WE the Whiner Extraordinaire

“Men will not cease to be dishonest, merely because their dishonesties have been revealed or because they have discovered their own deceptions. Wherever men hold unequal power in society, they will strive to maintain it. They will use whatever means are most convenient to that end and will seek to justify them by the most plausible arguments they are able to devise.”

“Teachers of morals who do not see the difference between the problem of charity within the limits of an accepted social system and the problem of justice between economic groups, holding uneven power within modern industrial society, have simply not faced the most obvious differences between the morals of groups and those of individuals.”

― Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics

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Dear Kate,

So here we have a whiner, whining about the process that makes him a loser, the same one that made him a winner not too long ago.

So what?

We all whine, the same way.  No one questions the "process" when one is on one's winning way.  If you are winning because the process is unfair, of course you would not pray for the unfairness to go away, let alone actually doing something to set it right.

I can go so far to say the Whiner Extraordinaire in question is a fascinating figure precisely because he could pull off the most gigantic whining on the most humongous human stage, giving those who seek it the vicarious pleasure of being the bully who gets his way and gets away, like, every time.

Yet the circumstance still begs a few perpetual political questions, such as:

1) Should governments be limited by the same moral boundaries that restrain individuals?  (Think deep and long about this one, especially if your Yes comes too easily.)

2) Is there any human affair that is not accomplished without power?  If none, could there be a justifiable ground (in this case, for the Whiner Extraordinaire) to exercise such power, for a societal good that the "average (wo)man" couldn't yet see, visible only from the the Whiner Extraordinaire's cosmic vantage?  Could the Whiner Extraordinaire actually be a misunderstood Hero, a true revolutionary, visionary...a prophet from High Above?  (And if God is on his side, who's to say he needs to observe any boundary and offend God's wish?)

3) Whereas order in politics necessarily depends on the observance of certain moral boundaries, it also necessitates the occasional violations of such standard (even for a much more agreeable land governed by someone with incredible good hair).  You might even say to wield such violating power with skill and verve speaks about the strength, the vital capacity of a ruler.  So what is the boundary beyond the moral boundaries?

Shall I go on?  Give me another hour and I will make it to #30.  These are the question that you, an "average (wo)man" on her winning way living in a winningest nation, should be asking herself.  Such is your moral duty.  Do it now when you still can.

Because.

Because, what if the Whiner is brandishing not only a Twitter handle, but a gun?  Consider a little bully in a playground, nudging, shoving, wielding his fist...with a pocket knife in it.  The nucleus of your nation is split into two fragments, like that of an atom in an atomic bomb.  Anyone who thinks it is not a possibility in a supposedly most civilized country is not a student of history.

I might not be a Calvinist, but I believe human is radically evil, "totally depraved."  Read again the second quote above.  I also believe whoever speaks about grace without painting with blood sweat and tears a picture of human's depravity is not speaking the truth.

Enough for a Friday.

Yours, Alex