P.J. O'Rourke (for my money easily the best political humorist around) has a biting alternative inaugural address he would like to see Bush deliver. After reading it, I wish he'd deliver it, too. His thesis is that America is divided because there are jerks living here. He arranges the speech around the Ten Commandments. Here's a smidge:
We are all sinners. But jerks revel in their sins. You can tell by their reaction to the Ten Commandments. Post those Ten Commandments in a courthouse or a statehouse, in a public school or a public park, and the jerks go crazy. Why is that? Christians believe in the Ten Commandments. So do Muslims. Jews, too, obviously. Show the Ten Commandments to Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, or to people with just good will and common sense and nobody says, "Whoa! That's all wrong!"
And another . . .
"Thou shalt not kill." Why, in the opinion of jerks, is it wrong to kill a baby but all right to kill a baby that's so little he hasn't been born yet? And why do the same jerks who favor abortion oppose the death penalty? We can imagine people so full of loving kindness that they can accept neither the abortionist nor the executioner. We can even imagine people so cold-hearted that they embrace them both. But it takes a real jerk to argue in favor of killing perfect innocents and letting Terry Nichols live.
4 comments:
Thank you, Hunter, P.J. is pitch perfect, as usual. And I'm perfectly willing for him to be first as long as you count me second.
Does it not say "Liberty and justice for all" over the courthouse? The posting of great civilizing principles in prominent locations is a feature of all great civilizations and cultures. Only jerks feel "pushed" by this, says P.J. O'Rourke.
It's the same old story, Tlaloc. Cultures are made of something. They are woven together from traditions, religion, families, history, etc. The Rawlsian theory of justice advocates have never accepted that. There is no such thing a naked public square. It will be clothed with something. It's just a matter of who will be allowed to contribute fabric and tailoring.
Because it ain't my personal taste that's at stake here. However much one may wish it so, the Wiccan religion hasn't had much impact on the formation of Western civilization, much less America. We're made out of Judeo-Christian stuff, not Wiccan stuff or Islamic stuff, or Hindu stuff. There are nations that are made out of that stuff (well, not Wiccan stuff) and I'd be a prig to immigrate and demand they alter their "civil religion."
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