Dwight Eisenhower And America's Re-enactment Of The Tower Of Babel
Alan: "The proof is in the pudding." Always. Very often it doesn't matter what people say. It's what people do.
This scene from Cool Hand Luke reveals that the three guys on the bluff are determined to torture a human being because they consider themselves "righteous" and they "know" that Paul Newman "has got it coming." Indeed that "hellish torment" is his just dessert.
Watch the video clip below and you will understand (because it is self-evident) that these three guys -- and anyone in the world who might "stand in" for them -- are politically conservative.
Although it is obvious, I will re-state the obvious by pointing out that these three guys (or any of their possible stand-ins) could not possibly be politically liberal. ("Radical" yes; liberal no.)
I am not saying that all conservatives participate in torture and torment because they do not.
I am saying that everyone who participates in torture and torment subcribes to conservatism.
Within conservatism, it is the conviction of devotees that they are absolutely right -- and furthermore that they are following an authentic chain-of-command that ultimately derives from God "himself" (or at least from Absolutely True Principles).
In the end, it is Absolutism itself that authorizes conservatives to be totally heinous.
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton
More Merton Quotes
In the end, it is Absolutism itself that authorizes conservatives to be totally heinous.
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton
More Merton Quotes
Best Pax Posts On Punishment And Torture As "Necessary" Methods For Righting Wrongs
Pope Francis On Fundamentalism: The Horror Of Turning God Into Ideological Pretext
Pope Francis: The Horror Of Religious Fundamentalism And What's Wrong With Religion
Pope Francis: The Horror Of Religious Fundamentalism And What's Wrong With Religion
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