The Pretenses Of The Self-Anointed

     Now and then, it becomes easy to discern the arrogance of those who deem themselves entitled to rule the rest of us. Indeed, on occasion they blast it at us at pain-threshold levels. This recent example should stand for several others:

     Hillary Clinton told a podcast host that the idea of Donald Trump having a second term as President makes her sick to her stomach....

     From The Sun:

     Clinton said she “can’t entertain the idea of him winning” again in 2020 after what she recently called the “emotional gut punch” of her defeat.

     “Well, because it makes me literally sick to my stomach to think that we’d have four more years of this abuse and destruction of our institutions, and damaging of our norms and our values, and lessening of our leadership, and the list goes on,” she told the podcast.

     “I don’t think he has any boundaries at all, Kara. I don’t think he has any conscience. He’s obviously not a moral, truthful man.”

     Mrs. Clinton’s notions of morality must be very weirdly shaped. She condemns President Trump, against whom not one accusation of illegal or immoral behavior has “stuck” despite the most determined efforts of his many attackers. But she sanctifies her own many deceits and venalities, to say nothing of those of her husband. A vessel capable of all that would be of great interest to topologists.

     If memory serves, it was G. K. Chesterton who said that “‘good manners’ always means ‘our manners.’” The same appears to be true of “good morals,” at least when it comes to the conduct of public personages. They’ll happily condemn their adversaries, given a chance. But their own behavior is not to be touched! They had perfectly good justifications for what they did, and if you’d only been privy to everything they knew at the time, you’d understand that without needing to be re-educated. Besides, their intentions were always the best...and don’t you dare to contradict them on that, either.

     It’s something to ponder, especially if you’re a Christian of any sort. My micro-post of earlier today has much relevance here.

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     Catholics have a saying: one important enough to deserve large font:

Every saint has a past;
Every sinner has a future.

     We maintain that salvation is possible even to the foulest of sinners, right up to the moment of one’s death. God has a rather liberal standard for such things, as Jesus made plain in the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

     And he said: A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father: Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his substance.
     And not many days after, the younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country: and there wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into his farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him. And returning to himself, he said: How many hired servants in my father's house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger?
     I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee: I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him.
     And the son said to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son.
     And the father said to his servants: Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make merry: Because this my son was dead, and is come to life again: was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
     Now his elder son was in the field, and when he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing: And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said to him: Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe.
     And he was angry, and would not go in. His father therefore coming out began to entreat him. And he answering, said to his father: Behold, for so many years do I serve thee, and I have never transgressed thy commandment, and yet thou hast never given me a kid to make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son is come, who hath devoured his substance with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
     But he said to him: Son, thou art always with me, and all I have is thine. But it was fit that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is come to life again; he was lost, and is found.

     [Luke 15:11-32]

     But for many, admitting to one’s misdeeds and asking forgiveness for them, while allowing that others’ conscience pangs are for those others to resolve, constitutes betrayal of the self. “The self” is what they worship; it must never be demeaned or disparaged. This is common among the self-anointed of our ruling “elite.”

     As a complement to that, the “elite” never allow that they might be mistaken about their adversaries. They allow not even the possibility of forgiveness to those they despise. For if forgiveness is possible, then an Authority Who stands above them maintains a standard that owes nothing to their self-worship...and that standard would apply to them, like it or not.

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     The older I get, the more inclined I am to view even things that appear entirely secular through “the lens of faith:” the belief that there are absolute standards of right and wrong, established by a Supreme Being Who will hold us all to account at the conclusions of our lives. G. K. Chesterton, when asked why he had chosen to abandon his earlier Unitarianism and become a Catholic, told his interlocutor that his new faith made life “sensible and workable,” and that he found existence without it to be “senseless and unworkable.” While Chesterton was speaking specifically of Catholic teaching, the core beliefs of Catholicism are also maintained by most other Christian denominations; the differences among us are of far less importance.

     It’s through that lens – the belief that right and wrong are independent of our opinions, despite the impossibility of proving so in this life – that our “elites’” unsparing condemnation of all who disagree with them comes into the best focus. They see themselves as the only authorities of importance; they will have no other gods before them. As for their own venalities and scurrilities...well, what of them, commoner?

     Their pretense of superior wisdom and virtue is what unites the Hillary Clintons, the Chuck Schumers, the Nancy Pelosis, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes, and others of their ilk. These, who deem themselves alone fit to rule us, will never concede the legitimacy of President Donald J. Trump, for he is not one of them. From that flows all that follows.