There's hope for the world

In a week when the church is in the news because of three missionaries being brain-dead idiots on their day off, I found an article in the Village Voice by some dude named David Mamet, who is I guess an american playwright.  He wrote an article titled "Why I am no longer a 'Brain Dead Liberal.'"  He's a pretty good writer, although I think he likes to show off his knowledge of big words and clever phrases.  I will not hold that against him.  He has seen the light, and is now a recovering liberal.  I quote from his article:

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances -- that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired -- in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches.  So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant.  For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bulls**t and go straight to firearms.

I edited the bad word on the last line.  There's hope for the guy.  I especially like the imagery of the last paragraph, because it hits the nail on the head as far as the real world is.  

We love you, Joe!  Hang in there, Ash!  We love everybody else in the family too, especially the grandkids!