Check out this great essay by Bibliophile Stalker, concerning the duties on imported books. He makes the salient point that the larger issue behind the controversy remains the endemic problem of corruption. It set me off on a thought.
Many government agencies impose requirements for career advancement, such as completion of training seminars or even the acquisition of an additional college degree. These requirements are generally no hurdle for your typical corrupt government employee. But what if career progression were made dependent on your joining the in-house evangelical or charismatic community, and more importantly, your faithful attendance in the weekly 4-hour long prayer meetings.
Chortle you may. "X is religious, but also exceedingly corrupt!" True, religious affiliation is no guarantee to personal morality. Yet give it some thought. This isn't your hour-long weekly mass which you can zen out with ease. It is four hours of sermonizing, singing, hand-waving, slaying, testifying, singing, sharing, love offering, singing. To the genuinely unfaithful bombarded with the easy-to-digest message that your true self has a well-worn Lazy Boy occupied by Satan, it is torture which cannot be dismissed offhand. 52 times in a year (not counting the holy days), and something should break eventually. Think of it as Poe's Tell-Tale Heart, but with lite-rock music and grade-school lyrics repeated again and again.
Of course this idea is unconstitutional and full of holes. Nonetheless, a half-baked solution is better than the current state of things.
Many government agencies impose requirements for career advancement, such as completion of training seminars or even the acquisition of an additional college degree. These requirements are generally no hurdle for your typical corrupt government employee. But what if career progression were made dependent on your joining the in-house evangelical or charismatic community, and more importantly, your faithful attendance in the weekly 4-hour long prayer meetings.
Chortle you may. "X is religious, but also exceedingly corrupt!" True, religious affiliation is no guarantee to personal morality. Yet give it some thought. This isn't your hour-long weekly mass which you can zen out with ease. It is four hours of sermonizing, singing, hand-waving, slaying, testifying, singing, sharing, love offering, singing. To the genuinely unfaithful bombarded with the easy-to-digest message that your true self has a well-worn Lazy Boy occupied by Satan, it is torture which cannot be dismissed offhand. 52 times in a year (not counting the holy days), and something should break eventually. Think of it as Poe's Tell-Tale Heart, but with lite-rock music and grade-school lyrics repeated again and again.
Of course this idea is unconstitutional and full of holes. Nonetheless, a half-baked solution is better than the current state of things.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment