A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on February 18th, 2010 in US News

Self-deception, by definition, is impossible to see without someone else’s help. And, all too often, it is likely that the person who helps us see that will, in the short term, anger us. This is part of being human.

Rufus, over at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, ties this self-deception, or lack of self-criticism, to the tea-party movement. I label it self-deception because the tea party folks believe they are rebelling against an unjust system…in which most of spurned active participation. Don’t believe me?:

Earlier today, Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips, organizer of the convention, told a crowd, “Complaining is not enough. We need to replace bad leadership with good leadership.”

He asked, “How many of you – before the tea party movement – were never involved in politics?”

Phillips smiled and scanned the room as more than 90 percent of people in the crowd eagerly raised their hands. To which he responded: “Thank you, Barack Obama.”

Even their name is seeped in self-deception. The Boston Tea Party was an act of sabotage in protest for the British government awarding a monopoly over colonial trade and for taxing the colonies without allowing them representation in Parliament. Compare that with today when the protest is…kind of muddied. But no one can accurately say that they don’t have representation in Congress. It may not be good or the kind of representation they want, but it is there.

In short, the Boston Tea Party didn’t happen because people had some input into the government and were rebuffed, or lost an electoral cycle. It happened because they had absolutely no input, by design, in their political system.

These sorts of things are easy to dismiss. Except that we are confronted today with two examples of how self-deception can have deadly consequences.

The first is from Kansas City. The short version is that a man, known to be violent and use weapons, was confronted by the police. He grabbed a woman and held her hostage, putting a knife to her throat. The cops shot him.

If you read the story, you’ll discover the tragic fact that the hostage was also the man’s mother. She was, understandably, distraught at her son’s death by police sniper. But, honestly, only someone lost in the depths of self-deception could have seen any other outcome. I know it was her son, but this guy was a career criminal. Anger at the police is simply misplaced…better to be angry at the dead son who willfully decided to cause destruction in the lives of those around him (what sort of son takes his own mother hostage?). It doesn’t change the tragedy, but the way it ended shouldn’t surprise anyone. Sadly.

The same is true for Joseph Andrew Stack. His manifesto is riddled with self-deception, leading to blaming other people for his own shortcomings. This isn’t to say he didn’t get a raw deal a time or two. He did. Tellingly he riffs on the “taxation without representation” issue…all the while neglecting the fact that he did have a representative.

He talks about how hard he worked to get a Congressman, any Congressman, to talk to him. This shows his political ignorance. No Congressman other than your own ever wants to talk to you. They aren’t there to represent people outside of their district. He’d have been better served to simply trying to elect a more responsive person in the single district in which he lived.

A bit later on, we find that he willfully entered into a tax evasion scheme, believing it was legal, but with the purpose to keep from paying taxes. Only the self-deceived would take that action and then be surprised when they earned the ire of the IRS. Yet, it seems, he was exactly that.

Ignorance has consequences. And mixing ignorance with flammable rhetoric is irresponsible because it leads to predictable tragedy. My friends from Armenia once told me that a wise man has the duty to share his wisdom, otherwise all of society will end up run by very likable fools. I think it’s time the wisdom was shared a bit more broadly. Even if it angers a few people to tear down their self-deceptive calves of gold.

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