Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
IMPEACHMENT "POLITICS"
The impending official impeachment trial of President Donald Trump that is pending before the House of Representatives before heading to the Senate for determination was further augmented by the disclosure that the war in Afghanistan has been propped up on many officials’ lies since the “baby” George Bush #43 administration . Nor sadly were these ruinous lies the only official national lies. For lying as a matter of national public policy dates back at least to the nation’s founding in 1789, and probably even sooner.
In his 4th century B. C. classic, POLITICS, Greek philosopher, Aristotle, the tutor to Alexander “the Great” of Macedonia, who too was killed in Afghanistan, while seeking to conquer the world, wrote the following pertinent words therein:
“[If] the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call it its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse or a family. Besides the final cause and end of a thing is its best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.”
Book 1, chapter 2.
The nature of AMERICAN society, having been born in lies, raised on lies, and sustained by lies, it is only “natural” per Aristotle, that in our nation of lies and liars that the United States Senate must acquit President Trump of the two charges that have been arraigned against him. Liars beget, protect, liars. It is not only “natural,” but inevitable.
Aristotle adds in denouement :
“A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state were the greatest benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states , for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.”