Words to remember

"Never doubt in the darkness what you believed in the light."

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Yes.... we...... caaaannn...... ::sob::

The Messianic hopes and motifs which recently have been appended (both with and without his collusion) to the candidate Obama are truly fascinating. I admit, I had been observing the whole primary cycle with marked dispassion, given how doggedly I would follow politics but a few years ago. My interests have lain elsewhere for a while now, but this has been snowballing for a while. I intend to make a serious study of the manifestations of the popular idolatry of the Democrat's rising star, but I am somewhat behind the curve in that regard. But, if I may be permitted a few preliminary observations.

I would really like to ask the folks who promulgate the mantra "Yes We Can" to complete their sentence. Can, of course, is a complement; it needs an infinitive to fill out its meaning. But that's where things get fuzzy. Yes we can.... do what, pray tell? Given such a nebulous slogan, I'm inclined to think that the first possibilities listed would be woefully vague. "Change the world" might be the most platitudinous and sophomoric tripe to be served up, but what little money I have puts it in the top 5 for most respondents. Because who doesn't want to change the world? And when all it takes to change the world is depressing the little lever at the voting booth, or making sure that a chad is completely punched out, it almost becomes a no-brainer. Now, instead of doing missionary work to Africa or providing for the building of a well in El Salvador, you can claim that you've done more to change the world simply by bestowing on the poor backward U.S. of KKK A (what an odious and puerile word-play! If you're going to be provocative, please be something more than a provocative hack!) a leader who can and will change the world. Innit just great?

But I'm wondering what happens when you get into specifics with the Obama fangirls and -boys. My sense is that Obama is in this respect a tabula rasa. He is the canvas on which all kinds of different policies, ideologies, and philosophies are imposed. This is greatly helped by running on a platform of "change you can believe in". Being somewhere in between a Ciceronian and a monarchist at this point, I am obviously very suspicious of that sort of candidate. He is able by his very lack of definition to become what people want him to be, whatever that might be.

What is becoming progressively (everyone should also catch the subtle pun here) more creepy about all of this is the degree to which Obama's messianic mythos is becoming standard fare. Witness his wife, who, every time she opens her mouth, proves she should be strongly dissuaded from opening her mouth: "We need a leader who's going to touch our souls because, you see, our souls are broken". Another whopper, from Oprah: "We need politicians who know how to be the truth." Anyone else's skin crawling? I suppose Christ had better take note; He's evidently not been doing His job. Someone else, apparently, is the way, the truth, and the life.


With this sort of drivel, one must start to ask if he attended that wacko church as a man simply adoring the one on the Cross, or to be adored as the one upon it! Politicians may touch my sympathies; they may touch my sense of duty and patriotism; they may touch my wallet very infrequently and with utmost restraint, but I don't want their grubby little digits anywhere near my soul. But notice in that quote an important point as well, one which Christopher Dawson first observed and which Russell Kirk later expanded- with the lack of an overriding religious conviction, something else begins to take its place. I am not surprised in the least that a congregant of that blasted and benighted church finds themselves somehow cheated of real religious conviction. And let's look at the recent efforts by the Democrat party to win back "the religious vote". Well, here's where it's all being channeled.

As usual, I have overstepped my bounds and been unduly provocative. I don't think all Democrats are that way. I doubt that the majority of Obama's supporters think that way, at least consciously. I imagine a good deal of the support for him comes from an enthusiasm on their part which is greatly helped by a stage presence Broadway actors would kill for, an eloquence that elicits occasional grudging admiration from even prematurely curmudgeonly yours-truly, and an aura of youth, health, and vitality that's been absent from the political scene lately. But still, there are enough making these outlandish statements about him that it deserves comment. And ridicule.

Addendum: It ought to be asked as well where the usual "absolute separation of Church and State" cries have gone in this. If it's completely unacceptable in this country for a piece of legislation to be unduly connected to the one who, 2000 years ago, "claimed" to be the way, the truth, the life, the incarnate Word, then why are so many secularists suddenly getting a collective for this candidate using exactly the same terms? For the love of the saints, does he plan on becoming Divus Obamus after his term is up?

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