Love In A Time of Blindness

I did my best not to pay attention to the doings in the nation's capital yesterday. What little I did not escape only reinforced my belief that I did the right thing. A press, intent on giving the new President a disgusting tongue bath in full view of everyone, complete and utter disrespect of the outgoing President by THE ONE'S faithful acolytes, presumably with the tacit consent of the new President, since it took place in front of him, and he did not raise his divine voice to his ardent admirers in admonishment for their shameful behavior. A tepid inaugural address, met with the screaming adulation of the teeming masses eager to dine on the inanition patronizingly served by the new occupant of the Oval Office, and a racist prayer from a preacher who likely has memorized every major speech Dr. King ever uttered, but who obviously failed to sufficiently grok the meaning of the words.

And today, the work continued. Senate confirmation hearings for a Nominee for Treasury Secretary who deliberately did not pay taxes he owed for years until after he knew he was a nominee. One of several nominees who demonstrate an astonishing brazenness or complete inability to understand and relate to the people they would govern. And the President decided that people so dangerous that their own governments do not want them back have rights under our laws and should be tried in our courts and held on our nation's soil, so that he can keep a dangerously silly promise to close Gitmo.

No position seems to ridiculous for the incoming administration, whether it is a nominee for 'Regulatory Czar' who has gone on record as saying that animals should have the right to sue humans and that hunting should be outlawed, or the financial whiz kid who claimed that it was a mistake that he didn't pay his payroll taxes while he worked for the IMF, despite the fact that they gave him statements of what he owed and he applied for and got the money to pay such taxes. An appointee to the President's vacated seat in the Senate selected by a governor caught red-handed trying to sell the seat. A Presidential Agenda that includes mandatory altruism in the form of compulsive voluntary service, and a civilian defense agency to rival the military. The belief that government, the same people who brought you the IRS and the DMV, should be in the business of providing 'free' health care to everyone, and my personal favorite, a desire to pump billions of taxpayer dollars into the economy to 'stimulate' it, despite the fact that NO ONE will tell us, the folks paying the damn bill, where the billions already spent have actually gone. Instead, we are treated with brusque indignation for having the temerity to ask the question. And everywhere, the ever present theme that only the brilliant minds that THE ONE has tapped to help him lead us can see us through.

I cannot speak for everyone. If I could, then frankly, we would not be facing the absurdity, the corruption, the inefficiency, the arrogance, and the glittering deception that are the hallmarks of the current government of this nation. I can, however, speak for myself. And for myself I say:

The final legitimacy of government is wholly reliant upon the consent of the governed. When you are openly corrupt, when there is a clear double standard, one for those in power and one for the rest of us, when you hold forth as intelligent, and waste beautiful words to say nothing, when you show contempt for those you would presume to lead, when you forget who pays the freight, when you believe government should enter every aspect of our lives, to such a degree that in time we will have to serve it and not the other way around, you set a dangerous standard. Few things are as unhealthy to the continuation of such a government as a complete disrespecting of the body politic and the trust that is a vital component of the social contract underlying the Republic. Such abuse is reprehensible, and the willful indenturing of the individual to the state can only have one ultimate end.
If this President is really as intelligent as he and his supporters would have us believe, then I can only conclude that these provocations are willful; he intends to transform the conflict of beliefs, ideals, and philosophies in to a sad and divisive clash that will separate Americans from each other like they have been no other time since the 1860s. At the same time, I am patient. I will wait. The conflict, if it comes, will be terrible, and the damage it will cause will be like nothing the average person can begin to fathom. Because no God-fearing American relishes the thought of such a butcher's bill, we will wait. We will wait for the final provocation, all the while praying that it will never come.