Last week, I asked “Can government solve human problems?” Given the amount of money governments spend trying, it seemed like a question that should be asked. This week, we continue.
People who have problems are often unhappy and angry. The order is important. Happy people are rarely angry. Unhappy people nearly always become angry, at least about something. That last part is important. What they become angry about may or may not be a direct result of their problem. Sometimes, the perceived problem is just an excuse for their anger. By blaming their problem, they reduce their responsibility for their anger.
What is unique about our modern world is that the very governments that are trying to solve problems are the ones creating problems via their efforts. Once, when I was too young to vote and never bothered to think about why politics was important, America had two political parties. The Democrats were the party of the Working Man; the Republicans the party of Big Business. If you were a working man you voted Democrat. If you were a business or professional man, you voted Republican.
History isn’t a straight line, much less a straight line of advancement. It’s a back and forth. The Democrats’ working man arose out of sometimes bloody conflict between labor unions and big business. That suited the working man/big business model well.
Ironically, the unions’ successes eased the grievances against big business. The growth of the middle class, probably peaking in the 1960s, shifted more people into the Republican economic view, where business, not necessarily big business, was viewed as an economic engine that lifted especially educated and professional people into higher income levels.
The Democrats never found another cause celebre. Instead, the Democrats became a party that sought out the angry and unhappy, and attempted to channel their energy and rage into elections. They have now reached the logical (to the extent that anything in politics is logical) end of that road. It’s hard to unite homosexuals and Muslims in one big tent, when one group believes the other should be tossed off the tops of tall buildings. It’s hard to unite mothers who think their little girls should be using the “little girls’ room” with grown men who want to use the little girls’ room out of gender confusion, deceitful intent, or because they – just like women – appreciate the cut flowers sometimes found in the women’s restroom.
The Democratic Party didn’t necessarily cause the great American grievance industry, but they did nurture it along. They had a lot of help. Big media, always on the lookout for a story that would grab headlines, viewers and mouse clicks, always promoted the grotesque. Now, however, they are attempting to normalize the grotesque. Big social-media firms care about only one thing: How much of your personal information they can steal and then sell to the highest bidder. Once the educational institutions joined in, sometime during the 1960s, the fix was thought to be in. Republicans would go the way of the Dodo Bird. Democrats and not-so-benevolent government would run the world.
The Democrats exploited the grievance-based society for their own gain, over a period of several generations, sometimes for political power and other times for personal gain. Sanctuary cities and states have made it obvious that they value illegal immigrants over their own citizens, who are taxed to pay for it all.
But if the growth of the grievance-based society is attributable to the Democratic Party, yet they didn’t start it, how did such a thing actually begin? To find out, we have to go back to the beginning as well. If you’re an evolutionist, still waiting for those three eternal monkeys to type the Encyclopedia Britannica, or if you’ve been watching the primordial pond, waiting for Adam to walk out of it and onto dry land, you’ve got some extra time, so humor me by following along here.
The term, “in the beginning,” appears in the book of Genesis (in fact, in the very beginning). It goes on to describe God’s creation of the universe, the earth, the living creatures, and the man and woman, whom it describes as living souls. It goes on to describe the garden God planted for them, and how God himself walked and talked with them “in the cool of the day.”
If you begin with a faulty premise, you will arrive at a faulty conclusion. Those three monkeys are never going to write the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Adam is never going to emerge from the primordial layer of pond scum evolutionists have been watching all these years. Yet the fantasy persists, especially among those who would make men and women in an image of their own desire, rather than the Image of God, in which we were made. The grievance industry was born very early in human history. Satan originated it in the garden and has exploited it masterfully ever since. It wasn’t enough for the man and woman to walk and talk with God in the garden, they wanted to become like God, knowing good from evil.
With the knowledge of good and evil came the responsibility to choose good in our own lives, nurture it in the lives of others, and to establish a mechanism to punish evil in those who make that choice. America began with that foundation. Our modern era has left that foundation in ruin.
Why are there so many unhappy and angry people in our world? Because they don’t know what God’s purpose is for their life. They become angry when their own view of what their life should be doesn’t pan out for them. Hollywood builds on this discontent, parading made up people with phony lives (run by PR agencies) before us day and night. This bubbling anger is exploited for political gain and personal power by big media, big academia and big government.
What does America get out of all this? We end up with a population that doesn’t know which bathroom to use, let alone what guidance to offer the next generation to help them find happiness and contentment. One of our early congressional actions was to print Bibles – because there was a shortage of them in the nation. Perhaps our current congress should take note.
Maybe our churches should help those who attend there to find God’s will for their lives and teach the peace and contentment that comes with applying this knowledge. Could big pharma then be given the boot from our schools, where administrators and teachers seem to believe in better living through chemistry (or at least easier lives for themselves)? Perhaps then, finally, the things God wants done in the world will get done.
craigemcmillan.com
