History Repeating

The last few days I've been pondering how more than any other creature on earth, human beings deserve to be pitied. Our amazing ability to gravitate towards self-destruction is truly profound. And I'm not talking about ways of self-destruction that are so in fashion nowadays; I'm not talking about Global Warming or Nuclear War. In the end those means of annihilation are way too spectacular for our species. The truth is we lean towards much more subtle ways of destroying ourselves.

In the animal kingdom we most resemble lemmings. We learn precious little from our own history, get way too caught up in the current trends of things and are find hero-worship way too attractive. John Adams often lamented the elevation of the Founders from regular old men to something almost folk-like. And Adams was a Founder. Hero-worshiping our political leaders is nothing new, and it blinds us to their faults or even their ulterior motives. Like a driver who spills hot coffee on their lap, it is very difficult to avoid disaster when you're not even looking out for it.

Ronald Reagan said that democracy was never more than one generation from extinction. We certainly don't live by that creed today. The average citizen doesn't protect his/her rights with their own blood or sweat. We'd be lucky if 1/3 of us proactively read about current events, much less put the effort into trying to figure out what our leaders are doing behind the scenes.

On this site I blog mostly about political things so I don't expect as many hits here as, say, my wife gets on her blog. As a reflection of that most of the hits to my blog came between October 1, 2008 and November 4, 2008, election day. Only one month. Once an election is decided, interest in keeping the government accountable drops off a cliff. Not even clothes fashions go out as fast as interest in politics.

But why pity mankind? We have a saying: In Polite company, never talk about politics or religion. But in your day to day life does anything affect you more than those two things? The answer is clearly no, yet we have willingly set up rules to exclude those two items from our day to day conversations. It is fundamentally backwards, but almost universally accepted.

Humanity also suffers under another self-imposed cycle. We forge nations and set up their governments, then watch as they get corrupted and either implode from within or are conquered from without. Free societies willingly cede their own freedom to the government in exchange for broken promises. In reality those who don't fight for their 'rights' seemingly have very little use for them. In this fashion we usher in our own destruction.

In the history of this world our nation is no different. I often refer to democracy as an old battleship with tall wooden masts and wide glorious sails. The United States is the strongest of these battleships ever constructed. But like every ship it isn't perfect and was built with tiny holes in the hull. It doesn't really matter what we do or how fast we fix the holes because in the end the ship will sink, as every ship before her has. Additionally, the sad truth is there are some people on the boat who have no appreciation for the original construction, and as fast as you plug up the holes they attempt to re-design the ship under your feet. In doing so they create all new holes for you to fix. They won't listen to your attempts at reasoning, because to them this ship is old, outdated, and in need of some remodeling. 'The world has changed!" they say. To them you're holding up progress. They believe that mankind is always evolving and getting better, which necessitates their own brilliance over the past generations feeble mindedness. To them, Old = Bad. Old needs to be fixed, and they are doing you a favor in fixing it. But really their own 'fixing' only leads to the ship sinking faster.

So why pity mankind? Even if I were twice as smart as the smartest person on earth I'd still know nothing. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. We have a standard of living here that has never been seen on this planet. In fact, those living at a level we place in our poverty index live in more square footage per person than the average citizen of France. Our poor live larger than the average person in France. That is a profound statement. And yet regardless of those facts we still suffer under politicians who tell us the system is fundamentally broken and we must elect them to fix it. We are told rather pointedly that our health care system is broken beyond repair, never mind the fact that no hospital in this country can turn away a patient for not having insurance. It is 'common knowledge' that there are 42 million without health insurance, but no one ever mentions the 260 million who have insurance. That's a pretty big number. Instead we are told we need these politicians to come in and fix what is so obviously 'broken'.

Why pity mankind? Because not only do we have these politicians who constantly want to tinker with our ship, we also have those on board who welcome it. Politicians can't do this without support and they have plenty of people who aid them. There will always be people who look at the original holes and panic, having no foundation in anything but their faith in Government. It is all too easy for politicians to feed off their worry and get elected on the back of their concerns. We live in the United States, but based on the amount of items our politicians tell us we need them to address you'd think we live in Somalia.

That is why mankind needs pity. How could you not pity such a self-destructive race? A race that's aware of extreme injustices in the world, not capable of curing all those injustices, but isn't wise enough to know they aren't. A race that will destroy all that is good in this world at the behest of some politician or leader they worship and who promises them some sort of comfort. A race so in love with themselves they don't even look towards God?

During the Great Depression we looked towards Washington for our salvation, and it failed. After Hurricane Katrina we turned to the government for help, and it failed. After September 11th we turned to the government for aid, and again it failed. More recently during this economic downturn we are again turning toward government to solve our pain and we continue to expect a different outcome. Perhaps it is because the political faces have changed and re-newed our hope, but I don't think so. I believe our looking to the government for our health, our retirement, our safety, our education and everything else from the breast to the grave is an indication of something much more sober transpiring: our lack of a foundational faith in God, with which we wouldn't want government in our lives at all.

The Israelites sacrificed God for a King. David sacrificed God for a census. Solomon sacrificed God for chariots. And Americans sacrifice God for promises of security from the government. In November we traded the lives of the unborn for 'hope' of financial success. We traded friendship with Israel for (potential?) friendship with Iran. We bought into the message that economically we needed to fundamentally re-create the most successful economy this planet has ever known. We placed our hope in a man with intentions to re-design the ship we are on, instead of placing our hope in Christ.

Too often in our history a leader has preached security and prosperity only to deliver pain and suffering. It has happened before, and it will happen again. As long as we continue to look amongst ourselves for our salvation we will continue to be bitterly disappointed. It is unwise, and it is our nature.

So why pity mankind? In our fallen state, mankind is pity. If more people would recognize that they'd find peace in a Man who once said: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." If more people placed their hope in Him, we'd have no need for politicians asking us to place our hope in them.