Political power
May 11, 2006
Peggy Noonan opines about the corrupting effect of political power in Washington in her latest Opinion Journal article. If you find yourself agreeing with her discouraging analysis, just remember that other political systems are very likely to be as bad, if not worse. Most of us live pretty well in spite of the wrongheaded ideas of whichever political party happens to be in power.
The oddest thing about Republicans and Democrats in power is that they always know the technical facts, always know about fund raising, always know what the national committee is saying about getting turnout. But so often they don’t know the message or even have a message. Which is funny, because they’re in the message business. They’re like shoe makers who make pretty shoeboxes but forget to make the shoes.
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One gets the impression party leaders, deep in their hearts, believe the base is . . . base. Unsophisticated. Primitive. Obsessed with its little issues. They’re trying to educate the base. But if history is a guide, the base is about to teach them a lesson instead.
Could it be that the reason for this ugly state of political affairs is that we are no longer (if we ever were) a Nation under God? Our culture reflects a thoroughly secular worldview. I suggest that we are experiencing the natural result of any worldview that depends on human smarts to govern wisely. Until the political process begins to consider our relationship to God in the public square, we have little reason to consider improvement any time soon. It seems to me that this is what thousands of years of human history should be teaching us.
Dave, hanging in there.
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