Curtis Dahlgren
Gray-matter-envy; Several versions of "Little Red Riding Hood," past and present
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Where are your checks in this [pre-Bill of Rights] Government? Your strong holds will be in the hands of your [political] enemies: it is on a supposition that our American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this government are founded: But its defective, and imperfect construction, puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst mischief, should they be bad men." — Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention for the Constitution, 1788
I FIRST HEARD "LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD" IN A LITTLE BRICK SCHOOLHOUSE. The wolf eats up Grandmother and puts on Granny's dress when he sees LRRH skipping through the woods with a basket full of goodies baked by her mother. The wolf jumps in bed and invites LRRH into the bedroom. When he says, "The better to eat you with," LRRH screams and is saved by a nearby woodcutter, who chops the wolf into pieces with an axe.
[Over-sensitivity was not a problem with our teachers in those days (which is why we had so few bad men in the 'hood' — and the woodcutter became my hero). But that's so "stuck in the 50s," isn't it?]
IN THE GREAT SOCIETY VERSION of "LRRH," she goes to her grandmother's house in the suburbs with a note from her single mother requesting some money to pay for cigarettes. When she is attacked by a wolf along the way, she is rescued by someone from the Environmental Protection Agency who takes the wolf far, far out into the country and tells him to "never, ever, do that again."
[This is partly based on a real children's book, but they left out the little detail that LRRH was kidnapped by a pervert on her way home, never to be seen again.]
In the post-Malaise, even kinder, gentler version of LRRH, he's a boy who was put on Ritalin as a child. He's now 25, living at home, and receiving SSI for his addictions. He drives to Grandmother's house in his car with an empty wallet to beg her for some drug money. When she refuses to give him any, he begins to beat her. The attack is interrupted by an officer named Wolf who happens to be next door investigating a burglary. He arrests Granny for not watering her lawn (a zoning violation) and offers to give LRRH a ride home (he's an illegal alien, so he can't "profile" him). The Little Red Rider attacks the policeman with an axe and disappears into the Hood. THE END.
[Thanks to the secular "evolution" of society, America is a basket case and Patrick Henry's worst fears of "bad men" have been achieved, despite the Bill of "Rights."]
In fact, the whole world is going to Hell in a handbasket. In the real-life version of "LRRH," it has been reported on talk radio that Al Quaida in Iraq is butchering children, cooking them, and forcing their parents to eat them (Mark Levin, 7/09/07). Meanwhile, the grandmother-Speaker-of-the-House and her friends think that they can "make the world go away" by, Abracadabra, passing resolutions and investigating the Big Bad Wolves in the White House [did you know that "Big Bad Wolf" is on the list of forbidden "hate words" in Academia?].
THE PARADOX IS: The "Majority" in politics, education, and the media are preaching "peace" to their choir, and the schools are banning dodgeball and "competition," and even forbidding skipping. Skipping school is "tolerated," of course, but if we allow skipping, someone might get "hurt"! Conservatives/traditionalists are considered heartless by our "Best and Brightest"! By the way, a grandmother in Utah really was jailed for not watering her lawn recently.
Then there's the Live Earth version of "Little Red Riding Hood":
Little Green Men, flying around the world on private jets, play music and beg for money to support their environmental activists — who think that Nancy Pelosi is too conservative and corporations are the Big Bad Wolves. The "hero" of this story turns out to be a man whose family made its fortune on oil and tobacco (the Gores). The end result of this fable, they hope, is a worldwide tax on "carbon emissions" (all to go into their "basket" of course).
If it were to come to that, they had better ban sex or put a tax on every act of sex, because — as you know and I know — deep breathing causes an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide breathed out. Perhaps they will say they've tried it, but they didn't exhale. Perhaps they will say they purchased "carbon offsets" to make up for their deep breathing. That's how ludicrous this hellacious handbasket is becoming.
Conclusion
I've almost used up all the space for this week's column without even touching on what was supposed to be the original topic, "Socialism, Christianity, and post-Liberal liberalism" (thus the term Gray-matter-envy" in my title). That refers to "brain drain" (i.e., brains going down the drain). For the sake of our pseudo-intellectual friends on the Left who always accuse those who dare to disagree with them of "over-simplification," I was going to recommend a book:
"The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality" by Ludwig von Mises, edited by Bettina Bien Greaves (www.libertyfund.org)
In this book, he explains the causes of the irrational fear and hatred many intellectuals feel [emphasis on FEEL] for capitalism and the misunderstandings that cause resistance to economic development in general. He rebuts the psychological aversions to economic Freedom, and offers compelling insights into human reactions to free enterprise.
I intended to add to my list of the most politically-incorrect Scriptures by pointing out the fact that, for the sake of "Christian liberals" or "democratic socialists," the Bible attacks "envy" almost twice as much as it attacks "greed." Not that greed is better than envy, but most people in the world lack the opportunity to be very greedy, but anyone can be guilty of envy (one of the so-called seven deadly sins).
Promoting class envy is not a "Christian" thing to do. After all, for our "liberation theologists," the Almighty's attitude toward "the rich" is no mystery:
"The rich and poor meet together; the Lord is maker of them all."
P.S. That's one of my favorite Proverbs, and it was written by Solomon, the man who asked for wisdom instead of riches for himself (I Kings 3:11). Paradoxically, Solomon became perhaps the richest man in the world in his hey-day (though his wisdom did not increase along with his riches).
As Agur put it, "Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches . . . lest I be full, and deny the Lord, or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of the Lord in vain." — Prov. 30:8-9
The bottom line is: there are godly and ungodly people in all three classes — lower, middle, and upper. I managed to make it from the upper-lower class to the lower-middle class, but some of my best friends are rich people. As a "woodcutter," I worked on trees at two homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (one of the owners sued Wright, but recommended me to the new owner when he sold the house).
Speaking of the environmentalists and politically-incorrect Scriptures, it's hard to choose just one for the top of the list, but certainly one of the most un-PC ones at the present moment is this one:
"Behold the fowls of the air [take the bald eagle, fresh off the endangered list], for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
"ARE YOU NOT MUCH BETTER THAN THEY ARE?"
I can hear the groans all the way up here in the Upper Peninsula coming from the Ivy walls of the Ivory Towers ("nature" is king now, and mankind — excuse the word — is destroying the planet. But God put Man here for a Higher Purpose than the creatures he designed for our use. That Purpose would bring us to another version of Little Red Riding Hood:
The Creator, Who is in control, makes the sun burn so hot that the Little Green Men have to forget their taxing schemes, leave their private jets home, and ask "the wolves of the field" to save them. But we'll leave those little details for another day.
PPS: What I'm alluding to here is that "save the planet from carbon dioxide" is just a distracting counterfeit to brainwash Generation XYZ into forgetting the God who has fed us to the full, and forget that He said, "Seek first the Kingdom AND His righteousness and [whatever you want] will be given unto you."
MORE TO COME.
© Curtis Dahlgren
"Where are your checks in this [pre-Bill of Rights] Government? Your strong holds will be in the hands of your [political] enemies: it is on a supposition that our American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this government are founded: But its defective, and imperfect construction, puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst mischief, should they be bad men." — Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention for the Constitution, 1788
I FIRST HEARD "LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD" IN A LITTLE BRICK SCHOOLHOUSE. The wolf eats up Grandmother and puts on Granny's dress when he sees LRRH skipping through the woods with a basket full of goodies baked by her mother. The wolf jumps in bed and invites LRRH into the bedroom. When he says, "The better to eat you with," LRRH screams and is saved by a nearby woodcutter, who chops the wolf into pieces with an axe.
[Over-sensitivity was not a problem with our teachers in those days (which is why we had so few bad men in the 'hood' — and the woodcutter became my hero). But that's so "stuck in the 50s," isn't it?]
IN THE GREAT SOCIETY VERSION of "LRRH," she goes to her grandmother's house in the suburbs with a note from her single mother requesting some money to pay for cigarettes. When she is attacked by a wolf along the way, she is rescued by someone from the Environmental Protection Agency who takes the wolf far, far out into the country and tells him to "never, ever, do that again."
[This is partly based on a real children's book, but they left out the little detail that LRRH was kidnapped by a pervert on her way home, never to be seen again.]
In the post-Malaise, even kinder, gentler version of LRRH, he's a boy who was put on Ritalin as a child. He's now 25, living at home, and receiving SSI for his addictions. He drives to Grandmother's house in his car with an empty wallet to beg her for some drug money. When she refuses to give him any, he begins to beat her. The attack is interrupted by an officer named Wolf who happens to be next door investigating a burglary. He arrests Granny for not watering her lawn (a zoning violation) and offers to give LRRH a ride home (he's an illegal alien, so he can't "profile" him). The Little Red Rider attacks the policeman with an axe and disappears into the Hood. THE END.
[Thanks to the secular "evolution" of society, America is a basket case and Patrick Henry's worst fears of "bad men" have been achieved, despite the Bill of "Rights."]
In fact, the whole world is going to Hell in a handbasket. In the real-life version of "LRRH," it has been reported on talk radio that Al Quaida in Iraq is butchering children, cooking them, and forcing their parents to eat them (Mark Levin, 7/09/07). Meanwhile, the grandmother-Speaker-of-the-House and her friends think that they can "make the world go away" by, Abracadabra, passing resolutions and investigating the Big Bad Wolves in the White House [did you know that "Big Bad Wolf" is on the list of forbidden "hate words" in Academia?].
THE PARADOX IS: The "Majority" in politics, education, and the media are preaching "peace" to their choir, and the schools are banning dodgeball and "competition," and even forbidding skipping. Skipping school is "tolerated," of course, but if we allow skipping, someone might get "hurt"! Conservatives/traditionalists are considered heartless by our "Best and Brightest"! By the way, a grandmother in Utah really was jailed for not watering her lawn recently.
Then there's the Live Earth version of "Little Red Riding Hood":
Little Green Men, flying around the world on private jets, play music and beg for money to support their environmental activists — who think that Nancy Pelosi is too conservative and corporations are the Big Bad Wolves. The "hero" of this story turns out to be a man whose family made its fortune on oil and tobacco (the Gores). The end result of this fable, they hope, is a worldwide tax on "carbon emissions" (all to go into their "basket" of course).
If it were to come to that, they had better ban sex or put a tax on every act of sex, because — as you know and I know — deep breathing causes an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide breathed out. Perhaps they will say they've tried it, but they didn't exhale. Perhaps they will say they purchased "carbon offsets" to make up for their deep breathing. That's how ludicrous this hellacious handbasket is becoming.
Conclusion
I've almost used up all the space for this week's column without even touching on what was supposed to be the original topic, "Socialism, Christianity, and post-Liberal liberalism" (thus the term Gray-matter-envy" in my title). That refers to "brain drain" (i.e., brains going down the drain). For the sake of our pseudo-intellectual friends on the Left who always accuse those who dare to disagree with them of "over-simplification," I was going to recommend a book:
"The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality" by Ludwig von Mises, edited by Bettina Bien Greaves (www.libertyfund.org)
In this book, he explains the causes of the irrational fear and hatred many intellectuals feel [emphasis on FEEL] for capitalism and the misunderstandings that cause resistance to economic development in general. He rebuts the psychological aversions to economic Freedom, and offers compelling insights into human reactions to free enterprise.
I intended to add to my list of the most politically-incorrect Scriptures by pointing out the fact that, for the sake of "Christian liberals" or "democratic socialists," the Bible attacks "envy" almost twice as much as it attacks "greed." Not that greed is better than envy, but most people in the world lack the opportunity to be very greedy, but anyone can be guilty of envy (one of the so-called seven deadly sins).
Promoting class envy is not a "Christian" thing to do. After all, for our "liberation theologists," the Almighty's attitude toward "the rich" is no mystery:
"The rich and poor meet together; the Lord is maker of them all."
P.S. That's one of my favorite Proverbs, and it was written by Solomon, the man who asked for wisdom instead of riches for himself (I Kings 3:11). Paradoxically, Solomon became perhaps the richest man in the world in his hey-day (though his wisdom did not increase along with his riches).
As Agur put it, "Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches . . . lest I be full, and deny the Lord, or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of the Lord in vain." — Prov. 30:8-9
The bottom line is: there are godly and ungodly people in all three classes — lower, middle, and upper. I managed to make it from the upper-lower class to the lower-middle class, but some of my best friends are rich people. As a "woodcutter," I worked on trees at two homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (one of the owners sued Wright, but recommended me to the new owner when he sold the house).
Speaking of the environmentalists and politically-incorrect Scriptures, it's hard to choose just one for the top of the list, but certainly one of the most un-PC ones at the present moment is this one:
"Behold the fowls of the air [take the bald eagle, fresh off the endangered list], for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
"ARE YOU NOT MUCH BETTER THAN THEY ARE?"
I can hear the groans all the way up here in the Upper Peninsula coming from the Ivy walls of the Ivory Towers ("nature" is king now, and mankind — excuse the word — is destroying the planet. But God put Man here for a Higher Purpose than the creatures he designed for our use. That Purpose would bring us to another version of Little Red Riding Hood:
The Creator, Who is in control, makes the sun burn so hot that the Little Green Men have to forget their taxing schemes, leave their private jets home, and ask "the wolves of the field" to save them. But we'll leave those little details for another day.
PPS: What I'm alluding to here is that "save the planet from carbon dioxide" is just a distracting counterfeit to brainwash Generation XYZ into forgetting the God who has fed us to the full, and forget that He said, "Seek first the Kingdom AND His righteousness and [whatever you want] will be given unto you."
MORE TO COME.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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