What is it with liberals? Whether they’re praising or protesting government, they always – or nearly always – wind up on the wrong end of things.
Washington Post political pundit Richard Cohen provides a wonderful object lesson in his less-than-laudable June 14 piece about the Bush twins, Barbara and Jenna.
At first I was pleased; rather than give the underage-drinking horse another round of postmortem rib-kicks, Cohen tries taking the “wide angle” by comparing the former President Bush, Mr. Ace Pilot, CIA chief, etc., with his granddaughters.
Side A of the groove-worn LP is Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation: Grandpa Bush was a stellar public servant, we’re told, because he fought wars and spied on people. Flip to Side B, however, and our learned pundit has sifted, weighed and found the wee Gen X lassies wanting in the killing, snitching and servicing departments.
Cohen traces it back to something G.W. said early in the race for the presidency – namely, that his daughters were not thrilled with pops getting new business cards. After commending Silverback Bush for his wonderful legacy of public service, Cohen then directs a little disappointment at young Dame Dram and Maid Margarita.
Jenna and Barbara, says Cohen, “personify how our attitudes have changed toward public service in general and Washington in particular.” They should have been thrilled silly about a White House dad.
But, no.
“The juvenile antics of college life,” says Cohen, “somehow get elevated so that they become as important – no, more important – than the incredible gift of having a father who is president. God, I would have killed for that chance.”
Maybe he would have. Cohen, you might remember, was delighted with the prospect of re-instituting the military draft back in February 1999, when he wrote a column saying that such a move would be a swell idea. Along with bumping up the enlistment numbers, Cohen argued that conscription into the armed forces would do wonders for the nation’s race problems. Forcing folks of different pigmentation to bunk with each other, he figured, would ameliorate the hate we all share for one another.
Submachine guns and social engineering – together at last.
For those looking, Cohen was lifting his skirt with his draft column, revealing a shocking-red pair of commierooz underpants – hammer and sickle you-know-where.
What the draft column helps peg is what Cohen considers the proper attitude about public service, and what public service is all about. Cohen doesn’t see people as OK the way they are, however buggered and maladjusted they might be; he sees his fellow man as not only benighted (which considering many of our fellow men is easy enough), but also ripe for reform and rehabilitation. Unfortunately for Cohen, lost souls are not typically eager for salvation; like Sky Masterson in “Guys and Dolls,” they’re comfortable being sinners.
Salvation being for their own good, though, Cohen and others like him see no problem coercing the wayward into heaven by handcuffs and barrelpoints. In the case of race relations, Cohen’s plan is to force whites, Latinos, blacks and Asians to share shower stalls and kill foreigners together by using the ham-fisted practice of a draft.
For other things, it’s much the same. Confiscatory taxes to help the widows, orphans and jobophobics, with more of the same bloodletting for the elderly, the sick and the latest bevy of societal victims depending on fads, phase of the moon, and whether or not a compassion-oozing congressman had too much chili with his lunch and had a “vision” about saving the world while in the head. There’s a social program for every needy soul and even a few folks who may not have souls.
Indeed strange if you think about it: A government which insists on separating church and state, wants us all to be good Christians whether we like it or not. Drop another nickel in the plate, or I’ll shoot.
Said Oxford don C.S. Lewis in a 1958 essay:
The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good – anyway, to do something to us or make us something. Hence the new name “leaders” for those who were once “rulers.” We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, “Mind your own business.” Our whole lives are their business.
Public service for guys like Cohen is endorsing and shepherding government programs and policies that seek to meddle in people’s lives, one way or the other, and make them better. If they don’t like their neighbor, force ’em to get along. If they don’t jump over the pews to help the poor, let the IRS screw a gun in their ears and pinch their wallets. If other nations don’t behave the way the anointed pooh-bahs in Washington, D.C., think they should, then we launch the doughboys over the border to whip ’em into shape. It’s all about making, shaping and molding others to fit the ideal.
Yank, bend, push, all you tender tyrants. The Great Society is just a few short arm-twists away!
Jenna and Barbara might disapprove their father’s job because of all the wrong reasons – worried that pop in the Oval Office means fewer unscrutinized hits on the beer bong. So be it. I nonetheless applaud their disapproval of daddy’s chosen profession.
Genuine saviors of the world do not start in the halls of power. If they did, Jesus would have been the High Priest instead of a thorn in his side. Jesus Christ and the legacy of his work – continued by the apostles, carried forward into history by self-sacrificing missionaries and converts numbering like the sands of the seas – have done far more to liberate the world from its myriad ills than a thousand politicians.
And politicians, don’t forget, nailed Christ to a stick.
My idea of public service is boarding up the White House, condemning Capitol Hill and finding all the pols employment in jobs that actually benefit society – working at Burger King, for instance.
WATCH: The People’s March moves through streets of D.C.
WND Staff