I just had a really nasty thought...

[fpb]

...an air accident such as that which beheaded Polish society yesterday would do next to nothing to Britain. It is impossible for me to feel that the country would greatly miss any of its leading politicians, bureaucrats, military commanders, etc. Perhaps a few of the private people who were on the flight - relatives of the Katyn victims, celebrities such as the woman who started the Gdansk strike of 1980, etc - and perhaps one or two of the more impressive businessmen. And the Queen, if she was there. But personally I could witness the beheading of the military, the police, the legislative, executive and judiciary powers, and the media, with complete equanimity.

My God, what kind of a country in this, in which there is not a single leading figure worthy of respect?

Comments

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

What worries me is that if something similar happened to our top leadership, there would be some people here who would actively rejoice and call it God's judgment upon the Administration for (fill in the blank).

Civil society can survive indifference toward a nation's leadership, but can it survive such active hostility that there is not even the willingness to go through the motions of respect to the office that was occupied by a person with whom one disagrees? And not just by a lunatic fringe, but by a substantial portion of the populace?