Dear George,
I confess to a terminal case of ennui, a boredom born of addiction in which every dawn breaks in the identical dusk of a cold, winter rain dragging me through the grey sameness of the day proceeding and the day following. Everything that once stimulated is no more and nothing remains except the black hole into which I have fallen. There is but one small spark left, one dimly glowing ember that keeps me going, and that is the prospect of our extinction as a species.
So, you can imagine how my heart leapt with joy on that glorious December day in 2000 when the Supreme Court laid its hands upon your brow and anointed you with oil. “At last!” I cried. “Our deliverance is at hand.” For in spite of all your prattle about compassionate conservatism, I recognized in you the toxin that would put an end to us once and for all: you were a bona fide, died in the wool ideologue.
You see, it’s not ideology that destroys; it is its demand for purity. You are part of an army of perfectionists, religious, political, and economic spreading its pestilence from nation to nation with a virulence that makes the Bubonic Plague look like a sniffle.
Where the rat once carried the diseased flea, the carrier of diseased purity is ideology. All ideologues believe they possess the sole formula to achieve perfection, and perfection allows neither doubt nor debate to soil it. Even the tiniest dust mote screams for attention when it touches its polished surface. Because of its intolerance, purity does not hesitate to use violence to achieve its ends.
Violence comes easily because the purist is convinced that no matter how vile his actions, they are good and noble if they are employed in the pursuit of perfection. It makes little difference whether the goal is religious, political or economic; the ideological purist transcends all thoughts of good and evil.
Purity thrives on destruction and will continue to destroy all that is other than it until all that remains is a small circle of graying ideologues gathered around a dying campfire in the rubble that is their legacy, chewing on their roots and carrion and mistaking the gall and wormwood that is their lot for utopia.
You’re perfect, George. In you, I have found my redemption.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
5:47:05 AM
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