I really am getting tired of politics.  I used to marvel at the rabid, spit-spraying rants the left treated us to between 2002 and 2008.  Now I begin to understand because I could easily go that way myself.  Especially after seeing video like this – 16 bald-faced lies in 7 minutes.  And still more lies.  I’m tired of being accused of things of which I’m not guilty: racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and whatever other -ism or -phobia best forwards the leftist agenda at the time. My belief that a smaller, less powerful government is superior to what we have now is reduced to accusations of a sex act repeated even by elected officials. I’m called a hypocrite because I did not sufficiently condemn the GOP’s deficit spending (although that’s one reason I left the party.)  Consequently I am not allowed to condemn today’s Democrats, led by President Obama who approved every nickel of the budgets which have tripled the Bush/GOP deficits.  I find that, and so much more, very tiresome.

There’s a scant handful of government officials I admire and respect.  The rest, I would gladly see not just thrown out of office, not just convicted of any crimes they’ve committed, but publicly ridiculed, driven from polite society, their assets seized, their families impoverished, their names an embarrassment to future generations.  Let “Kennedy” be the new Mudd.  I hate that I feel this way – I hate how much I’m beginning to hate our government.

But more than that – at the heart of this I know that who I really hate are my fellow citizens.  The ones who park themselves in front of the boob tube night after night, who don’t stay informed about the issues of the day, who don’t vote (though in some respects I’m thankful these losers don’t vote), who can name every contestant on American Idol but not their own Congressional representation.  You did this to us.  You allow men like this to stay in power with barely a fight.  You embody the truth in the “poor, uneducated and easy to command” slur that was originally made against conservative Christians, but in fact is much more applicable to you, uninformed, uninvolved willful idiots and used by David Brooks’ so-called “educated class” to dismiss the rest of us.

I know I’m taking the short view here – that my true citizenship is in the eternal kingdom, as Philippians 3:8-21 declares.  It is one thing to believe – as I do – that because God has placed me in a federal republic, part of what I “owe to Caesar” is my civic duty to participate in in the political process.  It’s another to be so angry and frustrated about it.  That’s not at all compatible with that passage from Phillipians:

Nothing is as wonderful as knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have given up everything else and count it all as garbage. All I want is Christ and to know that I belong to him. I could not make myself acceptable to God by obeying the Law of Moses. God accepted me simply because of my faith in Christ. All I want is to know Christ and the power that raised him to life. I want to suffer and die as he did, so that somehow I also may be raised to life. I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize. My friends, I don’t feel that I have already arrived. But I forget what is behind, and I struggle for what is ahead. I run toward the goal, so that I can win the prize of being called to heaven. This is the prize that God offers because of what Christ Jesus has done. All of us who are mature should think in this same way. And if any of you think differently, God will make it clear to you. But we must keep going in the direction that we are now headed. My friends, I want you to follow my example and learn from others who closely follow the example we set for you. I often warned you that many people are living as enemies of the cross of Christ. And now with tears in my eyes, I warn you again that they are headed for hell! They worship their stomachs and brag about the disgusting things they do. All they can think about are the things of this world. But we are citizens of heaven and are eagerly waiting for our Savior to come from there. Our Lord Jesus Christ has power over everything, and he will make these poor bodies of ours like his own glorious body.

Time to reassess.  Again.

Added: The Anchoress, who seems much better at maintaining a spiritual/political balance than I am, has some good links and notes:

Other elites, of course, are suggesting that the Democrat majority just “boldly” ram “what’s good for America” down our throats, because we’re apparently too stupid to know what’s what. They know, though. Anna Quindlen apparently “knows” that GOP filibusters would just make Americans “angry.” She seems not to understand the mood of the nation, at all.