The insidious is never sublime

There is a group of people – perhaps a third of America – that segregates itself from what its members call the “mainstream” because they wear the political stripes of the right wing, whereas the rest of society wears the stripes of the left wing or chooses to remain independent of either wing.

The puzzling part is that having segregated themselves, these people accuse the mainstreamers of engaging in the kind of rhetoric and politics that divide the American people rather than bring them together. They incessantly complain about that situation and yet, fail to see the contradiction in segregating themselves willingly, and then complaining of being kept apart from the others. So you wonder if there is a hidden rationale behind this stance – be it sublime or be it insidious.

That reality reveals itself glaringly when you undertake to study the accomplishments of President Obama, and contrast what you find with what the leaders of the right wing crowd say about him. They criticize the President for governing the nation with the mentality of the community organizer he once was, and reject as too socialistic such programs as ObamaCare and the bail out of the auto industry. They explain that these two programs and others in the same vein have the effect of pitting the lazy “takers” in society against the enterprising “makers” of society.

That's when you begin to sense a not so sublime intimation as to what the rationale behind the stance of these people truly is. It is that they want to be kept apart from the masses, yet recognized as members of the upscale crowd. At the same time, however, they want to be loved and not envied by those below them despite the fact that they are “successful” and the others are not. They had expected President Obama to tell the hordes at the bottom of the ladder that they must love and appreciate those at the top, but Obama did nothing of the sort.

So you want to know what methods people of the right are using to ascertain and flaunt their supremacy. To this end, you read an article that came under the title: “Do Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in the Same God?” written by Dennis Prager and published on April 19, 2016 in National Review Online. As suggested by the title, you get the feeling that the writer is trying to separate people according to the God they purport to worship.

That may answer one question but you want to know more about the thinking of the writer. You read the article, and by the time you're done, you find that he said nothing to startle you. He simply placed Christianity, Islam and Judaism at par with each other. Something caught your attention, however. Whereas the writer shied away from differentiating between the three main religions – a stance that would have been politically incorrect had he taken sides – he dotted the article with rhetoric that sets people apart in a big way.

What follows is a sampling of how he does that: “Two groups make this argument. The first consists of people who … The second group consists of people who...” He then asks two questions: “How are we to know whether any two people believe in God? How do I know if another person believes in the same God as I do?” And he answers “I ask three questions.” This done, he categorizes the responders according to their answers.

Here are the questions he asked: Do you believe in the God of Israel? Does the God you believe in judge the moral behavior of every human being? Do you believe in the God who gave the Ten Commandments?

It is obvious that the questions are specifically designed to lead to the conclusions which he reaches. They are these: (1) True moral life flows out of Judaism and only Judaism; (2) Most Christians and Muslims respond in the affirmative to the questions he posed, therefore are moral people; (3) Islamists (whether violent or not) would not respond in the affirmative to those questions, therefore are not guided by morality.

This is the politically correct stance to take and he did. But the insidious message which nevertheless comes to the fore is that Prager has placed the Jews at the top of the moral ladder. The people who are not envious of them and accept their supremacy, are moral people, he says. Those who do not accept that reality must be set apart from the rest, and their views dismissed.

Now you know why President Obama refuses to tell those at the bottom of the ladder they must worship those who imagine themselves at the top. Let the latter sell the cake they backed, or let them eat their own cake.