"Said The Joker To The Thief"

Contrary to the stereotype, Republicans aren't concerned solely with money. No more than Democrats.

It is sometimes said of the Republican Party is that it seems to have a lack of understanding for the human condition, which was and is often explored in literature of the highest order. One associates the likes of Upton Sinclair with leftism for good reason, since writers of that era who commented on society did so with a view toward reform. The same impetus for reform exists today in the left, and among Democrats, and this explains in part the unpopular themes of many among that party.

But let this not be said to detract from a counterpart on the part of conservatives. Alexander Pope, for example, is considered among the very best among poets, and yet he was quite conservative, in my view. The left is concerned with its own agenda on the pretext that it moves the world forward. The right has an agenda, as well, and that is to understand that the world of today can be what past generations have already considered ideal and worked toward.

In this respect, the left reaches for the unknown; the right perfects what is already known. By the same token, both sides should realize, and sometimes do, that money is only a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Taxation is only as good as the ends which it achieves.

So, to use the iconography of the immortal U2, let us all realize that the hour is getting late, and both the joker and the thief have much to say.