False Satans In Politics

There are any number of people on the Left who see the system as the root of all evil. They are wrong. There are many people who can do wrong, both inside the system and outside the system. Muslims, skinheads, gangsters, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Scientology are not affiliated with the system, but they do very wrong things.

So we see this rhetoric beget similar rhetoric from the other side. One was Reagan claiming that America was being run by a “big liberal government” and “liberal elites” who did not have the values of the American people. This is wrong. If America had been run by a “big liberal government” and if the “big liberal government” was evil, then Reagan would not have been allowed to become president. He would have gotten shot. That he was allowed to become president shows either that “big liberal government” was not running the country, or that it was so good that it would let rise into power its mortal enemy.

Similarly we see some people claiming that Jews are in control. Once again, if Jews were in control and if Jews were evil, then these people would be facing a firing squad. That they are not, shows either that Jews are not in control, or that the Jews are so good that they would even let live the people who want them dead.

Libertarians make a similar error. They claim that government is the universal source of tyranny and corruption. In fact there are many entities that are capable of corrupt and tyrannical practices. In America, the biggest abusers aren’t public; they are private. Men who like to rape their children and beat their wives. Mafia and the gangs. Corporate criminals. Corrupt and tyrannical religious sects. Corrupt and strangulating communities. So that while these people are out hunting corruption potentials in the government, private corruption grows up right under their noses and puts them in its service.

In all cases, we see the same error. It is that of claiming that there is a single source of evil. A false Satan is created in people’s minds. Meanwhile Satan finds any number of ways to accomplish his agenda, and evil comes at these people from all sorts of unlikely places, most of them external to the entities that they attack.

Are the aforementioned entities capable of tyranny and corruption? Of course they are. But they are not the only entities capable of such things. There is good and bad both in the system and outside the system. There is good and bad both in the government and outside the government. The real challenge is finding out who is right and about what, and from that calculus understand what needs to be done at the political level.