Now is the time to put faction aside
I hate to say it, but I was fooled by an immoderate anti-Clinton press during Clinton’s term, much as the BDS Left was fooled by an immoderate anti-Bush press during Bush’s term. Let cooler heads prevail.
We must pause in admiration that this is an historic moment. The first Black man has been elected President of this nation. Complaints that the United States suffers from institutional racism from this moment on must be met with hoots of contempt. Would that it had been Alan Keyes or Colin Powell instead, but the significance of the moment is undiminished by the smallness of the man who plays this epochal role. Let the goats and bulls and stoats in Kenya gush forth the sacrificial blood beneath the knives of celebration!
In four years, we shall see another historical first, as Sarah Palin becomes the first lady President, and her husband become First Dude. Perhaps by that time, the conservatives will have jettisoned the idea of big-government conservatism, and return to the ideals of Goldwater, Reagan, and Burke. Maybe we can take the time to reread the Federalist Papers and re-acquaint ourselves with what are alleged to be our first principles, or perhaps even Adam Smith.
The ire of the Left following a Palin inauguration will be as great a temptation to them, then, as ire is to the Right, now, on the eve of an Obama inauguration. Let us by all means eschew such temptation. Let there be no four years of Obama Derangement Syndrome, please.
The Founding Fathers hated faction and the spirit of faction, and this republic cannot stand if we cannot pack away the language and passions of faction, once the election is over, in the same way we pack up the bunting and the bandwagon banners.
Let us reflect on the duties enjoined upon a free man under a republican form of government in these times; and next on the duties of a philosopher; and finally on the duties of a Christian.
First, our duty as citizens of a democratic republic is to affirm our loyalty to the will of the majority. The losers form rank and file behind the winners in a democracy. Everyone had a chance to vote; but the bargain is that you agree to abide by the outcome, and that agreement is implicit in the act of voting. That is the price you pay for democracy, my fellow sovereign citizens. Anything less erodes the sovereignty of the people. We are at war, and we have a new Commander-in-Chief. During wartime is not the time to diminishthe authority of the leadership. It is better, for the sake of obedience and cohesion, to obey a bad leader than to follow the fractures of party faction.
Second, the duty of a philosopher is to regard adversity with Olympian detachment, if not stoicism, and to offer that obedience to the laws that logic and right reason commands. Socrates drank hemlock rather than disobey the laws placed above him, and died with the dignity of a philosopher, the courage of a soldier. Do you wish to live a life free from the misery folly brings? Then you must study philosophy and temper your passions. Can no modern man follow the ancient models? Are we to be found wanting in such virtue, when the yoke of the laws under which we labor are so much lighter than this?
Third, the duty of Christian men is to obey the authorities placed above us. "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation" (Romans 13:2).
My brothers in Christ, do we take these words of Holy Scripture seriously? As far as I know, there was no revised version of the Bible printed up during the Enlightenment that left out the inconvenient passage after the fashion of Luther scuttling the inconvenient the Book of the Maccabees. This verse was written in a century which also saw Imperial Rome persecuting Christians in the bloodiest fashion the ancient world knew–the faithful being torn to pieces by wild beasts as a popular entertainment, or tied to stakes covered in pitch and ignited as screaming torches for the amusement of the Emperor’s court. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s was the command of Our Lord, who submitted to a kangaroo court, and who was handed to the tormentors appease popular tumult. Obama is not the Messiah, but neither is he Nero.
Even the Founders of the United States did not sever the bands tying them to the British Crown until a long train of abuses and usurpations made clear the English King’s design was to reduce the colonies to servitude. The Founders took up arms only once every lawful avenue of reconciliation was exhausted. Socialized medicine will be bad, and an era of weakened military, international folly, stagflation and intimidation of political opposition will be bad. The Carthaginian levels of infant sacrifice on the altar of aborticide will be bad, and that innocent blood will cry out to heaven for vengeance: but such wretchedness and wickedness do not rise to the level that allows Christian men to take up arms against their own sovereign, or even to speak sedition. In this case, I remind you again, ye Christians, that our sovereign in this nation is the body of our neighbors, those same neighbors whom we are commanded to love as ourselves.
The loyal opposition must be loyal. We can counsel our neighbors and petition our leadership in the course we think wise. We can pray that the Lord in His mercy spare us from the corrective rod of the Assyrian, or, in this case, the Kenyan, He has seen fit to bring across our stiff necks. We can oppose only to the degree that the natural rights guaranteed by what used to be the Bill of Rights allows: the First Amendment was not meant to excuse treason and sedition.
Now, keep in mind that the servant of this same sovereign we Americans obey, the sovereign people, is the President. he cannot exceed the authority Constitutionally entrusted to him. Disobedience of unconstitutional laws and regulations is not disobedience of the sovereign.
Between now and January would be a nice time to buy a firearm, before they are outlawed. I am in no way suggesting that such a stockpile is needed for revolt. I mean only that Saint Barbara has a feast day on December 4th, exactly a month hence, and in order to honor the patroness of artillery and gunnery, purchasing a shotgun might be a meritorious act. We do not want to degenerate into England, where shooting a murderer who breaks in your own house is punished.
Saint Barbara, Patroness of Gunnery
Here is a description of this virgin martyr:
Her imprisonment led to her association with towers, then the construction and maintenance of them, then to their military uses. The lightening that avenged her murder led to summoning her protection against fire and lightening, and patronage of firefighters, etc. Her association with things military and with death that falls from the sky led to her patronage of all things related to artillery, and her image graced powder magazines and arsenals for years. While there were undoubtedly beautiful converts named Barbara, this saint is legend.
Saint Barbara, your courage is much stronger than the forces of hurricanes and the power of lightening. Be always by our side so that we, like you, may face all storms, wars, trials and tribulations with the same fortitude with which you faced yours. O Beautiful Maiden once imprisoned in a high tower, protect us from the lightning and fire that rages in the sky and the discord of war. Keep us alert and protect us from the dangers that surround us. Holy Mary Mother of Jesus intercessor for us all; we pray to assure receiving of the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist at the hour of our death. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
