Lincoln's thoughts on Right-wing congressional vandalism (along with some supplemental reflections on the operations of destiny in concert with several ancient deities, as well as a concluding reference to Karl Marx)

"Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation."

R.I.N.O.

These words were spoken by Abraham Lincoln on January 27, 1838, in an address delivered before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, on the subject of "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions".

It shouldn't need to be pointed out that he was not speaking approvingly.  Abraham Lincoln was, after all, the individual who did more than any other to defend the Union against the prospect of annihilation.

He went on:

"We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings.

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? — Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! — All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Loki eating a roasted heart

And now, eight-score and fifteen years later, the Republicans have committed the latest act in their ongoing campaign of socio-economic and political sabotage by shutting down the federal government.  At a time when the U.S. is the world's only super-power and the largest, most dynamic economy on planet Earth, danger stalks the land in the guise of Tea Party "patriots" and G.O.P. hard-liners.

History, apparently in close collaboration with Thalia, the comic muse, and Loki, the Norse god of mischief, has determined that the greatest threat to U.S. national security today - indeed, the ONLY threat - is Abraham Lincoln's own Republican Party.  Now that is a tour-de-force of world-historical irony.

Marx famously observed that history occurs first as tragedy and then as farce.  What comes after farce, I wonder?