Homophobic Hypocrites and Horrors

We finally had the "S" Pugged into law to go along with the "M" Dimmed by so many bloody beatings of the people and the Founders. Now the US Congress is about to take us into yet new territory, dark places physically emblematic of its psychological degradation, and it's going to be full of fresh-faced and underage children. It's not going to fit the mental image of ourselves as living in a nation exceptionally descended from Washington, Jefferson, and Adams. It's not going to fit that any better than an Iraqi suspect's Duct Tape Crucifixion did, any better than when CIA interrogators in Gitmo dressed up in lingerie and rubbed their bodies against devout muslims to make them feel unclean, or any of the score or so other nasty things we've seen or know have been done. Now we're going to find out about children our country has hired right in its marble halls. And to think I turned my nose up at a career in writing. This story is going to be one for the ages.

ABC investigative journalist Brian Ross gives us a hint at what may be coming:

BRIAN ROSS: So far, Foley is the only member whose overt sexual approaches have been documented. Charlie?

CHARLES GIBSON: The only one to be documented, but are there other shoes to drop?

ROSS: We’re hearing quite a bit from former pages. They’re sending us all sorts of messages about possible other members.

Sending us all sorts of messages, yes, but we're not going to tell you what they are yet because we're deliberating to what extent we want to blow your mind and to what extent we can use them to extort more concessions from the system. One for the ages, for sure. I lack a classical education, but have managed to read enough of senators, beys, secretaries and potentates in prior cultures to say without reservation that similar impulses for prostitutes and catamites were normal perquisites of power. In fact they were utterly routine. The temptations of power are straightforward enough, but it seems there are other side effects to the burden or guilt of holding it which aren't well understood. Even so, the side effects are commonplace and as well-documented as the usual temptation, and it's impossible to separate the two in most cultures. Even in the West, from Greece to Byzantium to the Vatican, the line between desire for straight and gay service was not a line, and children were involved.

In what started out as conceit, I've read the Greek ambassador Plutarch's famous work 'Lives.' The first time through, when I was 12-16, was a struggle over every page to accept and make sense of the dizzying varieties of political motivation, self-interest and cynicism; the second time through in college was an exercise in trying to understand the complex mechanics of those varieties. Reading Plutarch's 'Lives' is like going into the Baskin Robbins of power. As far as I can tell, the flavors haven't changed between then and now, and neither have Senators. The question is whether our society can hold our electorate to a higher standard, or if we continue to allow the progressive, enlightened architecture the Founders built to decay down past normal time-honored standards of corruption and brutality into low bestiality. If so, we have already been paid our reward, and for most of us it has been far from rich.

As Plutarch would say: "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

Update: Everybody in the MSM, including the Wall Street Journal, is swarming onto the Catamite Train. This much is endearing, as is Howie Kurtz's roundup at WaPoo online. But a few better-late-than-never editorials from professional airbags aren't going to change much. That will take sustained, concerted efforts of a sort Publicly Traded Media simply can't make on the way to being bought off. The revolution will be televised, you just can't see it unless you switch over to the new TV. Here from the text-message transcript is The Real Unvarnished Truth:

Maf54: "I want to see you."
Teenager: "Like I said not til feb . . . then we will go to dinner."
Maf54: "and then what happens?"
Teenager: "we eat . . . we drink . . . who knows . . . hang out . . . late into the night."
Maf54: "i'd drive an hour to meet a hot stud like you."
Teenager: "hmmm, I have the feeling that you are fishing here . . . im not sure what I would be comfortable with . . . well see."