America's "Happiness Index" At New Low

The other day it occurred to me that during Ronald Reagan’s run for the Presidency he created a “Misery Index”. This index represented a total of the rate of inflation, plus the prime rate, as an indicator of how the American people felt about how they were doing. No one has suggested resurrecting this index in recent years. My thought was to create a “Happiness Index”. How happy are you with the leadership of the country. The problem is that other than taking an outright poll, how do you determine happiness? Could you merely ask people if they are happy, or not with the way things are going?

Think about it for a moment, and try to objectively look at what’s been going on the last couple of years. For the last fifty years, the Republican Party successfully presented itself as the people’s choice for as a strong anti-communist party versus the former Soviet threat. Republican President after President was elected on the basis of toughness versus communism.

By 1992, communism was no longer an issue as Russia, and the satellites went democratic, and the Berlin Wall had fallen. Suddenly, the Republican Party felt its foreign policy legs come out from under it. The communist bogeyman which was real since 1917 was no longer an issue. A sitting Republican President, George HW Bush was defeated handily by Democratic Candidate, Bill Clinton who had NO foreign policy experience, or even an understanding of things foreign. During the campaign that followed, foreign policy was a NON-ISSUE. There was no communist bogeyman for the Republicans to pin their hopes on.

The tragedy of 9/11 changed everything. When the tragedy struck, the current President of the United States was handed terrorism on a silver platter as an issue. Terrorism could then be used as a replacement for communism as the next boogeyman. Anti-terrorism would serve as the underpinning of the Republican Party the same way anti-communism served for over 70 years.

The President attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan who had harbored Osama Bin Laden, and his allies for years. When it came to finishing the job, and surrounding Osama in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, we let this mass murderer get away by leaving the job to foreign hired mercenaries, the anti Taliban Afkan nationals. I assume we simply did not want to take the American manpower losses that might have been demanded.

The President then committed the American army and wealth to destroying the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Our entry to this war was based on false premises. There were no weapons of mass destruction. We are now left with chaos and civil war in that country, and no EXIT STRATEGY. As Americans, not one of us, including the President has any idea how this war will finish. He, the President has now placed our country in the same position as we were in during Viet Nam - Quagmire.

When Americans enter a war, they need to know the objective. During WW II, it was the taking of Berlin in Europe, or the fall of Tokyo in Japan. In Viet Nam, there was no mission, except the ephemeral objective of keeping South Viet Nam from going communist. What does that mean? Depending on how you calculate it, the Viet Nam war went on for about 15 years. How long will Iraq take?

I believe the President has been notified by the American people in the recent Congressional election that he is on a “short leash” when it comes to Iraq. What is the objective in Iraq? It can’t be democracy any longer. These people do not understand democracy as we understand it. The concept of democracy in that part of the world has not existed in thousands of years.

Democracy is everybody’s SECOND choice in Iraq. The Shia and Sunni’s are killing each other on a daily basis in large numbers, some of which are unreported. Good, decent American troops, none of which are sons of any member of Congress, are dying in a war without an objective, except for “Stay the Course”.

These policies should be unacceptable to all of us as Americans. The Republican Party in Congress was a surrogate for President Bush in this election. The voters could not vent their ANGER at President Bush direct. The electorate chose instead, to vent their pent-up anger towards Republican incumbents, who took a “thumping” as the President said. Yes there were other issues like corruption, but Iraq was the emotional issue. Had President Bush been up for re-election, he would have been soundly defeated by even a paraplegic blind mute this time around.

Let’s get back to that “happiness index” I spoke about in the beginning of this article. Are any of us happier with the progress of our country over the last six years than we were before that period? Are we more optimistic about the future of our country now than we were a few years ago? Do any of us believe we are headed in the right direction, or even where we are headed at all?

I believe we are now facing MASSIVE UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS that if not addressed will get worse, and our present leadership is not even aware that they exist. America has moved from a farming economy pre 1900, to a manufacturing economy in the 20th century. It must now complete the move from a manufacturing economy, to a services / post industrial society in this the 21st century. This is going to be a tough move with big unanticipated downdrafts that can knock us for an economic loop.

China and the Asian rim want to manufacture everything, leaving us with nothing. Some of our brand name companies are more than willing to accommodate them. Nike manufactures nothing – everything comes from Asia. The massive oil companies in this country including Exxon, and others manufacture nothing – they are strictly distribution and marketing entities. GM and Ford can not compete against Asian manufacturing, and then there’s Wal-Mart, which really functions as a distribution arm for China. Eighty percent of everything Wal-Mart sells comes from China.

This President does not have his eye on the ball, and we are in danger of losing our economic fire power in the next decade. He is asleep at the switch, and must realize that we can no longer afford the loss of precious lives, and national wealth on wars without objectives in countries that none of us have ever been to.

We do not have a “Happiness Index” in this country, but if we did, I believe we are near a low in our emotional happiness in this country. Things have to change, and they have to change in a hurry. Time is NOT on our side. Other countries want to eat our economy for lunch, and displace us as the world’s only remaining superpower. This President would do well to act his act together, and start thinking about how to maintain national economic wellbeing in the face of the coming foreign economic threats that are looming.

Richard Stoyeck

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America – You’ve had it Made Too Long

There is little doubt that America is riding the wave. She is at the peak of her power and at the top of her game. Trying to get her attention would be a lot like trying to stop a train with a handkerchief. Every similarity to previous world powers notwithstanding our collective national behavior is so close to ancient Rome that all that is missing is the togas. The land of the mighty Caesars made a noise heard round the world for a season then died alone in a protracted whimpering that went largely unnoticed as the world entered the modern era. What can we learn from this? Leaving this question unanswered might normally imply that the answer is understood, however, it is apparent that for Americans nothing at all is understood.

The dangers are ignored, the warnings go unheeded, and the party goes on. Contrasts of our lifestyle and that of other nations make us all the more pompous and less willing to question our own indulgence.  We have been all to willing to conclude that there must be something wrong with those guys over there. The prophet, bard and poet must now curb their urgency and put out a more entertaining message in keeping with the tone of the party spirit. We are only one step away from jailing, hurting or killing the messengers who provide us with a call to conscience. Or have we already taken our first few baby steps in that direction.

Like a mangy little dog scampering behind us and nipping at our heals comes the ACLU standing up for the rights of Gays and Lesbians while beating down manger scenes at Christmas and Ten Commandment plaques in public buildings. It makes me wonder if even common heroism has fallen victim to perversion. Are these acts heroic, are they really protecting our freedoms?

In Pennsylvania a law was recently rammed through the legislature that makes it illegal for a minister of the gospel to quote passages of the Bible from the pulpit that cite homosexual behavior as a sin. That law has been challenged by people with a bit of common sense still left to them in that state.

In Iraq and Afghanistan we are kept from entering and searching mosques that are known centers for Islamic jihad groups or where weapons are stockpiled and cached. They are considered cultural centers and thus are placed off limits. Contrast this to the latest effort to keep military chaplains from praying in the name of Jesus Christ with those who they are sheparding. Chaplains are guarding the spiritual welfare of our own soldier citizens, is that any less important than the cultural traditions of foreigners?

On a recent ride through a rural district of Arkansas I noticed that there was a church building about every one and a half miles on the road I was on. There were Pentecostal, Full Gospel, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Nazarene, Catholic and some unheard of varieties of churches stretched out in profusion for well over two hundred miles. As I drove I was thinking of an old adage spoken by one of our most well known missionary pioneers who said…”why should anyone hear the gospel twice when there are so many people in the world who have not even heard it once” I wondered if this profusion of churches laid out to us like a grand spiritual buffet is just taken for granted. No, I’m sure that it is.

After retuning home I saw a picture on the internet that I couldn’t help but contrast to the highway of churches I had just encountered. On a news site online was a picture of three Indonesian policemen standing behind three seated women they were guarding. The policemen were in full dress complete with strapped gun holsters, uniforms with arrays of badges and medals and a stern look of duty etched across each sullen face. In front of them were seated three average looking Indonesian women garbed in light blue prison jumpers. Three middle aged elementary school teachers who had just been sentenced to three years each for teaching their young students about Jesus Christ in their predominantly Muslim school sat stunned as sentence was pronounced. Save that Mosque but waste the lives of three harmless but dedicated educators, now that’s good thinking.

So over here it may not seem so bad…yet. Hollywood would have to make stumbling wimpy idiots of most gospel ministers; it goes with the territory and may seem even a bit tolerable after all. If you’re going to pump out a secular world view full of profanity and degenerate living you don’t want gospel preaching ministers to be taken too seriously. It would be too hard to sell a product if the naysayer’s were allowed a soap box from which to stand and proclaim that the product was trash within the very medium the product was sold through.

Should a dedicated Christian happen to slip through the cracks with the gospel on their lips and a life to back it up, they too would be relegated to the class of the disdained. It seems acceptable to make fun of the born againers and bible thumpers in media and in society in general. No one cares if you strip half naked, paint your face and act like a frenzied baboon on a psychedelic drug at a football game…those are fans are they not? But those who get even nominally excited about God are always labeled…fanatics. It is unlikely that Americans notice such double standards, since we are so bent on disregarding any standards at all.

We have gone from a state of utter dependence on God as we did during our pioneer days and then on to seeking the presence of God in our formative years as a nation. But now we are entering that place where we don’t even like to retain the knowledge of God at all in our thinking or living. What will be the result of all this and what can we expect next? I will let the Bible answer that.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Romans 1:28

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