Steve’s podcast on the American election. 1P5 Podcast: Episode 31 – Political Messianism

I’d like to remind readers, AGAIN, that I’m not an American, have no horse in that race and think the whole democratic process thing is an insane person’s version of Kabuki Theatre, as our friend Ann Barnhardt puts it. Also, as a Canadian/Brit, I really have to laugh at American political naivte. Seriously guys? You actually thought you could defeat the Great Socialist Slide? By “voting”? Perhaps Americans’ most irritating habit is imagining that their country is the only country, that whatever is happening out here in the great dark, nebulous, misty world-beyond-the-bubble just doesn’t apply to them. Surprise! It does.

But hey, it’s not my planet, monkey-boy! My own political position is completely off the scale. Literally. Every descriptive map of the world’s modern political scene has no corner on it for what I believe. And hasn’t had for about 550 years. I’m a feudal monarchist who believes in the Catholic Confessional State. Yeah. Let that one sink in. I can’t be described as a leftist or a rightwinger. I’m nowhere on that line. So far out of the left-right scale that people now think is like a universal constant of nature that the people I try to describe it to can’t grasp it.

They will listen, nod and then ask, “So, are you left or right?”

Anyone who is interested in learning about real Catholic social doctrine could not do much better than this book: The Framework of a Christian State, by E. Cahill SJ, 1931.

So, the period leading up to the American elections, when the stupid internet gets, if it can be believed, even stupider and more boring than usual, is particularly painful for me. Literally again. I get hoarse yelling at the screen. The only amusing high point about this round is the fact that, apparently, the Americans are teetering on the edge of making PT Barnum the head of the GOP. The absurdity has finally reached its apogee. It’s been a long time coming. But then, we’ve got Jorge Bergoglio sitting on Peter’s Throne, so who am I to judge?

I find more and more I am treating the world outside this valley as though the Apocalypse has already happened. And I just can’t approach anything political without this popping into my brain:

_“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”

“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”

“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”

“What?”

“I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?”

“I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.”

Ford shrugged again. “Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”

“But that’s terrible,” said Arthur.

“Listen, bud,” said Ford, “if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say ‘That’s terrible’ I wouldn’t be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.”

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Douglas Adams, “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish”

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