacy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
Hilarious Com-Box Quote of The Day: "I was caught immediately because it is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Acts of the Holy Spirit Acting Erratically."--Donald Todd, reacting to the inartful opposition of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium. Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, had suggested that today's "confusion" in evangelicalism replicates a confusion on the day of Pentecost. Mr. Todd commented after this reply , and the original article is here. My thoughts: By what means was this Church-less "consensus" formed? If the Council did not possess the authority to adjudicate such questions, who does? If the Council Fathers did not intend to be the arbiters, why do they say that they do? At the risk of being rude, I would define evangelicalism as, "Whatever I want or need to believe at any particular time." Ecclesial authority to settle a particular question is a step forward, but only as long as, "God alone is Lord of the con

Just Sayin.' Again.

One interesting objection to this chart has been to say that one gets stuck in a "loop" that doesn't resolve. This is a thinly-veiled way of putting forward the argument that we don't need absolute certainty in religious dogma. But Fred Noltie already dealt with this in the comments on another post. And to the specific objector, no less. I'll be blunt: The only principled thing to do is put down your Bible, resign your pulpit, and lead tours in Europe. Because a man must be able to distinguish dogma from human opinion, and this epistemology doesn't allow us to do that. One of dogma's distinguishing characteristics is infallibility; another is certainty. Without this, essential characteristics of God Himself are put into question. If we say that the most important Person any person could know is God, and the content of that knowledge (doctrine) is the means by which we know Him, it must be certain. This Reformed argument that certainty is a dangerous or un