"Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven." 

                  - Lucifer, Paradise Lost by John Milton.

 

Such is the animating spirit which rules triumphant in Washington, D.C., today.   The Gutter has come to power and the time to square accounts has arrived.

 

The Gutter I refer to is not to be confused with any particular group of people.  Rather, membership in the Gutter is defined by a set of attitudes and emotions.   Thus a card carrying guttersnipe can be well tailored, elegantly manned, superficially charming, articulate, and elected to high office. 

One primary emotion of the Gutter is envy.   The Gutter imagines that no one attains gets ahead by hard work and inherent ability.  No, the Gutter believes that achievement and accomplishment always come at a debit to the account of one or more members of a victim class.   Consequently, quaint notions that a person should enjoy the fruits of his labor, that he should be left alone by the State in the maximum extent in the pursuit of happiness, and that the possession and protection of private property is among the highest values in a free society, are anathma to the guttersnip.   The Gutter believes the the possessions and property of the successful were purchased via the swindling of its membership.  Hence, now that it controls the machinery of the Federal government, it is the duty of the Gutter to make recompense to the victims; to spread the wealth around a little in the name of fairness. 

The Gutter is intolerant of dissent and opposition.  No religious icon holds higher status in the pantheon of worship than the victim holds in the liturgy of the Gutter.  To suggest that the victim might be responsible for his station is to question the divine.  How dare you!  Only the racist, the sexist, the homophobe, the bigot, the subscriber to Town and Country Magazine and Golf Digest, could any entertain such a thought!  Such ideas and expressions cannot and will not be tolerated in the New Order of things.  HE WON AFTER ALL!

The Gutter seeths with hatred for "those people."  Those conservatives.  Those rich people.  Those Christians.  What, why does he deserve a raise?  Oh sure, he does 80 hours a week and produces four times what I do, but, but, I'm here on the job Tuesday through Thursday from 9 to 4.  (Okay, I know my shift is Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 but, hey, a guy's got to enjoy the weekend and happy hour!)   This is why we need a union!  We're all equal here. 

The Gutter in power means that the moral force and coercion of the state is addressed against the competent, the achiever, and the moral, to humiliate and punish.  The message sent is that wealth is illegitimate.  The inevitable followup is that wealth must appropriated and reapportioned as social justice.  When Jesse James did this it was called robbery.  When performed by the Federal government is goes under the heading of "stimulus" and "mortgage relief."

The Gutter hates the Constitution and the rule of law (as traditionally understood).  The founders, who were definitely not of the Gutter, are viewed by the guttersnipe as originators of the original sin.   Accordingly no chance should be missed to slander their reputations and question their motives.  (Guttersnipe A to Guttersnipe B: "Didn't they own slaves?")   The Gutter membership includes judges, some of whom have sat (or sit) on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Consequently, we have the legal theory of the "living Constitution," which has the advantage of affording the brain dead jurist the opportunity to write into law whatever outcome is desired, the origin intent and language of the Constitution being irrelevant. 

Once the Gutter attains power it proves very difficult to wash out.  Guttersnipes assiduously work to clog the normal democratic drains and burrow themselves into the bureaucratic bloodstream of the state at all levels.    As a result even if ultimately the more prominent snips are pried from power, the leftovers continue, like cockroaches, to breed in the recesses and dark places of the beast. 

The United States has never been paradise on earth, except perhaps to the arriving immigrant, the freed political prisoner, or that go getter with the one idea which makes him rich and enriches the lives of others.    The land of the free has meant not merely the freedom to succeed but the freedom to fail, get up, and try again.  This is not a divisible freedom but unitary:  there can be no freedom to succeed without freedom to fail, and yes, to suffer the consequences of failure, bitter though they may be.  Lucifer, when his rebellion against God was crushed, was not offered a do over, or the option to refinance his Heavenly residence at more favorable terms.  


The current group of guttersnipes who hold power have no loyality or feeling for the America that you or I love.  The traditions and values which we hold dear are held in contempt by the leadership of this administration and of this Congress.   Impossible as it is for us to fathom that a group of people who have benefitted so much from the American system could hold such emotions, the simple truth is that these guttersnipes embrace the current economic crisis as the chance to remake the country in their image, much like the old Bolsheviks set out to remake Russia after the October 1917 revolution.   The guttersnipes are giddy at the prospect that in the present climate a frightened and confused population might be persuaded to abandon the believes of a lifetime in name of security.   The Gutter strives to frame the free market system for crimes planned and perpetrated by the government itself, in its misguided effort to level the economic playing field.  The American free enterprise system has given its citizens the a standard of living unmatched in human history.  The guttersnipes seek to scare Americans into believing that freedom is too dangerous, and some great leveling is needed to adjust Amercian society and (left unstated but implied) punish American for its sins.  Know this: the Gutter would prefer to reign in the rubble and chaos of a wrecked society; the free man is happy to reign (and serve) as a loyal citizen of a free one. 

What do the guttersnips have in mind for United States foreign policy?  That is for another day.