Thin Skin

Chronic cutaneous insufficiencies always proceed tyranny

As we enter the final weeks of the US mid-term political elections, we American people will be electing our next political leaders. I encourage all to gauge their favorite candidates by honesty, integrity, and the thickness of their skin. We are in very challenging times with record inflation, unsustainable energy prices, a deepening recession and looming unemployment. The work in front of our next batch of elected leaders is not for the faint of heart nor those suffering political chronic cutaneous insufficiencies, otherwise known as thin skin.

For all nations that befall a state of tyranny begin with political leaders developing thin skin. Caligula was notoriously thin-skinned and began to see assassins behind every curtain. Some would say he was paranoid while others would say perceptive. Regardless, Caligula use the power of the state to silence his political enemies.

King Henry VIII weaponized the Court of Star Chamber against those who opposed his political causes. The court used, with great efficiency, the ex officio oath whereby political victims were forced to swear to answer truthfully all questions that might be asked. The only three outcomes through this hostile type questioning would be to have the defendant incriminate themselves, perjure themselves or be held in contempt of court if they refuse to answer. Justice, more than any other government action, requires jurists to have the thickest of skins.

Adolf Hitler's incredibly thin skin spawned the Volksgerichtshof, or The People's Court. The Nazi court was set up following the July 20, 1944 assassination plot. From then until the fall of Nazi Germany, the Volksgerichtshof served as der Fuhrer’s super legal and un-judicious firing squad for all political dissidents. Hitler may hold the record for a political leader with the thinnest skin as his reign of terror upon political enemies began in the 1920s with the growth of the Brown Shirts, or the "assault division" of the fledgling Nazi party. This political arm used thugocracy to intimidate the German citizens into Third Reich compliance.

In these United States, we have been facing decades of political leaders' thinning skin. And this affliction is not party exclusive. We certainly know that RINOs, the likes of which one would find in camp Romney or Cheney, stands for Republicans In Name Only and certainly does not refer to the thickness of skin of an actual rhino. These thin-skinned RINOs retreat from every Republican ideological battle with the weakest of knees and rubberiest of spines. One of my biggest criticisms of Pres. Trump was the thinness of his skin. Number 45 had great tenacity at signaling out his opponents and bringing the fight directly to them, however his Achilles’ heel was the fact that his skin was easily bruised by the least of his detractors, thus allowing these political insignificants occupy his attention. Taking time to repair those wounds often took President Trump's eye off his big-ticket political prizes.

But if there ever was a political party suffering from a collective infliction of chronic Dermatoporosis, it is the modern Democratic Party. This thinned skin political party uses all the public and private resources at its disposal to silence and punish its opponents who merely brush up against their egos. One such private lever is the collusion of government's truth ministers and social media behemoths in canceling political "wrong think." Twitter has put more conservative individuals into the virtual Gulag than Joseph Stalin ever dreamed.

A great favorite of democrats’ past was the weaponization of the IRS. President Obama used the IRS to stall and deny conservative political non-profits from forming in the 2010 mid-term election cycle. The growth of the TEA Party and their criticism of Obama’s first two years of pushing the nation towards the ideological socialism cliff proved just too much for number 44’s skin. Instead of meeting his opponents in the arena of ideas, he used the power of the state to silence their speech. Lois Lerner, then director of the Exempt Organization Unit of the IRS was the ointment to Obama’s Chronic cutaneous insufficiencies, and as such was handsomely rewarded for her steadfast loyalty upon the discovery of her extra-legal actions. One wonders what 87,000 new IRS agents added to this thin-skinned political apparatus will do with their time.

In advanced stages of political Dermatoporosis, individuals may develop myopic tartuffery or an utter inability to spot hypocrisy. This occurs especially in our media. Taylor Lorenz, in a hit piece about the founder of Libs of Tik-Tok, revealed the name of its creator and encouraged her followers to dox that individual. She then took to Twitter to complain when people upset about the intent of the article did the same to her. Miss Lorenz was entirely oblivious to the hypocrisy of that event as well as the enjoyment others took in poetic “justice” being served.

Our nation and the world have a multitude of man-made disasters facing us. Past leaders have driven us into an economical, cultural, and spiritual morass. Economically, we are facing a recession and looming unemployment. Culturally, we are in a battle of individual vs collective responsibilities whereby everything that should be the individual’s responsibility is decided by the collective and issues that have collective ramifications are relegated to individual choice. Spiritually, our nations are lacking in a moral purpose most evident by decaying churches and a clergy that is less interested in saving souls as they seek to political expediency within the parables of the Bible.

In my lifetime, I have witnessed political leaders rise that knew what time it was and had the fortitude to keep the freedom devouring wolves at the gate of our Republic. The first such movement starting nearly 50 years ago when Ronald Reagan warned our nation that it was A Time for Choosing. The world is now at another crossroads, it is in a battle between good and evil, between freedom and tyranny. And in this battle the forces of evil always make the evil appear good and the good appear evil. Man-made armor is insufficient for this task. To fight the winds of tyranny, our leader must call on God’s power to toughen their skin for the ideological battle to come. Because honesty and integrity alone will not stop the spears discontent that will be hurled at any political leader that attempts to steer our nation away from the rocky shore that awaits all lured by the socialist siren’s sweet song. In choosing our next political leaders, it is a moral imperative that we select individuals who have the thickest of skins. For the thin-skinned sheep’s clothing is merely a political mirage; it is an unsuspecting cloak that conceals their ravenous and tyrannical bite.