Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom's cause.
It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse -
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse."
Cecil Day Lewis, "Where Are the War Poets?" 1943
In the middle of World War Two, one of England's better poets took time out to sum up the only logical attitude toward politicians in the democracies - the people who dare to lecture the rest of us on our civic duties while pocketing bribes and pandering to blocs of idiots with voter registration cards in their wallets.
It's still not such a bad attitude today.
We may have to send our sons and daughters overseas to fight in stupidly conceived and executed wars in order to protect the rest of us from those who would kill or enslave us for their warped version of God or social justice - or their own greed and parochialism. We may have to pay taxes to support stupid make-work projects as well as the things that we need to have in order to have a civilization.
We don't have to be enthusiastic about it, though, and when we get a chance to change things, we should. Just over half of us thought we were changing things, apparently in November 2008. Just under half of us thought we were defending the bad against the worse.
In times like this, healthy cynicism about the motives of ANY politician is the only antidote to lies told us "for our own good."
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom's cause.
It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse -
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse."
Cecil Day Lewis, "Where Are the War Poets?" 1943
In the middle of World War Two, one of England's better poets took time out to sum up the only logical attitude toward politicians in the democracies - the people who dare to lecture the rest of us on our civic duties while pocketing bribes and pandering to blocs of idiots with voter registration cards in their wallets.
It's still not such a bad attitude today.
We may have to send our sons and daughters overseas to fight in stupidly conceived and executed wars in order to protect the rest of us from those who would kill or enslave us for their warped version of God or social justice - or their own greed and parochialism. We may have to pay taxes to support stupid make-work projects as well as the things that we need to have in order to have a civilization.
We don't have to be enthusiastic about it, though, and when we get a chance to change things, we should. Just over half of us thought we were changing things, apparently in November 2008. Just under half of us thought we were defending the bad against the worse.
In times like this, healthy cynicism about the motives of ANY politician is the only antidote to lies told us "for our own good."
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