Ditch Doc

Mark Steyn on The One:

“We have nothing to hope for but hope itself.”

“Oh, if he looked right at me, I’d s*** my pants and then do whatever he said.”

-Intellectually independent medical student, University of Western Ontario

Any self-respecting Messiah needs at least the rudiments of liturgy and public devotion if he’s to be taken seriously. Never outdone in matters of piety, the boys at the CBC are preparing a modest musical hecatomb to the Hopeful One, to contain the 49 ‘musical offerings’ best expressing life north of 49. Obama really does turn the world on its head. Canadians still define the nation with reference South, (it’ll take the Apocalypse to change that), but in two short months we’ve gone from haughty moral superior to breathless supplicant. Surely He Who Changes will be most pleased.

Theocracy is the wrong word. We call Australia a democracy because we think the people rule, we used to call Iraq a cleptocracy because we thought a thief ruled, and sometimes we take a sardonic poke at Canada and call it a bureaucracy when it seems like the desks rule. But who ever thought God ruled Taliban-era Afghanistan? Not Christians. Not atheists. And here’s the kicker: not the Taliban. Theocracy means God is the head of state, and gives day to day instruction on everything from criminal justice to strategy in war.* Unless I’m mistaken, not even the Taliban claimed to be acting out God’s contemporaneous commands. So why use a word that no one thinks is accurate? I don’t want to see Richard Dawkins behind every tree, but I think I catch a whiff of the same sarcasm perfuming phrases like “God fighting on both sides.” ‘Well, yes, they treat their women like cattle, and yes, the penalty for apostasy is death, but what do you expect? They let God run things.’ If we’re to have a fruitful discussion of the relationship between religion and politics, let’s restrict the word to the only nation it truly describes: the people of Isreal in the period from Moses to Saul. And find a new word for the Taliban.

*Countries ruled by God’s deputies based on earlier divine commandments don’t count. That’s why we don’t call Vatican City a theocracy.

Well, it’s been a depressing week, but it looks like Americans aren’t ready to give up their country yet.

I become confused by the number of people who take exception to every war, but always state how firmly they support the troops. The idea seems to be that soldiers are always being tricked into going overseas and shooting people, when they signed up for … something else, I guess. If you disagree with every war for a generation, don’t you eventually disagree with the warrior? But if you’re wedded to the idea that our troops are noble men and women who have given themselves to a noble but abstract idea, you should investigate the possibility that there’s at least some good in the concrete things that they actually do.