Sometimes, the gags write themselves.
You have to be fairly old to remember this incident. It occurred during the first period of Sandinsta political dominance in Nicaragua. One of the few newspapers remaining in operation tried to publish a piece detailing Sandinista censorship of the media — but the regime prevented them from doing so. When reporters from foreign media asked what had happened, Interior Minister Tomas Borge replied, “That was untrue and we could not let them print it.” True story.
Well, the so-called First World has caught up to the Sandinistas:
Yet the bien-pensants ask one another why we cling to our guns.
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And make no mistake, she means well. She really believes in what she is doing. She’s is like the cop beating you with a night stick for not wearing your seat belt while yelling at you he is just tring to protect you from getting injured. Remember the 7 cops who forced the lone surf boarder to shore and tackled him, handcuffed him, arrested him and put him in jail because he didn’t have a mask on? IMHO these kinds of leaders are worse that those who are openly and intentionally tyrannical.
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I believe it was C. S. Lewis who said that it’s better to be under the thumb of an outright sadist than a “compassionate” type, because the former might at some point get bored with flogging you, but the latter will torture you out of “concern for your well-being” and “duty toward you,” and therefore with the encouragement and approval of his own conscience.
I’m sure Lewis would approve of your first half paraphrase of Lewis from the last lecture in The Abolition of Man. And you nailed the last half perfectly.
But with your recounting I suddenly realized that none of the villains in That Hideous Strength were representative of those “moral busy-bodies” most to be feared. So I’ve been wrong to think the novel was a perfect parallel to that last lecture.
The villains we’re up against view themselves as God’s replacement, thus a far deadlier foe than those with whom Lewis warred.
Pascal said:”The villains we’re up against view themselves as God’s replacement”Meaning, they set themselves up as god.
Not quite Ed. From ancient times to the modern era there have been strong men who had themselves treated as a god. While the earliest ones still acknowledged there were forces they could not control, ours have advanced along with technology to begin to assert nothing is beyond them — and woe to any mere mortal who calls attention to any failure.
My reason for being awakened by Fran’s recall of CS Lewis’ description of tyrants was that there is no longer even a pretense at caring for the lives of their subjects. Lewis’ point about the untroubled consciences (which always implied an apparently Godly intention no matter how limiting it was on the free will of men) was indeed striking due its clarity — for its time.
But our villains have a clear conscience because they have no Godly intention as decent men would understand it. They are the most severe anti-theists ever, and have indeed replaced His will with theirs. If their will says the world must be depopulated to save the creation (the planet) their conscience is fully onboard. When powerful men worship the creation and not the Creator, Hell on Earth is on their agenda. High tech paganism* is far more deadly a threat to life than anything that preceded it.
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*Paganism was the worship of things of creation. Substance like the Sun, fire and rain. Or abstractions like power, love, and fertility. Often idols were built to represent any one or more. The concept of Creator, another abstraction, was often present, but considered far too remote to worship. The nearer things were easier to worship, and we are witnessing madmen revert to the old narrow and blinkered and limited faith.
The Irish have been oppressed for centuries by foreigners, Vikings, English, etc. Now its their own government seeking to replace them with god fearing Muslims and Africans. Despots long for power, they lust after it. Look at the halls of our Congress or at our bureaucracy to see the despots strut.