Somewhat related to our current topic.
David
If
you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the
newspaper you are misinformed.--Mark
Twain
June 05, 2010
Homo Politicus
By Bruce Walker
Everything today
is political. George Orwell understood this sixty years ago when he
wrote:
In our age there
is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political
issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred
and schizophrenia.
It used to be
that education simply guided the acquisition of knowledge and skills;
that film, television and music diverted us from the problems of life;
that our system of justice was proudly independent of politics; that
churches and synagogues provided an elevation above worldly things; and
that professions and their organizations concerned themselves with
integrity rather than pandering to the powerful.
Now politics has
become the superstructure of life. "Politics" is not "government." In
fact, the politicization of government is a reason for many miseries.
In the field of justice, politics meant that O.J. Simpson and Bill
Clinton were acquitted in their trials, while Scooter
Libby and Ted
Stevens were convicted*. The politicization of justice means that Black
Panthers threatening voters with nightsticks were
never arrested, while the Duke Lacrosse Team, with no real evidence at
all, were arrested and damned for being young white males. Politics
prevents government from controlling our borders. Politics means that
all reasonable profiling of young Moslem males for terrorism is
forbidden, even if that may save lives. Government is now almost
completely run by politics.
If government is
not politics, then politics is not ideology. Those on what we call the
"left" do not believe in anything at all, really. Their God is power,
plunder, and punishment of heretics. Socialism is an odious misology,
but on the left, those who want everything to be political do not
believe a single tenet they espouse.
Al Gore has a huge
carbon footprint...and people are shocked? His fairy tale of global
warming is meant just to help him get money, honor, and attention --
and nothing else. Barack Obama is a closet socialist who does not help
his impoverished family. Why? He no more believes in redistributing
wealth than a snake oil salesman in Dodge City believed that his tonic
cured gout. Feminists flack for Clinton's savage treatment of women and
ignore Moslem crimes toward women. Leftist instructors leave their
students profoundly ignorant, instead of truly educated. Leftist
pseudo-ideology is a convenient fraud used by those who would be our
masters.
This ooze of
wretched politicization now infects our private life as well. The last
two years, the runner-up in the Miss USA pageant may have lost the
title for giving politically incorrect answers to questions. Carrie
Prejean made the
stunning statement that she believes that marriage is between a man and
a woman. Elizabeth
Woolard caused a
stir by answering a question about Arizona's new immigration law by
declaring that she believes in state's rights.
It did not
matter that Carrie's whole statement about gay marriage was carefully
balanced and began with these lines: "Well, I think it's great that
Americans are free to choose one way or the other. We live in a land
where you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage." It did not matter that
Elizabeth, after saying that she supported states' rights, went on to
say: "I'm against illegal immigration, but I'm also against racial
profiling, so I see both sides of the issue."
It did not matter
that these two young women did not choose which questions to answer.
Servile profession of the party line is now required for even people in
traditionally apolitical fields of human activity -- like beauty
contests -- to succeed.
Our world, more
and more, looks like the dying carcass-to-be of Soviet Russia. Those in
Russia who did not join the Communist Party in the Soviet Union could
rise only so far in Soviet society. It did not much matter whether
these people believed in Marxist-Leninism (in fact, books written by
dissidents expose the grotesque fact that no one in the Soviet Union,
especially those at the top, believed in Marx or Lenin -- they
believed, instead, in wealth, perks, and privilege). Those who want to
rise in American society, more and more, had better mouth the party
line. The species Homo sapiens in America has been supplanted
by the new Frankenstein's monster, Homo politicus.
No area of our
life, it seems, is free from exhortations to follow the transitory
goals of the Party. Quit tobacco and destroy the tobacco companies!
Punish those oil companies who fuel our cars and those fast food
companies whose burgers we buy! Homo politicus lives in a
universe in which he is surrounded by what the Party wants him to see
and hear. He must echo that or face exile.
Because text is
dangerous to the Party, Homo politicus, like everyone in Fahrenheit
451, lives in a world without text. Minions like Holder and
Napolitano condemn bills which they have never read. The image of the
Arizona law is much more important than the actual language of the
bill. Homo politicus expects leaders to look good and to read
canned speeches beautifully from a teleprompter -- they do not need to
grasp the meaning of what the teleprompter displays.
If Homo
politicus is confused, then the Party has an army of "experts" who
soothingly counsel the misguided subject back into correct thinking.
Professionals in medicine, mental health, law, and a dozen similar
fields have converted traditionally apolitical organizations into
organs of the Party, spouting the same line on issues. Groups like the
AARP, ostensibly an organization to protect the interests of older
Americans, represent only those who are a big cog in the political
machine.
Very little in our
lives ought to be political. There is a vast universe to explore and to
treasure. The tiny mind and tinier heart of the Party man, the
political bureaucrat, the shrill busybody, the goateed academic, and
the smiling elected official ought to have almost nothing to do with
our free lives. But like some awful, progressive disease, America is
becoming transformed from the Land of the Free to the home of Homo
politicus.
*The Stevens conviction was later vacated on appeal.
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