Me: Too bad about all the statuary desecration in
Connecticut, eh?
Mom: Right. Not only are the barbarians at the gate; they
are everywhere, at our lunch tables, in our basement furnaces, in our
confessionals, under our beds …
Me: You left us
before Coronavius arrived at Connecticut’s door step, a gift from China and New
York Governor
Andrew Cuomo. In that sense, I suppose it can be said you escaped a
garbage bin of political nonsense.
Mom: Death has its uses. There’s no doubt in my mind that
some of these politicians, much more
shameless today than they were in my time, would be willing to dig me up and
put a “died of Coronavirus” tag on my toe bone if they thought they might by
such means get a few more votes.
Me: In my dreams, I sometimes hear your voice talking about
events of the day, as you sometimes did in life. Last night you were cursing
Governor Ned Lamont’s travel sequester on states in which Coronavirus tests
have spiked. One of your sons, your grandsons and daughters, and numberless members on your side of the family, have fled south, and Lamont’s fourteen day sequester will
affect all of them. In the dream I had, your hackles on the sequester were very
much up.
Mom: Dream? What makes you think the voice you heard came
from a dream ghost rather than a real one? Was Banquo, Macbeth’s murdered conscience,
a dream ghost or a real ghost in Shakespeare’s play?
Me: Let’s leave Shakespeare and his ghosts aside and “move on", as the college professors say. Is Lamont’s idea – that persons traveling by plane into Connecticut from more than a dozen states in which increased testing has demonstrated a spike in possible Coronavirus infection, certainly not permanent -- a good or a bad idea?
Mom: It’s a bad idea, because it’s not an idea. It’s a half-baked
thought, entirely a political measure proposed by a gang of politicians who all
along have been using Coronavirus to gin-up votes. I call them “savior
politicians.” They intend now to save us from problems they themselves had a hand in creating. In Connecticut and New York, more than 60 percent of Coronavirus associated deaths occurred in nursing homes suffering from gubernatorial neglect.
Among
incumbent politicians, the political trade has now become a secular religion.
Columbus statues must be destroyed not because Columbus was demonic, but
because he has become an emblem of heretical-thought and, as such, must be
demonized. J.
K. Rowling must be denounced not because she feels a certain fealty to
proper English usage – only women can menstruate; therefore, the expression “people
who menstruate” is what Mark Twain might have called a “stretcher” – but because, if she insists on gender differences, she cannot represent the tip of the sword of the transgender movement. These progressive prohibitions
are religious heresies carried over into our anti-religious, secular cults. Sacrilege in the progressive movement simply cannot be allowed.
To dissent from a progressive catechesis is sinful. Rowling is not wrong about
proper linguistic usage. She is an unrepentant sinner. Prepare the stake!
Me; Well, that’s an interesting theory…
Mom: No, it is not a theory. It is the truth. You see, here
is the problem with the whole cursed 21st century -- it mistakes
real ghosts for dream ghosts and truth for theory. And, of course, it mistakes theory
for truth as well. To bring our discussion back to Lamont and savior
politicians, more numerous among us than swarms of mayflies in May, the notion
that Coronavirus can be contained by forcing plane passengers to self-sequester
for 14 days when they arrive in Connecticut is a half-baked, ill-considered
theory.
And the theory is grounded in a misreading of human nature.
People are not automatons; they are wonderfully wrought packages of spirit,
will and thought.
Let’s suppose you are considering a plane trip to
Connecticut from one of the states targeted for “voluntary sequestration.”
These are your options: You may cancel your trip and, if it
is a business trip, conduct business by internet means. If the trip is for pleasure, visiting family members
for reasons politicians may consider inessential – presence during a funeral or
a graduation or a wedding or a church service, all considered as inessential by
most secular political saviors – you may cancel your trip. These two options
will not greatly inconvenience politicians who hope to contain Coronavirus through
forced-sequestration of those who travel to Connecticut from one of the
blacklisted states on Lamont’s list.
But here is where will and thought and spirit enters the
stage, much to the dismay of politicians who regard the human person as a lump
of moldable clay. You may adopt some other mode of transportation to escape
Governor Ned Lamont’s irritating intrusion into your private affairs by a)
taking a bus, b) taking a train, c) arriving by auto or d) deplaning at an unmonitored airport and renting a car for travel to Connecticut. And what will
happen if, in the future, the states on Lamont’s growing list retaliate
against Connecticut, requiring its citizens to self-sequester for 14 days
before enjoying the company of family members who have left Connecticut to
escape the prehensile clutch of progressive politicians?
The Lamont travel bucket, it ought to be obvious to anyone
with a brain, has massive holes in it. Why does Lamont not suppose that these
political interruptions will be returned tenfold by impacted states? The all-important
practical question is -- does the Lamont prophylactic work?
Answer: It does not and cannot. It has too many holes in it.
Progressives are not likely to notice any of this when they
lay their plans for their future utopias because progressives truly think there
is only one possible result from any political action – the result they
desire. And that is what is wrong with progressivism; it makes no provision for
unintended consequences. The progressive solution to a problem invariably 1)
fails to settle the problem, 2) introduces new complexities, and 3) satisfies only
politicians in the long run.
This November, people who are not automatons but
rather thinking, willing, spiritual human beings will be able to settle many of
their pressing problems by voting the bums out.
That would be my suggestion.
Me: I really do appreciate our bi-monthly visits Mom.
Mom: Ah! You see! Visits, not dreams of ghosts! Real ones! Rowling
would be proud of you.
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