To have a vested interest in something means that one has a personal stake in its continuation or success. This simple fact explains how politicians can engage in continued subterfuge long after it has become apparent that such a course will lead to their ultimate destruction. And it is one way that, once compromised, a person is no longer the arbiter of his or her own destiny.
Consider the kind of obfuscation that typically surrounds the person championing an abhorrent system of values. When it is no longer possible to win, based upon a concise delineation of principle, a politician will undoubtedly resort to deceptive practices that include, but are not limited to, diverting the attention of the electorate away from first principles. The path is especially perilous for those who have traded what may have once been a Christian witness for what is now a masquerade.
This type of behavioral blasphemy manifests in a variety of ways that usually involve the simplest of sophistries. For example, you may have noticed that one former Senate Majority Leader constantly rails against socialism while, at the same time, his state gets three dollars back for every one dollar his Kentucky home contributes to the public treasury. His caucus warns about court packing when he personally enabled one president to pack it with one third of the Supreme Court justices in just one term.
It doesn’t really help to point out such hypocrisy to individuals for whom hypocrisy itself is a point of pride. And, this is why we should expand the common definition of blasphemy to include their contempt for the values Jesus personally taught and exemplified. Sure, they can conveniently interpret the words of his imperfect followers to support all kinds of moral relativism. But their motivations are clear to anyone in possession of the critical thinking skills they detest.
The kind of voter suppression and election subversion we have witnessed is the inevitable consequence of having an electorate, composed of special interest groups that are each focused, almost exclusively, on their narrow interests. When the right to cast a vote and have it properly counted goes away, most minority rights will disappear as well. The one exception will be the supposed right of the inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth to consign the rest of us to conditions of peonage.
It would appear that many, perhaps even most, of the elected representatives in our constitutionally grounded democratic republic are seriously vested in corrupt elections. Their lackadaisical response to the ongoing disenfranchisement of large constituencies is clear evidence of the extent to which they have been compromised. Their reluctance to address campaign finance together with their tolerance for dark money in politics is just one a category of the mounting evidence. And their inability to prioritize, in a way that serves the greatest good, makes it possible for them to pay lip service to important things without actually making any meaningful progress.
Edmond Burke is best known for the famous statement: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” He was also widely regarded as the quintessential conservative. It is unlikely that Burke would recognize what passes for conservatism today. He once wrote concerning a Gentleman of Fortune saying: “He introduced a manufacture, which, though not very considerable, employed the whole town, and in time made it opulent.” Contrast that with the fraudulent conservatism that characterizes the Shareholder Rights Movement.
When a business pays poverty wages, for full time labor, it is offloading expenses and losses to the public treasury. Housing, heating, and nutrition assistance are not without cost to the taxpayers. And it is important to recognize the proximate cause for what appears to be parasitic behavior. The whited sepulchers of today are to be found in the corporate boardrooms and the halls of congress. Milton Freedman wrote, the corporate executives are merely employees of the shareholders. And, as anyone who was born and raised inside the Washington Beltway can tell you, congressional leaders spend most of their time whoring for those same shareholders.
Now that the perceived legitimacy of the Supreme Court is gone, we can take a fresh look at their sociopathic notion of corporate personhood. Legal scholars continue to advance the original definition of stare decisis as “the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent.” A more contemporary understanding is informed by the way it has actually been used throughout our integrity challenged court’s history. Today it constitutes a doubling down on prior idiotic decisions in ways that insure our society simply cannot evolve.
The regressive factions at the commanding heights are not conservative. The unrepresentative elected officials are not republican by any common definition of the term. That is, of course, unless you regard the representation of donors over voters to be appropriate in the context of our constitutionally grounded democratic republic. When we elect representatives and install judges that set-aside the interests of We the People in favor of they the few, we should certainly not be surprised when they operate well afoul of their oath.