Incompetent World Conquerors

Part of me looks at the world as a tragedy. Another part looks at it as a comedy. The part that sees it as a tragedy believes 90% of the problems are caused by not following Natural Law. Specifically, two of them: "Don't murder" and "Don't steal." States may think they don't have to follow those laws, but I think they do. (As an aside, several hundred years ago, a writer whose name escapes me completely made the comment that one-quarter of all the misery in the world was caused by tooth ache, a problem now essentially fixed by the misnamed "capitalism.")

The part of me that sees the world as a comedy perceives everything as a comic book. Let me explain.

There is an archetype I call "the would-be world conqueror." In cartoons it's Brain of Pinky and the Brain, or Simon bar Sinister of the old Underdog show, or Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies, or Lex Luthor, or any of James Bond's villains. All of them are representations of the same archetype.

All of them suffer from hubris, and all of them are ultimately incompetent. Dr. Evil is a perfect example of both traits. The earliest representation I am familiar with of the incompetent, hubristic would-be world conqueror is the story of Satan.

Some of the more strict-minded fundamentalist Christians I know run around thinking Satan is chasing them day and night, whereas if I believed in him literally I would laugh at him.

All of these would-be world conquerors have a problem with taking their internal personal problems, projecting them onto the world, then trying to change the world in order to fix what's wrong with them on the inside. The story of Satan is a perfect example of this. The guy's goofy. "I can't be God, so I'll try to destroy everything and everybody."

In real life, Hitler was another perfect example. Obviously he was anti-Semitic, which is a problem on the inside, so when he gained control of the State, all the sheeple went along with him trying to fix the problem "out there" so Hitler so could fix what's wrong "in here." Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Pol Pot, Marx...all the same. They had problems on the inside. Instead of fixing themselves inside, they tried to fix the outside.

In modern psychology, the designation for such people is Anti-Social Personality Disorder, or what used to be called a psychopath/sociopath. They're destructive people, without a conscience, who blame their problems on everyone else. This label falls under what is called a "personality disorder," which are people who blame their problems on other people. Unfortunately, to a degree, all of us have it.

Unfortunately, this "let's fix the outside because I can't fix the inside" is, to understate it, a huge problem with humanity. Stated another way, it's the same as saying, "I'm not the one with the problem; you are." You can see this one illustrated in the story of the Garden of Eden, where Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the serpent.

The best example in the news recently of this "I'll fix you because I can't fix me" is William Bennett, an addict who seems to think everyone else in the world but him is an addict.

When you take the archetype of the incompetent, hubristic would-be world conqueror and apply it to empires, you find it explains why all empires collapse. All empires suffer from hubris, which is followed by nemesis. Therefore, all collapse. All the empires of the past – the Mongol, Alexander the Great's, the Roman – poof, all gone, completely.

Currently the United States is busy turning itself into an empire. The leftist neocons, who unfortunately have Dubya's jug ear, have apparently convinced him to conquer a large chunk of the world, in order to drag them into the 21st century and "civilize" them.

My response to all of this? BWHAHAHA! Why? Because what I see happening is a cartoon. Whenever I see William Kristol, or Norman Podhoretz, or listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, I see Brain and Dr. Evil!

These morons are hubristic, incompetent would-be world conquerors who don't have a clue as to what they're really doing. I know they think they're doing good things, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

What's happening is a case of "let's fix the outside because we can't fix the inside." At home we have crushing taxes, massive regulation, an expanding State, an influx of uneducated immigrants, destruction of the value of the dollar through inflation, falling wages...and the administration thinks we can fix our problems by conquering other countries. Obviously, they're ignoring the wisdom of "Take the log out of your own eye before worrying about the speck in someone else's."

The administration is completely ignoring the wisdom inherent in children's comic books! This doesn't say much for all those Ph.Ds from Harvard and Yale, does it? These blind-leading-the-blind buffoons have wasted their lives studying Leo Strauss; even they could have gotten a far better education reading Superman comics.

What should be stunning, but isn't because of the sheeple-brained imperfection of the human race, is how many people are supporting all the mutant mouse Brains in the administration. Dr. Evil is marching off to war, to conquer the world, and a lot of people are cheering him on. It's a tragedy, but it's also funny: the Brain is leading Pinky off to war and empire, and Pinky is going right along with it. But it's Pinky who's going to die, not the Brain, which is an illustration of the old saying, "He who works with the head, rules; he who works with the hands, is ruled." This doesn't mean that he who works with the head is right, or even smart.

All the neocons need a little bit of repentance ("to turn around and go the other way"), or the word repentance is based on, metanoia ("to change the heart and mind").

Criky! What we really need is Austin Powers to show up and fix the neocons' clocks. Better yet, Superman! At least he really knew what "truth, justice and the American way" meant. And it doesn't mean invading other countries and conquering them.

I take comfort that in the long run the neocons will be exposed for what they are. Right now they are trying to hide from the light by claiming there are no "neocons," but it won't work. They'll be dragged out for the American people to see. It'll take a while, but it'll happen.

After all, Brain and Dr. Evil always got conked on the head sooner or later. It's a law of nature, one that always makes me smile.