Unholy Alliance

Yesterday, with Incremental Orwellianism, I presented only the latest example that ought lead everybody to conclude that our two political parties are united -- them against most of the rest of us.

Over the years I've been quizzed on it from the typical sheeple with the questions they've been schooled in by the antidisestablishmentarian "conservative" talk show hosts. "C'mon Pascal. The difference in the positions of the two parties could not be more clear." Although they've long heard the wisdom -- and many even adhere to it -- to "judge a man by his deeds and not his words," they somehow cannot take that same wisdom and apply it to the political party of their choice.

How can two parties be so united even as one of them quite obviously gets angry with the other over the differences in their party's stated goals? They can't ALL be acting can they?

All it takes is for each of the members of the parties to conclude that they are somehow better than the rest of humanity. In that common inclination that they each have something special that other humans lack, they unite against the rest of us. It's another one of those conscience-salving phenomena, somewhat less directly deadly than the radical green concept that the number of humans on the planet must be drastically reduced, but every bit as autocratic in its consequences.

The liberals in the Democratic Party believe that they are purer because they mean well. And the media almost never holds them to account when their hare-brained schemes go awry. The Progressives (who started out in the GOP, but whose mentality has shifted over to the Dems also) always thought themselves the enlightened ones, the ones who knew best, "the best and brightest," the most clever -- yes sneaky -- but the ends justify the means so the libs will accept us even as they don't trust patricians.

So we have one party that gets its most ardent followers from those who think they're more pure at heart than the rest of humanity.
We have another party that is controlled by those who believe themselves to be super clever and better thinkers and planners than the rest of humanity.

They've managed to get along with each other because each is willing to accept the others shortcomings just so long as they get what they want. Were men angels, we would need no government. But also because they who govern are not angels but men subject to the same failings as the governed, checks must be placed on the governors. The American constitution was written with the express intent of limiting what mischief men in government might be inclined to do.

As the consequences of sowing the wind from this unholy alliance between the former adversaries -- where they labored to convince us that they were true adversaries, but they are winking at and not checking each other -- that we now are reaping the whirlwind.

As the world devolves into chaos, remember the sins of those in this unholy alliance, an alliance based on variations in hubris, and then maybe the survivors will be demand humility in their new leaders -- on the pain of death. (A very fine thought on this day that is the pretender to Washington's Birthday on Wednesday. George Washington, the indispensable man whose humility shames the hollow men we have today. It's no wonder that today's rulers wish him forgotten.)

Please God: Deliver us from evil one more time.