Out With Them All

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,

which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.

Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.

Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.

Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!

Cromwell, dissolving the Long Parliament

April 20, 1653

News that I missed, courtesy of The Babylon Bee:

We try to stay out of politics at The Babylon Bee, as your favorite unbiased Christian news source (but sometimes Ocasio-Cortez just makes it too easy).

But we can’t hold it in any longer: in this stunning and brave editorial, our editorial board is now declaring that everyone in Washington must be removed from office.

It is clear that everyone in Washington has abused power, and it’s time for them all to resign. They have obstructed justice, abused power, and just generally wasted everybody’s time. As Christians, we must stand up and say “enough” when it’s clear that Congress, the White House, and the courts have all been complicit in theft, the murder of the unborn, and the destruction of the Constitution.

Other publications have announced that Trump should be removed from office, but they are not as virtuous as we are, because they obviously don’t care about the abuse of power that has been happening in Washington for decades. You might say this editorial is the ultimate virtue signal to end all virtue signals.

Go here to read the rest.  When it comes to the fallen men who administer governments, little Jimmy Madison said it best long ago in Federalist 51:

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

When we ignore this passage, we do so at our peril, and make ourselves prey to demagogues and self seekers.