But the righteous and wealthy can afford to be cavalier about government; after all, it's not for them, but for the helpless, luckless, and inept--which the rest of us usually are, at some point, to some degree. (Yes, some lazy gay junky immigrants might get a "free ride," but we all gonna pay for our sins one day.)

Eventually people are going to miss things the government used to do for them. Government used to give us some dignity and support at those times when something worse than a bad sandwich but not as bad as a mine explosion befell us. Now we just have to hope Anderson Cooper notices.

What I don't understand is how anyone makes or buys the argument that government is flawed because people are flawed, yet fails to believe the same of big business and the free market. Are we to believe that God runs the free market?

If so--and so it would seem--then what a curious inversion of Christian values. God helps the moneychangers, and leaves the moneychangers to help the poor. Or not, you know--as long as the megachurch has an updated look to make mall-goers feel comfortable. Christians are consumers, consumers are Christian, and the Market helps them that help themselves.

Every conversation I have about people eventually ends up on government, and every conversation I have about government eventually ends up on religion. I often wish it weren't so; you who suffer me here do so at your option--my wife isn't so fortunate.

But people who lack details must leap to generalities. If our words be pretty, we may call it "philosophizing." Though he was talking about something else (guess what!), the long lost (to me) Glenn McDonald offers this:

[T]herein lies the soul of our greatest impasses: some of us are trying to account for thermodynamics and live better before we die, and some of us are crossing our fingers and counting on the Rapture.

Amen.