What makes C Street and the Family so unusual in the landscape of American fundamentalism is their explicit dedication to the ruling class. Help the weak by helping the strong means tending to the interests of men such as Ensign, Sanford, and Pickering. In Ensign's case, where C Street attempted to negotiate payments for Ensign's mistress's family, you see the principle of what some Family leaders call "biblical capitalism" put into practice -- they bargained a price for services rendered. In Sanford's case, they actually managed his distraught wife, instructing her to refrain from any angry words--they'd take care of reprimands--and to keep her husband sexually satisfied. And Pickering, Pickering was just tawdry--they looked the other way while he rendezvoused with his mistress, a telecom heiress, in his C Street room. Such cover ups, were, to the Family, God's work--anything to keep their chosen ones, their "kings," in power.
I've seen a similar mindset from conservative judges in Alabama courtrooms. After being on the short end of numerous unlawful rulings, I've found myself saying, "These judges act like they are kings. They seem to think they can ignore the actual law and rule however they please."
This mindset hardly applies only to my personal situation. We've seen it at play in the Don Siegelman case, the Paul Minor case, and other Bush-era political prosecutions. I've seen evidence of it in several domestic-relations cases, where the "elite" party receives favorable treatment--and if children have to suffer because of it . . . well, that's tough.
Jeff Sharlet, I believe, has hit on an issue that has profound implications for American society. In fact, it has the power to ruin us.
Many elites, through their own selfishness or a warped view of religion (or both), believe it is more important to keep certain "chosen ones" in powerful positions than it is to uphold our democratic principles.
This kind of thinking, if unchecked, could lead to a disaster that will make 9-11 seem tame by comparison. As awful as 9-11 was, America has shown a remarkable ability to recover from it. But if we fail to see that our society is rotting from the inside . . . well, there might be no way to recover from that.
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