23 Jul 2010
The time has come to say goodbye to “Snarlin’ Arlen” Specter. Senator Specter has stood on both sides of most issues and played on the team of both political parties. For instance, he brawled for the confirmation of one conservative supreme court nominee and joined in the “borking” of another. He even had his finger in the air testing the winds of the latest polls when he was finally blown away in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary.
In the end, it was the monster that made him that devoured him. Having been cast by political expediency in the dual roles of “Benedict Arnold” to his former party and “Johnny-come-lately” to his new one, ole Snarlin’ found himself inescapably tangled in the web of his own deceit. Having donned two-toned duplicity, Senator Specter could no longer fool anyone with that big smile in an empty suit, no matter how well he talked out of both corners of his mouth.
Perhaps, no one better epitomizes the modern-day politician than Arlen Specter, a self-serving “servant of the people.” Mr. Specter could always be counted on to do what he thought best for his political career, regardless of what was best for his country and constituents.
It is love of self, not love of country, that propels most modern-day politicians into the political arena. Take our own state’s current chief executive for example. Almost immediately after being elected to his present office, Governor Crist looked beyond the people he was elected to serve in order to set his sights on higher office. He has since abandoned the party that brought him, changed his stance on many an issue, and vowed to keep all monies in his campaign coffers, despite his recent about-face on campaign contributers. Reminiscent of a modern-day Faust, our Governor seems ever ready to sell his soul to “Mr. Scratch” in hopes of securing for himself a seat in the U.S. Senate.
If successful in his senatorial campaign, you can bet your bottom dollar—at one of our governor's sanctioned Seminole casinos— that Charlie’s roving eyes will immediately wonder to the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue. He’ll not concern himself with serving Floridians in Washington D. C. anymore than he has in Tallahassee. Instead, his sole desire will be traveling that final 1.2 miles from the Capitol to the White House. Since we have no throne roomed palace, the Oval Office remains the highest aspiration of self-consumed politicians like good ole Charlie.
The most haunting thing about the specter of modern-day politics is the horrifying realization that most of the blame should be laid at the feet of the electorate rather than the feet of the elected. Now, this is not to absolve politicians from their culpability; it is just to point out that “we the people” are the Dr. Frankensteins behind today’s monstrous politicians. We are the creators of governors like Charlie Crist and senators like Arlen Specter. Not only because we continue to reward them with our marked ballots, but also because any politician differing from their ilk ends up punished as a marked man.
The simple answer to the oft-asked question—“Why do our politicians lie to us?”—is that we wouldn’t vote for them if they dared to tell us the truth. As a well-known line from a Jack Nicholson movie asserts, “We can’t handle the truth.” As attestation to this assertion, consider the fact that truth has become so intolerable in today’s America that we’ve attempted to silence it by redefining it as intolerance. Nothing is more intolerable today than “intolerant” truth.
No longer seen as the solution, truth is now perceived as the problem. Anyone found speaking the truth is immediately demonized as a hate-monger. Thus, politicians who traffic in truth are scarcer than chicken’s teeth and equivalent to a kryptonite peddling Superman. They are politically undone by what they’re dealing.
No one in the history of the world ever dealt out truth like He who called Himself “the truth” (John 14:6). Neither has anyone ever done more to change our world than Jesus Christ. How did Christ change the world? He did so by His uncompromising stand for the truth. Although it made Him extremely unpopular, resulted in Him losing a public election at the end of His life to a common criminal by a landslide (Matthew 27:15-26), and ultimately led to His execution on a cruel Roman cross, His sacrificial stand for the truth changed our world like nothing else in the annals of human history.
Isn’t it too bad that men no longer understand what Christ understood; namely, that truth alone makes a positive difference in this world? Like modern-day politicians, Christ could have opted for favorable poll ratings, electoral victories and the cheers of His contemporaries. If He had, truth would have been compromised and the world would have remained unchanged. Thankfully, Christ was nothing like our present-day politicians. He refused to compromise the truth at any cost, regardless of the consequences to Himself.
Make no mistake about it; nothing less than courageous Christlike stands for the truth can make a positive change in today’s America. Unfortunately, few Christlike figures can be found in our country today, a country where truth is no longer tolerated, politicians are self-serving, and “we the people” prefer the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12).
In the end, I guess President Obama was right, the only kind of “change we can believe in” is the fickle and fleeting kind that he and other self-serving politicians can make. We certainly don’t appear to believe anymore in the kind of change that Christ can make. Consequently, it doesn’t really matter what candidate or party wins the next election, as long as truth keeps losing out in America!
Don Walton
|
