They Call it Faith for a Reason

Here's another example, folks, of why I'm becoming more and more of a "centrist" (labeling myself now, great!) every second. It has to do with bureaucracy/the concentration of power in society.......................................I site specifically here the fact that liberals (the ultra-left, in particular) apparently have this unfettered fear that corporations/the "power elite" who control them will, if unchecked, ruthlessly dominate America. In fact, some of them go as far as to say that this big-business/corporate America paradigm of ours (actually, we're a mixed economy.... but this is them, I'm saying) is almost a personification of evil itself.....................................Of course, they also say that the government (the federal government, specifically) is the only way to control this menacing parasite. And, yeah, folks, it's in this almost unquestioned faith in the goodness of government that I, at least, find an inconsistency. This, I'm saying, in that, while these people are always and, yes, to the hilt totally against a concentration of power in the corporate world, they have absolutely no qualms about giving to the federal government absolute power over ANYTHING! It's like, what, they think that because this power is concentrated in the hands of paper-pushers, civil-servants, deputy-secretaries, etc., it's suddenly going to become beneficent? I don't know, it sounds like a hell of a huge leap of faith to me........................................Of course, on the other side of the spectrum, you have the far-right. These folks, while they absolutely loathe any form of government intervention in/regulation of the economy, they clearly have no trouble with unchecked power in the hands of multi-national corporations (some of which are actually IN BED with the very same government they loathe). I mean, it's almost as if they think that the market-place is itself God (the religious-fundamentalist block excepted, of course).......................................The bottom-line, folks (and, yes, this is the centrist in me coming to the fore here), power is power and when in fact it's concentrated in the hands of those who most cherish it, yeah, it just might be a good idea for all of us to keep a vigil now and then. This, I'm saying, and to recognize that we just might find it in places we never expected before - i.e., smack-dab in the middle of our own little paradigms.