Fatal Purity and the Health Care debate.

With its striking images of an oppressed and riotous people razing a prison to the ground and of swift justice doled out to both the rich and poor by the cold, unsympathetic edge of a guillotine blade, the French Revolution is a period oft-romanticized by historians and story-tellers alike (even I couldn’t help myself just now).

The eternal notion of truth, conformity of thought with reality, impels us to say: This displeases me and annoys me, but it is none the less true. Still, human interests are so strong that Pontius Pilate's question often reappears: "What is truth?" One answer which we must examine is that of pragmatism.

Nancy Pelosi has informed her peers (slaves?) that they MUST vote for the health care bill, even at the risk of their political careers because "we need courage" to pass something comprehensive, not incremental. This is the very definition of "Fatal Purity" - to be so committed to a policy, belief or philosophical framework, as to reject even the very notion of anything else to do with same.

I hate to shift Nancy's paradigm, but even Abraham Lincoln had to conclude, during the Civil War (The War Of Northern Aggression as it is properly known in the South) that the Constitution itself is "not a suicide pact" - in other words principles are fine, but one is not required to drag others to your impending self-immolation scene.

In Pelosi's case, the Holy Grail of universal health care taking over a substantial percentage of the American (and God knows who else's - read the thing!) economy, thus control of the Great Unwashed, has imputed a serious condition… Look into the eye of a a serial killer, religious fanatic or a chicken and you will see it - her self-induced, quasi-religious ecstasy is bordering on public orgasm!

Well, be it so… but I would keep one thing in mind if I were her - that the bloody excesses, due to fatal purity, of The French Revolution did not lead to "Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for "Liberty, equality, fraternity (brotherhood, for those living in Perryville, KY) for all.

It led to Napoleon Bonaparte.