I'm afraid you'll have to pronounce the title stage Oirish if the rest is going to make sense but, working on the safer than the Titanic hypothesis that my five educated readers have done so, we're off and running.
Re-reading my previous paean of praise to the industry in our garden, it occurred to me that I was about to wax (ah! the pun is mightier than the swearword) lyrical about "my" bees. Clearly, any notion of possession is mad - but then it's no madder than some of the beliefs which have either ruined man's behaviour or, more likely, provided a Godiva-like cloak for his greed and violence. No madder than the average mullah, certainly.
And so I began to ruminate on the various theories and philosophies which have grown, flourished and withered in their turn, though the blood which they have spilled can ne'er be rebottled. Now, I would not have you think that I am a total utilitarian, dear reader (if such there be). But it does need to be asked: did "Cogito, ergo sum" improve the lot of your average medieval peasant - or did the Black Death do a much better job of driving up wages?
Did Kant's "Critique of pure reason", fun read as it may be, actually produce a better road surface or did the unlettered James Mcadam deliver the goods, after a fashion? We all "know" the many blessings and welfare which Marx and his crazed disciples brought to their fellow man but does post-modernism feed the kids when you are unemployed and in negative equity?
And it occurred to me in another reflective monent that the more "powers and principalities", as the AV neatly puts it, laud and lard themselves with vainglorious titles, the more sure is their demise. For example - purely at random, you understand - let us take those two fine bastions of liberty and excellent welfare: the Democratic Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
God knows what Kim Jong Il or Him Wrong Will or whatever calls himself but I'll bet it's something along the lines of Dear Blessed Leader. Sounds like the form of address found in emails promising untold riches from a sadly deceased west African finance minster (if we could just have your bank account details, please.) And I note with interest that the Ayatollah (Tollah than whom - your average jockey?) modestly calls himself The Supreme Leader. No, really.
History is littered with idiots whose linguistic excess perfectly matched their capacity for destruction. One thinks with fondness of Mao, The Great Helmsman, whose pursuit of power steered over 25 million (give or take a million) to a premature death. And it just niggles me that many of these "leaders" base their claim to authority upon an unholy wedlock of soon-outdated speculation and never in short suppy evil. As the recent scandal about the ludicrous expenses claimed by British MPs of all parties has neatly demonstrated, letting people decide for themselves, in fact forcing people to think for themselves is the rock on which demagogues founder, as will be evidenced in due course.
In contrast, there is the rock of ages, in which you can chose to believe - or not. It's your choice. And perhaps one should be mightily grateful for same. Allowing the self-appointed "elite" to tinker with your desire to live your life in the manner of The Great Commandment just strikes me as plain reckless.
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