“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” – Euripides (Greek dramatist 484-406 BC)
Ah, but that was a long time ago … ancient history, man! Well, it is in fact ancient history. That’s why the years decrease on the date line, but the people still got older.
Like so much of ancient history, this observation is every bit as true today as it was during the days when Greek tragedies filled the airwaves (at least as far as the actors could project their voices out into the audience).
The term “mad” does not mean angry. The dictionary explains that it means (of a person, conduct, or an idea) “extremely foolish or ill-advised,” and also “in a frenzied mental or physical state.” For more entertainment, the thesaurus expands on this: “he felt he was going mad, insane, mentally ill, certifiable, deranged, demented, of unsound mind, out of one’s mind, not in one’s right mind, sick in the head, crazy, crazed, lunatic, non compos mentis, unhinged, disturbed, raving, psychotic, psychopathic.”
Well, I ask you: Is that not a flawless description of those on the political left right now? Here are just a few examples:
- They saw an economy lifting all Americans away from poverty, and it drove them crazy.
- They saw a real border wall being built to control illegal immigration from the south, mixed in with illegal drugs, sex and human trafficking victims, gangs and violence beginning to be controlled, and the criminals (already here) deported, and it made them unhinged.
- They saw international agreements being renegotiated to stem the flow of jobs out of this country, reduce our unemployment and raise our wages, and it made them disturbed!
- They saw China’s Wuhan lab release COVID-19 on the world (domestic flights from Wuhan were banned, but Chinese airline passengers were free to travel the world), and they were raving that it was somehow President Donald J. Trump’s fault.
- They saw Democratic governors release COVID-19 infected patients from hospitals into nursing homes, where the most vulnerable lived, and it was this president’s fault more people died.
Now we have Democrat-controlled cities full of protesters, looters and rioters, with the police ordered not to interfere, and they say that the nightly destruction is also this president’s fault?
The Democratic politicians’ response (and they do seem to be responding in lockstep) is that it is OK to riot, loot and burn down the city, attack the police and innocent bystanders, but by God don’t you religious bigots go to church and sing a hymn! We will not only lock up the pastor, we’ll shutter the damned building! Left unsaid? The state is God, and we are the state: you will do what we tell you!
Oddly enough, Democrats are displaying the complete spectrum of madness. They are going insane (being made mad) and they are very angry. The dictionary defines a mob as a “group of people that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence; a mob of protesters.” The Constitution does not mention mobs in the First Amendment, it mentions people who peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of their grievances. That’s a long way from burning down the city to save it from police violence. Odd how today the “grievances” have more to do with inequal distribution of expensive toys and clothing, and the remedy is extracting those items through smashed store windows as the grievance committee assembles.
One of the tasks of a novelist is to create believable characters for the story being written. Authors constantly ask ourselves, “Is it believable that this person would act this way under these circumstances?” Readers are quick to discard stories with characters who act “out of character.” Put another way, both people in real life and people in a fictional story have free will. In real life free will comes from God. In a novel, free will is given and, if the story is to succeed, guarded by the story’s author.
Perhaps that is why fiction writers are so sensitive to real people who blame everyone else for their behavior. No growth is possible for such a character living inside a story, and no growth is possible for such people living in the real world. Without growth on a personal level, there is no possibility for change for the better. The reason is that for a person trapped inside such madness the problem is not caused by their mistakes, but by the “mistakes” made by others. Thus, for those who have entered into this madness, there is no need to change. It is instead others who must change, even entire nations. It is quite a two-dimensional existence.
The ancient Greeks had a god for nearly everything, but the gods who have made the Democrats and other leftists go mad are not those gods; they are much darker gods. Having driven the people who worship them into madness, they are now going to destroy them.
The Creator, the only God who actually exists, does not relish the destruction of humanity, because He paid too high of a price to redeem it. But know this: Those who have moved outside of His created reality and are intent upon living inside their own dark, manufactured reality, will not be permitted to destroy all of creation.
The Real Armageddon Story,in paperback and eBook.
