Ill fares the land ...

As I was reading the newspaper the other day, I came across a quote from Oliver Goldsmith, “Ill fares the land … where wealth accumulates and men decay.” I immediately thought of the current weed crop of Republican candidates. Mr. Goldsmith was an 18th century writer whose combination of thoughtful work, hack writing and dissolute life style earned him the title of “inspired idiot’ from a fellow intellectual. Again I thought of the GOP group. One pretends that he led a job creation venture capital group when the company was in fact primarily a leveraged buyout company that likely laid off far more than its few venture capital investments created. But he worried about pink slips with only a few million to rely on. You, know just little the average worker. He just doesn’t pay taxes like the average worker. Another cries out against the Washington culture, even though he was earning a very high income catering to that culture. Another believes his faith should dictate government policy for all, a true chauvinist. The last in the standings seems to belong to another insular century. (That being said, like him, I also wonder in this age why do we station so many troops overseas? I thought WWII and the cold war were over. Is the USSR making a comeback?) Watching and listening to all of them, it is easy to see that the rot and idiocy have set in deeply without a hint of inspiration. Thank God for the mute button.