Romans 13:1-2

"I believe in personal responsibility, I also believe in faith [sic]," Obama says. I believe in faith? I believe in belief. And I speak by talking! Tautology has always been une langue diplomatique for the ruling class, like French in the days before the Anglo ascendency, allowing our various princes and tsars and kings and emperors and plenipotentiaries of all types and stations to yammer at each other in ballrooms while the good earth yields up famines, blights, and the occasional public execution--to break the monotony, you know? Still, the now-universally requisite affirmation that one believes in the inherent value of credulity when it comes to the notion of a supernatural order, whether that involves millions of gods and the closing of the Kali Yuga or one-slash-three and the thousand year kingdom of Christ Risen on Earth, well, it's good for a grin and giggle, anyway.

As for personal responsibility, alors, I think we all know what it means: poor people are bad, and bear the burden of their own undoing, or lack of doing, or whathefuckever. This, from someone who has faith in belief and belief in faith, is a curiously un-Christian notion. Did not the various Jesi of the Gospels aver inherent virtue in poverty? The mean and wretched shall inherent the kingdom; the meek the earth; et cet'ra, et cet'ra? I'm not no believin' man myself, but I do recall some shit about camels, needle-eyes, rich men, and heaven.

Well, whatever. As the good book says: Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Si se puede!