The Coliseum and The Inquisition

Senator Mitch McConnell was the “obstructionist” when he refused to allow a vote on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, for more than a year.  The new president should be the one to decide, McConnell said back then. Legal experts said it was unprecedented and probably violated the Constitution.  In March 2016, McConnell added that the Republicans had reason to oppose Judge Garland based on his judicial philosophy.  Now the Democrats are the “obstructionists,” says McConnell, for trying to forestall  the vote on Judge Brett Kavanaugh until after the November election and for opposing the judge based on his judicial philosophy.  I think Will Rogers had it right: “The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.  The one that’s out always looks the best.”

I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s “tongue in cheek” remarks about the vast difference between the “barbarians” (the ignorant men of Rome) and “the Good Mother Church,” in The Innocents Abroad.  

“Some seventeen or eighteen centuries ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont to put Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and turn the wild beasts in upon them for a show. It was for a lesson as well. It was to teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers of Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims limb from limb and made poor mangled corpses of them in the twinkling of an eye. But when the Christians came into power, when the holy Mother Church became mistress of the barbarians, she taught them the error of their ways by no such means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisition and pointed to the Blessed Redeemer, who was so gentle and so merciful toward all men, and they urged the barbarians to love him; and they did all they could to persuade them to love and honor him--first by twisting their thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their flesh with pincers--red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a little, and finally by roasting them in public. They always convinced those barbarians. 

The true religion, properly administered, as the good Mother Church used to administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive, also. There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened, civilized people. It is a great pity the playful Inquisition is no more.”

One is the system of the Republicans, the other that of the Democrats, and one wonders at the moment if there really is any difference between the Coliseum and the Inquisition.