If St. Paul were alive today

…he’d be suspected of being a shill for Obama. Why do I think so? Well, in the course of calling me a liar, a reader in my comboxes explains the Trve Historie of our recent brush with dangerous fascism and the Right’s Noble Resistance to Obama talking to school kids:

The President said he was going to give a speech. A study guide urged the students to think why it is important to listen to government officials and help them — and not a hint that one might even think about what they said, let alone dissent from it.

After a firestorm, he gives an innocuous little speech about staying in school.

If he had released the text of the speech up from, you would have a point. But the firestorm stemmed from an unspecified speech.

Perhaps he intended it all along. Perhaps he didn’t. But claiming

A right wing which is enormously exercised by the fact that OBAMA GAVE A LITTLE TALK TO OUR SCHOOL KIDS AND TOLD THEM TO STUDY HARD AND STAY IN SCHOOL

is — how to put this? oh, yes — lying.

Let’s break this down. What we actually know is that the Prez gave an innocuous speech. The fantasy that he was going to give a speech in which he read Das Kapital to the kids and ordered them to report their parents to the police is a fever dream. Hence, the “firestorm” achieve exactly nothing unless (as is the custom of the Bringin’ the Crazy right) you assume that the President is a Monster who unaccountably ceases to be a monster and becomes a docile lamb who utters innocuous speeches the moment crazy people shout and storm. Me: I think the speech he gave was the one he planned to give all along and that the “firestorm” had no effect whatever on the content of the speech. It did, however, make crazy people look like crazy people, which was to Obama’s advantage.

All that’s left then, is the little study guide in which (horrors) students were instructed on elementary civic duties like respect for the state. Here is something (written by a noted Catholic, no less) that likewise totally indoctrinates children into mindless obedience to the state without a single word concerning dissent against unjust rulers:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

Note that this is the entirety of this so-called “Catholic leader’s” instruction to the faithful about their relationship to the state. And it is given to people living in the very city that is under the rule of one of the worst tyrants in history: Nero. Not a hint that one might even think about what Nero said or did, let alone dissent from it. Clearly, this so-called Christian leader was a total shill for Nero and was radically committed to a sinister anti-Catholic and anti-Christian agenda. It couldn’t possibly be that somebody who says “The state is basically a good thing and you should generally cooperate with it for the sake of the common good” is not a monster bent on the destruction of childhood. Christian duty always bids us to assume the absolute worst, especially about Obama.

Sheesh!