06-13-2016, 05:12 PM
(06-13-2016, 10:50 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(06-11-2016, 09:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here is the Psalm (109):
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 My God, whom I praise,
do not remain silent,
2 for people who are wicked and deceitful
have opened their mouths against me;
they have spoken against me with lying tongues.
3 With words of hatred they surround me;
they attack me without cause.
4 In return for my friendship they accuse me,
but I am a man of prayer.
5 They repay me evil for good,
and hatred for my friendship.
6 Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;
let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.
8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven[a] from their ruined homes.
11 May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
12 May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
13 May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.
14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
15 May their sins always remain before the Lord,
that he may blot out their name from the earth.
16 For he never thought of doing a kindness,
but hounded to death the poor
and the needy and the brokenhearted.
17 He loved to pronounce a curse—
may it come back on him.
He found no pleasure in blessing—
may it be far from him.
18 He wore cursing as his garment;
it entered into his body like water,
into his bones like oil.
19 May it be like a cloak wrapped about him,
like a belt tied forever around him.
20 May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers,
to those who speak evil of me.
21 But you, Sovereign Lord,
help me for your name’s sake;
out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I fade away like an evening shadow;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees give way from fasting;
my body is thin and gaunt.
25 I am an object of scorn to my accusers;
when they see me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, Lord my God;
save me according to your unfailing love.
27 Let them know that it is your hand,
that you, Lord, have done it.
28 While they curse, may you bless;
may those who attack me be put to shame,
but may your servant rejoice.
29 May my accusers be clothed with disgrace
and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.
30 With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord;
in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him.
31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy,
to save their lives from those who would condemn them.
Such a curse would fit a brutal tyrant, an enemy of a righteous People... someone so wicked as to repay charity with enmity. This is not about a political rival or someone with whom one has disputes of policy. "May his children be fatherless"... that was the curse against Amalek, and one made upon Adolf Eichmann upon his conviction for the mass murder of the Jews. In an American context it would fit Osama bin Laden since 2001.
Against the current President?
It's a cancer that is all too common within current American society. Grass roots efforts to eradicate it need to be a high priority. We need diverse groups embedded in PTAs, work places, churches, and other gathering points of cross sections of society, to teach the alternatives to the cancerous evil path of division and hatred of our brethren.
The problem is not that it is a religious text. I can imagine this Psalm being delivered during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; it would fit the situation exceedingly well. The problem is that someone uses it as a response to a trivial affront -- an elected official -- duly elected, of course -- that one simply disagrees with. Senator Perdue uses it severely out of context.
Our leaders in business, education, religion, politics, and the esteemed professions need to show some humanity if America is to not become a nightmare. Power is one thing; cruel people holding power makes any expression of such power cruel. What else would one expect?
Except for people in strictly-technical fields, we need to bring undergraduate education back to the old purpose of liberal arts -- the learning that humanizes people by showing that more exists to life than sex, drugs, entertainment, bureaucratic power, and material indulgence, Of course people on the low end can lust for such things, but people at the top of the social hierarchies must be able to sacrifice any of those for a worthy cause. That does not mean that those elites can sacrifice those things of others so that those elites can get more. People who have studied history and philosophy can understand when the Psalm is relevant -- and when it isn't.
Civility does not depend upon unlimited potential of human ability; it implies some restraint.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.