The Screeching Class

I generally try, as a personal rule, to avoid discussing politics on this blog. I have not always succeeded in this lofty endeavor, but, in general, it's my operating rule of thumb since I started this blog almost 20 years ago now. I admit I have bent this rule on occasion when the realm of politics presents a legitimate moral or ethical problem that deserves some Christian reflection.

There is also a personal principle that I have always tried to live out in that I generally do not tell people how to vote. I have my own political opinions and philosophy, and I do personally disagree with some people on their view points and beliefs, but generally, I don't tell people how to vote. I try to get people to think theologically and Biblically on political issues in light of how Christ and the Church have approached politics in the first century. 

That is playing with a loaded gun because the Church and politics have been intertwined to one degree or another for centuries, if not from the very beginning. As Christianity has survived everything from Roman persecutions to Crusades to the 20th century proletariat abyss of Communism, there is no one definitive political creed or government that Christianity endorses. 

 As St. Augustine of Hippo described it, there is a City of Man and a City of God. Human governments in whatever form are *always* the City of Man. Only when Jesus returned at the end of time at the final judgment and makes all right what once went wrong with sin will there ever be any "perfect" government. Any human attempts at government are not perfect because no human, other than Jesus who stayed out of partisan politics, was perfect. No body politick is ever going to be more than sum of its body parts. 

To St. Augustine in his seminal work, The City of God, any particular City of Man would, at best, be only a shadowy reflection of the City of God because ultimately no government can operate without the effects of The Fall and sin. A government can be good, even ordained by God, but no style of government can ever be perfect because only God is perfect. 

The flip side of St. Augustine's argument is that the City of Man could, at worst, be a shadowy reflection of hell itself. A government so corrupt and godless that it abuses the populace and brings Divine judgment is also an option that men can likewise create for themselves. While some governments can be good, none are perfect, some governments can be so awful that God will surely judge them, and that right soon. Communism, for example, was judged and found wanting, for the tens of millions of people that disappeared and died in the Gulag Archipelago. Some would argue "where was God in that?" The Soviet Empire erupted in violence and swept across the world, amassing nuclear weapons in the process. God still brought a total end to that Empire in a scant 70 years. Compared to the billions of years of geological time, 70 years is but a blip on God's eternity. Judgment came for the Bolshevik revolution, and that right soon. 

I have been watching closely this war that the US has triggered with Iran in the Middle East. Let me say, from the outside, I neither hate nor love the current US President. Trump is but a symptom of a much larger disease that affects American politics and culture that no one really wishes to discuss. He is simply the coarse and crude belligerent American insolence that virtually all Americans across the spectrum themselves engage in. Americans have been brash and loud and convinced they are always right for hundreds of years, and Trump is simply a reflection of that. Like St. Augustine's political reflection theory of the City of Man, Trump is merely a reflection of Americans, both Left and Right. We like to be loud and proud. In any democratic system of self government, people elect people exactly like themselves. If people are rude and crude, they elect people who are rude and crude. This is neither a criticism of the modern Left or Right-pretty much most people across the American political spectrum have very low standards for their own behaviors, and the elected government that itself has very low standard is a direct reflection of that. 

We've created a City of Man in our own image. As much as some people like to criticize Trump or the far Left, we screech and elect people to represent us who screech. And in that we get exactly what we deserve. We elected the screeching class, so we have no real recourse to bemoan the fact that we elected these screeching harpies because we have happily been screeching ourselves to death for decades.    

If you want things to change, hold your party accountable. Expect better and strive for the government that is a reflection of the City of God, not the government that reflects the screeching ring of hell. Until we are willing to look to God, things will never change. 

Until we are willing to stop the screeching, the screeching will continue until morale improves.