Zealous Ignorance

Understanding begins with the admission of ignorance.  I am sure someone in history has said something to that effect, but if so, I'm not going to take the time to look it up.

My disenchantment with the political process has reached the point where I refuse for the most part to even pay attention to the headlines.  Only a few months ago I was voraciously reading a number of daily sources for the political news of the moment.  My loss of interest began with the decline of the Perry campaign for the Presidency.  It isn't that I felt he was the ideal candidate, but after weighing the pros and cons of each of the candidates, I believed he was the best of the bunch from an ideological standpoint.  Ideology is not the key to the Presidency.  It is the ability to infinitely shift an illusory image that ultimately wins the day.  It is all about the manipulated sound bite.

Ronald Reagan was the rare political figure who had both sound ideology and the ability to articulate it effectively.  Our current President on the other hand has an extremely flawed ideology but is the consummate communicator.  It is a chimera -- an illusion created through zeal.  It is sad that such zeal should be steeped in ignorance of truth and foisted on ignorant voters whose loyalty can be purchased with a can of beans containing a smidgen of pork.  We all know that the result is flatulence.

Thomas Fuller once said, "Zeal without knowledge is like fire without light."  It is rare that an individual who possesses zeal for a specific cause fully understands the interrelated factors that affect and are affected by the object of his zeal.  They are rushing down a tunnel toward an oncoming light that often as not is a train.  The law of unintended consequences is indeed real.

When I see extreme zeal, I immediately react with caution.  Such caution is likely rooted in personal experience.  It seems that my experiences when rushing blindly forward have typically ended badly.  I therefore expect the same to occur when I see others in such headlong pursuit.  The individual who has all the facts does not exist.  There are always pieces of the puzzle that have not yet been turned over let alone put in their appropriate place.

What I see in Washington are power hungry individuals who zealously pursue the agendas foisted on them by those who would meet their hunger.  They pursue in ignorance a slate of laws and regulations that fill the needs of their puppet masters while meeting their own need for self-righteous contortions of back patting.  It is easy to feel good about lined pockets and accumulated power when steeped in ignorance of the industries and lives who are ruined in the process.  Blindness has its advantages.

With this post I reach the end of my alphabetical journey.  Now I must seek inspiration elsewhere.  Hopefully it will be something that I can pursue with adequate zeal to maintain daily posting -- or at least nearly so.  Fortunately I am ignorant enough to move blindly forward when true knowledge might sway me from the path.  I do appreciate suggestions for topics; please comment with yours.

Chris