A Nation of Thieves and Beggars

In days past, people would praise a great ruler by saying, “In his (or her) time, people prospered, everyone was taken care of, so much so that there were no thieves or beggars.”  Today, in America, we see the exact opposite of that ideal: almost everyone has become either a thief or a beggar.  How can we go on like this?

     The ruling class of this country are like the people of Bulika in George MacDonald’s Lilith, “Yet they boast and believe themselves a prosperous, and certainly are a self-satisfied people—good at bargaining and buying, good at selling and cheating; holding well together for a common interest, and utterly treacherous where interests clash…despising everyone they get the better of; never doubting themselves the most honorable of nations, and each man counting himself better than any other.  The depth of their worthlessness and the height of their vainglory no one can understand who has not been there to see, who has not learned to know the miserable misgoverned and self-deceived creatures.”