Kings and High Priests

Nobody asked but …

Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. — Denis Diderot

 I agree with Diderot that kings and priests are part of the problem. But I understand how his words might be misused by collectivists. Most of the French revolutionists and most of the religious reformationists simply sought to replace the old order with a new order that favored a different collective. We have the same problem here, where our founding fathers simply replaced the overseas tyranny with the same institutions, under new would-be tyrants. In this sense, Diderot was right about the last oligarchs, but the freedom would likely last only until the stranglers and disembowelers set up their own regime. Actually, I think that Diderot is being very ironic here, since there will always be kings and priests, before and after every disembowelment and strangulation.  This is still one of my favorites, since it truthfully calls into question both royalty and myth, as well as the bitter amalgams of the two.  Only free individuals will be free.

Kilgore Forelle

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