Why leftists tell us / Our attention we must fix / On Libyan and Egyptian / And Tunisian politics

Dean Ericson writes:

Ken Hechtman wrote:

“I say that in a sane world we would consider an election in Egypt or Libya or Tunisia to be just as real and meaningful and worth paying attention to as one in England or France or Germany.”

Politics is the religion of leftists. Since there is no divine agency in the world it’s all up to man, omnipotent man, who controls the destiny of all worldly affairs in his hands through the science of political activism. So they obsess endlessly over politics, political theory, and political strategy, investing all their passion and hope in political argument, action, and intrigue. For only politics can bring about their perfect world where all problems are solved, all conflict resolved, and politics the pivot around which the world revolves. So every problem in the world, reduced to politics, is of deep concern. Not a sparrow falls to the ground but politics could have prevented it. If a tree falls in the forest it makes a political statement. Every man, woman, and child on earth must concern himself with politics. All art, science, medicine, education, leisure—they all must be about politics. The personal is the political. Embroidery and millinery are political. Look up at the sky at night and what do you see?—politics. To the leftist this way of seeing things seems normal. To the non-leftist it’s obviously distorted, unbalanced, and unhealthy. Not to mention unrealistic. But such is man, in his folly and sin. And that is the reason, or part of the reason, why the traditionalist places little faith in man and man’s politics.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

- end of initial entry -

LA writes:

The title of this entry is a paraphrase of the opening lines of W.B. Yeats’s short poem, “Politics”:

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here’s a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there’s a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war’s alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 24, 2011 11:48 AM | Send