Sunday, September 07, 2008

Democrats = Appearances = Pharisees

This interesting comment in response to an online Wall Street Journal article today on Sarah Palin:
The reason Dems spend so much time attacking appearances, is that they are the ones always trying to keep them up. It is the only way they know to look at things. Everything is smoke and mirrors with to cover their manipulations.
I am constantly reminded these days of the New Testament parable of the Pharisee and the publican. You know, the one where the rich, socially important dude stands in front of the synagogue and thanks God for the fact that he (the Pharisee) is a rich, righteous dude who's really important. While the publican (tax collector) stands in the back of the building asking God to have mercy on him because he's a sinner. The Pharisee, naturally, also thanks God that he's not like the guy in the back who is also, most probably, not a Harvard graduate, poor bastard.

These days, I rarely see a Republican automobile festooned with pro-Repub bumper stickers. Part of this is due to the fact that it's a good way to get your car's finish "keyed" by the young Stalinist lunatics who claim to be free-speech loving Democrats. But the relative rarity of Republican bumper stickers is also because the average Republican voter feels that whatever virtues he or she may possess should be self-evident to all and don't need to be proclaimed.

Many Democrat cars are laden with not one but many bumper stickers proclaiming various virtues they don't actually practice on a regular basis. In my experience, people who loudly proclaim their alleged virtues to the skies, like the Pharisee, generally don't really embody them. Smug, self-satisfied, and extreme in their false righteousness, they actually don't have a clue as to the extent of their hypocrisy. The commentator above thus has it exactly right, and actually describes the language "smoke and mirrors" we've discussed in our previous posts.

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