America's Ruling Class--And the Perils of Revolution by Angelo Codevilla

Ever so often an article comes along that is worthy of being saved on the hard drive for re-reading and future reference.  Professor Angelo M. Codevilla's article, America's Ruling Class--And the Perils of Revolution, is one of those articles.  Conservative talk show hosts raved about it yesterday, but it was not until it Alan Keyes listed it as a featured link on his Loyal to Liberty blog that I knew it was a must-read.

Professor Codevilla's piece could not be a more timely and accurate barometer of the pressures that exist between the two, polarized and diametrically opposed classes that have emerged in American society today--as he calls them, the "ruling class" and "country class."  He analyzes from all angles--social, political, economic, and religious--the manner in which each group defines and identifies itself.  Specifically commenting on the groups' differing views on authority and power, Codevilla writes,

"While the unenlightened ones believe that man is created in the image and likeness of God and that we are subject to His and to His nature's laws, the enlightened ones know that we are products of evolution, driven by chance, the environment, and the will to primacy.  While the un-enlightened are stuck with the antiquated notion that ordinary human minds can reach objective judgments about good and evil, better and worse through reason, the enlightened ones know that all such judgments are subjective and that ordinary people can no more be trusted with reason than they can with guns.  Because ordinary people will pervert reason with ideology, religion, or interest, science is "science" only in the "right" hands.  Consensus among the right people is the only standard of truth. Facts and logic matter only insofar as proper authority acknowledges them."

He continues,

"Though they cannot prevent Americans from worshipping God, they can make it as socially disabling as smoking--to be done furtively and with a bad social conscience", and "The ruling class's manifold efforts to discredit and drive worship of God out of public life--not even the Soviet Union arrested students for wearing crosses or praying, or reading the Bible on school property, as some U.S. localities have done in response to U.S. Supreme Court rulings--convinced many among the vast majority of Americans who believe in and pray that today's regime is hostile to the most important things of all."

I'll proudly and thankfully remain part of the "unenlightened" country class.