Admittedly, this is a bit heavy-handed and iconoclastic, but I offer no apologies; it’s the way I felt after reading the news today.
She was born in the heart of the first man, and she has stalked us since. It was she who elevated the kings to their thrones and the gods to their high realms, and through the millennia her tyranny has grown boundless.
To some she seems a noble warrior: tall and terrible; to others she is a virtuous goddess: beautiful and compelling. Yet all men know the crushing power of her weapons: in her right hand is Patriotism, in her left Religion, and spanning her brow is the crown of Righteousness. She is glory and misery, passion and cruelty. She is the sword and the flag, the hymn and the verse. She is the army marching to defend the homeland from the enemy, the preacher condemning the unbelievers. She knows that the hollow cavity of our soul can be filled by love or fear, but not both, and that fear is the more energizing passion.
She is the drumbeat of those who believe themselves wronged, the cry of the outraged, the dull acceptance of the victimized. She is the hammer-and-anvil of the tyrant, promising sweet liberty while forging a wall to confine us. She is the mother of contradiction, the priest and the politician, the enduring curse of mankind, the Great Deceiver.
How does she inspire such passion in us, her believers, for whom she holds such utter contempt? Why do we flock to her, and thus to our own destruction? With what irresistible magic does she fill our hearts with spite and our minds with ill purpose?
She whispers a thing in the ear of the left, another thing in the ear of the right, and proclaims surprise as we tear ourselves apart with suspicion and jealousy. She makes us believe we are victims when there has been no crime. In our dissonance is her power, and her control grows.
She turns our will against our own interests, and she blinds us to the evidence of our own eyes. She holds up a colorful scrap of cloth and proclaims it sacred, and we worship a flag but ignore the high-minded ideals behind its creation. She holds up a scroll, and proclaims it the Word of God, and though its verses demand love, she twists their meaning into dread. Rumors become absolute facts, and vague worries blaze into irresistible and immediate danger. When she whispers in our ear, she makes us without fault, she gives us unalienable truths, and then she points at our neighbor, and murmurs: There! There is the enemy, can you not see how he plots against you?
From time to time there are those who rally against her, who lift the corner of the dark blanket of righteousness to reveal a hint of light. They point at the light and say: Look, there is nothing to fear; we can all be free!
But we dare not look, for a glance will label us treasoners or blasphemers. There is only one Truth, and it is under attack! she cries, and she points to flag and verse, and we cling to these shackles because they are all we have known; we wear them proudly, resolutely. She has become Truth, and in her tyranny we have placed our uttermost allegiance and trust, and she smiles, for discord is her strength, absolute power her goal.
-Patrick Cumby
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