Don’t fall into the scapegoat trap.

In the Old Testament the scapegoat was literally a goat onto whom the people projected their sins. The goat was then sent out into the wilderness to wander alone until it died of thirst or was devoured by the wild beasts.

Here’s the passage from Leviticus 16 where this is commanded as part of the Old Testament religious ritual.

“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. 21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. 22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.

There is a powerful symbolism here because this is what we automatically do within our families, within our schools, our parishes and our larger communities. We  project our fears, insecurities, sins, anger and rage on to an innocent victim. We put our trash on that other person or group of people.

We demonize them. We blame them. They are the problem and we are okay. Notice that this process is not rational. It is sub-rational. It is a deep instinct in the human condition and people from every society from the most primitive people in the jungle to the most primitive people in Manhattan do this.

We identify a particular person or category of person onto whom we shift all the blame. “Its all the rich people’s fault. It’s all the poor people’s fault. Its the white people’s fault. The problem is the blacks. Its the immigrants who are to blame. Its the comfortable rich Americans who are at fault. Its the politicians. Its the political outsiders. Its the Muslims. Its the Jews. Its the Christians. Its the atheists.”

Everybody finding somebody to blame, and the instinct is always with us and it is always of the devil.

The reason we look for someone to blame is because we don’t want to blame ourselves. We don’t want to take responsibility. We don’t want to admit that most of our problems are caused by our own inadequacies, our own greed, our own immaturity and insecurity.

Be wary of falling into the Scapegoat Trap.

Be especially wary of any religious or political leader who plays on this instinct. One of the weird things I am unhappy to find among some traditionalist Catholics, for example, is anti-Semitism. No it is not right to blame the Jews for the world’s problems. No it is not right to spin conspiracy theories about how “the dirty Jews” control the politics, the media and everything. No it is not sane to imagine that all your enemies are either Jews, Jew sympathizers, in the pay of the Jews or are secret Jews.

In America down the years there has been one long list of scapegoated groups of people. It was the Catholics. It was the Irish. It was the Italians. It was the Russians. It was the negroes. It was the Jews.

Now it is the Muslims.

If you are inclined to scapegoat all Muslims. Stop. Stop and think. Inform yourself. Read this article about Islam by a Christian Islamic scholar.

You don’t have to like Islam. That’s okay, you can  understand and be opposed to the negative things about the Islamic religion and culture, but do not demonize all Muslims. Continue Reading

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I’m not a gun owner and the Amish in me makes me tend toward pacifism and non-violence in all cases.

However, the lack of common sense on both sides of America’s gun debate is astounding.

Liberals who call for gun control can’t seem to see the bumper sticker common sense that “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people”

California has some of the strictest gun control laws and the San Bernardino shooter proves that gun control laws don’t stop people shooting each other.

Conservatives who abhor any kind of gun control have their heads in the sand. A civilized society does need some common sense gun control.

The problem of America’s gun violence lies within the human heart and human society. Guns are simply tools we use to act out the sickness and violence in our hearts.

To stop the gun violence therefore we need moderate gun control, but most of all we need solutions that go to the root of the problem.

Where does the violence in our hearts originate? Here are ten things that can be done to address the root problems that result in gun violence.

1. Support the Family – A person resorts to violence because violence and hatred has taken over his heart and mind. Violence and hatred is rooted in fear and fear grows from a lack of love, confidence and personal acceptance. The primary source for personal love, confidence and acceptance is within a loving, stable home environment. When a young man or woman does not have a foundation in confident, caring and objective love they have fear instead of love at the foundation of their personality. That fear grows into anger, rage and hatred. This excellent article chronicles the correlation between fatherless families and young male killers. You want to make America less violent? Strengthen the family.

2. Control Drugs Not Guns – Most of the gun violence includes drugs–either wars over street drugs  or the shooter himself being zombied out on mind control drugs. Americans take a pill for all their problems. We’re all drugged up to our eyeballs. We’re an addict nation. Address the drug dependency. It only masks the deeper problems, and often simply makes them worse because the drugs suppress the rage and unhappiness in the human heart

3. Treat Mental Illness with Compassionate Firmness – Mentally ill people are too often prescribed drugs and “care in the community”. This is not for their benefit, but because institutional care is expensive. So we put vulnerable, mentally ill people out in the community without proper supervision. We drug them and expect everything to be ok. It’s not ok. They get guns. They get crazy ideas and it all ends in bloodshed.

4. Build Positive Community – Much gun violence is perpetrated by inadequate loners. In the past the extended family and integrated community would harbor and help such people. In our anonymous, mobile and individualistic society they live alone and act out of their lonely fantasies, conspiracy theories and mental illness. Stronger communities might just welcome such people and integrate them with confidence. Other gun violence erupts from gang warfare. Gangs are dark communities. They grow up in the absence of positive and good communities and families.

5. Address Social Poverty and Exclusion – No one’s making excuses for violent crime, but a sub class of people does exist in America. The poor in America often feel no sense of opportunity, no sense that “hard work and good ideas” will help them get ahead. Instead they fall into a hopeless spiral which too often leads to crime, drugs and the violence that goes with it. Programs to help them get on their feet won’t solve all the problem, but with other factors can help address some of the contributing causes of despair, rage and violence.

6. Teach Moral Responsibility and Personal Virtue – If a young person is surrounded by lying, thieving, greedy, lustful and decadent people he will become like them. If his education takes place in a moral and spiritual vacuum where there are no moral absolutes and moral relativism is the only rule, then why are we surprised when they grow up with no real sense of right and wrong, no real sense of personal responsibility, no real sense that  personal virtue is important? If they are not taught what virtue is how are they supposed to know what to do? Instead if they grow up in an environment where the strong win and the powerful get it all, no wonder they resort to the law of the jungle.

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Do you remember John Hinckley–the guy who shot Ronald Reagan?

This article explains how he is being “re-integrated” into society. In fact, he has been out and about off and on since 2003.

John Hinkley and the Reagan assassination attempt is one of the hugest non-stories ever to be whitewashed from American history.

Why? Because John Hinckley was the son of a very significant Texas oil family. Not only was his father, John Sr, a major donor to George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1980 (he was defeated for the G.O.P. nomination, but chosen as Reagan’s running mate) but the Hinckley and Bush families were close friends. The night after the assassination attempt Hinckley’s brother Scott and his wife was due to have dinner with Neil Bush–the Vice President’s son.

If Hinckley had been a better shot the ambitious George Bush would have found himself in the top job.

So John Hinckley Jr was just a lone crazy assassin and the fact that his family and the Bush clan are buddies is just an “extraordinary co incidence” which no American journalists think worth investigating?

Far be it from me to suggest that the Bush clan might be a shadowy crime family and I would never want to propose way out conspiracy theories… maybe Hinckley Jr was a genuine nut case who was trying to impress his rich Dad or do his family a favor, but it does make one think…especially as George Bush Sr. was in charge of the CIA just after they were exposed for running their mind control assassins program….

On the other hand, assuming Bush Sr would plan such a thing would he be so stupid as to use someone with whom his family had such close links?

Probably not. In which case, once again a bit of common sense defuses what could have been a juicy conspiracy theory.