Love and Politics

 

The rich man and Lazarus

 “Love is political,” asserts friend Xerxes.

This is a typical thing you hear on the left. On the left, everything is political; for politics is their religion.

Politics is just what love is not, and love is just what politics is not. 

Politics: “The art or science of government or governing.” (Webster’s New World)

For better or for worse, governing means controlling people. Telling them what to do.

So, love is the art of telling people what to do?

Try that in a marriage.

In terms of dealing with the poor, the insane, the most vulnerable, on your doorstep, politics and leaving it to government is too often an alibi to avoid helping. “Are there not poorhouses?” You argue that those richer than you should be made to give them something. Always someone richer than you. There is no love in that. There is contempt for both those poorer and those richer.

We cannot leave charity, caritas, to government, for government is as incapable of love as a flywheel. It is a system in which no one bears personal responsibility. We have surely learned we need be wary of such institutions as old folks’ homes, mental hospitals, orphanages, and residential schools. Some bureaucrat who does not know us, working to the clock, will probably not love us, and will not care.

Indeed, it is generally the lack of love, not of money, that leads people to poverty, or addiction, or mental illness, or orphanhood, or a lonely old age.

We need to stop doing politics and start loving one another.