Tyranny, Death and Taxes

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
— Beatitudes

“'The earth' is a euphemism for 'tyranny, death and taxes'.”
— TheBigHenry

Please don't misunderstand — I have always had compassion, in the traditional-liberal sense, for the meek and unfortunate. I count myself among the meek, and I am descended from a very long line of meekness. As recently as the Holocaust, all of my meek and unfortunate grandparents perished at the hands of tyrannical murderous Nazism.

I applaud the just-announced Haiti Relief Efforts to be led by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. I would expect no less from the basic humanitarian instincts of our great good nation. But, along with sentiments and actions of compassion, we have an obligation to try and understand how humanity's own failings contribute in no small measure to the misery it inherits.

My antecedents who perished in the gas chambers of Treblinka in 1942 had a minute chance of escaping their horrible fate. But, in hindsight, perhaps they might have suffered less had they been able to foresee the inevitability of their extermination, and thereby elected to die fighting, as did those Warsaw ghetto internees who finally recognized the extent of their tormentors' evil.

The poor Haitian people have suffered mightily as a result of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other calamities inflicted by Mother Nature. But, their own corrupt and tyrannical leaders have also abused them mercilessly for generations. Such a miserable state of affairs is, sadly, the natural state of affairs. The kingdom of god has not yet, certainly not completely, been extended to earth from its origin in heaven.

It is a very fine thought to turn the other cheek and celebrate the blessings of meekness. But in order to experience some of the implicit heavenly reward here on unforgiving earth, brutality and evil must be resisted, just as our Founding Fathers did over two centuries ago, and our patriots have done many times since.

Brutality and tyranny come in many flavors; one size does not fit all. There is, in fact, such a thing as "the tyranny of the majority", which our Founding Fathers were keenly aware of. When, as now, we are saddled with a super-majority in Congress (including a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate), and a like-minded Executive Branch, stoked by an insidious fifth-column of media-controlling scum (in the main), we have tyranny, plain and simple. It is a virtually unstoppable feed-back loop of insanely obsessed folly. This can't be good for anyone, including the raving lunatics in charge.

Post #1,086 Tyranny, Death and Taxes