BUT HE THAT BELIEVETH NOT SHALL BE DAMNED

by Chris Cooper

Published on Thursday, December 28, 2006 by The Wiscasset Newspaper (Wiscasset, Maine)

If I were given to making notice of the arbitrary turn of the calendar, of investing a date with symbolic weight, or perhaps if I were just a well-socialized, gregarious, ordinary average citizen trying to do right by the traditions and follies of the society into which I was cast by the accident of birth, I would of course formulate a New Years Resolution. Were I such a person, and if, so constructed, I still found myself coming to this page to unburden myself of my urgent opinions and several suspicions, I might tell you that, beginning on the first of January, 2007, I shall no longer suffer fools.

Forget not suffering them gladly, a degree of limited tolerance many proclaim. I intend to cease tolerating them even grudgingly. I have more often than I am allowed full credit for not jacked my jaws or bled out my vitriol on the page of some small newspaper over backward, ill-considered, wrong-headed, stupid, corrupt, self-serving, venal, underhanded statements or behavior indulged in by persons who should know better or do know better but persist the worse fools for knowing and not self-correcting.

Yes, I have, I think, been reasonably reserved, almost reticent, making a fuss only when someone as powerful and well-connected as, say, Vice President Dick Cheney does something as reprehensible as getting beered up and blasting a bystander in the face with a load of bird shot at close range, then waiting an unconscionably long time before notifying the authorities. I did discuss this unfortunate incident, but you must believe me, I did not lay out the totality of my disgust on that or on many another issue. No longer. Henceforth I shall state clearly, if not always succinctly, the names of the guilty parties, describe the nature of their errors, and suggest forthrightly and volubly one or several remedial actions or penances such low-life individuals might undertake.

I'm new to this directness, so it may take me a few weeks into the new year to get the new program running effectively. If I seem to cut somebody an unreasonable degree of slack, please advise and I'll try to greet the next violation of decent behavior with greater vigor.

So how about this Congressman from Virginia, Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (Republican)? Is he an idiot, or just a jerk? By which I guess I mean to inquire, does he think he makes sense, or does he know how stupid he sounds and doesn't care? Is he pandering to a constituency so ignorant that he dares not reveal he's a tiny bit brighter than his supporters? No, there I go making allowances, and I said I wasn't going to do that any more.

Congressman Goode is displeased that soon-to-be colleague Keith Ellison (Democrat, Minnesota) intends to make his oath of office with his hand resting on a Koran, rather than a Bible. Well, yes. Shocking! We might imagine the good congressman leaping up from his fine leather chair when first the news was made known unto him and yelling, Jesus H. Christ! I'm guessing maybe Jesus wouldn't have minded the substitution of one vague and jumbled holy book for another, but who can know? Jesus probably couldn't get elected to Congress from the state of Virginia today, and that's a feat the good Congressman has five times mastered. Does this tell us more than we may find comforting about the mind of the Virginia voter? Or has Virgil H. (any relation to Johnny B?) Goode deceived his flock? Are they even now as shocked at their Congressman's idiocy as are you and I?

See, here's the thing of it. You can hate Muslims in the country. Millions do. You can fear them. You can believe every last foreign-sounding, odd-looking, turban-wearing, camel-riding, Koran-reading mother and brother and son of them will burn in Hell for all time for not having cleaved unto Jesus and the one true god. Go, as they say, for it. It's a free country. At least some older documents and teachings used to hint that it might be.

But why would you say something so guaranteed to offend and annoy so comprehensively for so little apparent gain? Here's where I'm inclined to go with idiot, rather than evil but clever (you know, like Dick Cheney).

To effect an oath of office, one needs no Bible. You swear to uphold the Constitution, to do your job to the best of your ability. Apparently it has become customary for Congressmen and Senators to place their hands upon Bibles, but it has also become their custom to steal from the poor and give to the rich, to molest their boy staff members, to play golf at taxpayer expense and to fund useless highway projects and wars of imperial conquest, and I haven't heard Mr. Congressman V. H. Goode carrying on about the odd public servant or two who may have deviated from one of these time-honored practices. No, it's just this new Muslim Congressman, whom I'm guessing he hasn't even met, whose violation of high Congressional protocols so irritates the Distinguished Representative from the Old Dominion State.

I know something about oaths of office. I've sworn many times to do right by the offices of selectman and moderator under the laws and Constitution of the State of Maine, so help me God. (Actually, I sometimes say the God part and other times don't.) I've never imagined I would do better work if I could feel the slick pebbly grain of somebody's Bible under my palm as I promised to be true. I don't doubt that most of our elected representatives do pose with a Christian Bible, and I guess that's my point—most of them have lied and robbed and abused their public trust, and I've never so much as diverted a ream of copy paper to my private use, nor taken a single well-formed female voter to bed.

Can it be that there is at best no connection between Bible-fondling and good conduct in office, and that a case can well be made for a negative correlation?

But maybe it's just me. I haven't heard that the Virginia State or National Republican Parties have put any distance between themselves and Virgil Goode. A few Democrats are sputtering, but Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't interested in impeaching President Bush for a list of crimes that surely has Virginia's great gifts to our troubled nation, the first, third, fourth and fifth presidents, corkscrewing in their graves, so Congressman Goode's bad behavior probably doesn't upset them much once the TV cameras are turned off.

But this has made me think about the issue the congressman raises. Should I hold a book when I take my oath at the Alna annual meeting next March (if, that is, the voters still like this new, zero-tolerance person I've vowed to become)? I've read the Bible and made passing acquaintance with the Koran, the Upanishads and some other inscrutable texts that purport to convey the will or advice of one or several gods, his or their prophets or disciples or vessels. None of these will do. I'll admit the Constitution does make a secular sort such as myself pretty tingly when touched, so that's a contender. But I'd surely consider proudly brandishing The Origin Of Species.

More completely: The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection, Or The Preservation Of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life. It's by a man named Charles Darwin. It holds, more or less, that the dumber of God's creatures die out and are replaced by more capable, more fit examples of his art. I like this idea. It gives one hope. Of course I don't expect to live to see Virgil Goode, his heirs and assigns, consigned to the fossil record; these things do take time.

Another thing I learned in the last week of 2006 is that President Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat, born in Staunton, Virginia) was the last president who wrote his own speeches. There ought to be a law about that. Or a Constitutional amendment. If you're going to say it, you have to write it.

You know nobody else writes my stuff. I guess I have that in common with Congressman Goode. At least I hope so. If a hireling crafted his dreadful, ignorant, xenophobic remarks, edited and spell-checked them, maybe tried them out on a co-worker or spouse, then we have an even bigger problem here than one abysmally obnoxious, stupid Congressman throwing gasoline on our culture already heated to flashpoint.

I shall now retire to await being disappointed in turn by new Congressman Ellison. The progression of Man through time gives us scant reason to expect that a Democratic Muslim will prove better fit to the task of good governance than a Christian Republican, although millions of us are so heartsick and desperate from the last six years of villainy and malfeasance we'd vote for a Free Silver Zoroastrian.

Surprisingly, Mr. Cooper does not consider himself a fool, and has no trouble imagining his thoughts not only tolerable, but reasonable. Recognizing that others may feel otherwise, he makes himself available for correction or redirection at [email protected].

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