The Greatest Commandments

Well, The Malaise deepens...if you believe the latest poll/results from Gallup: Practically 9 out of 10 surveyed thinks the current Congress bites the big one.

Sure, as a movement conservative, Otto could gleefully point to that result and start chucking it in the face of everyone I know who rejoiced when the Demmies gained control last November. They in turn, probably, would heave back Dubya's current poll numbers. Heave, splat, heave, splat, on and on we go...

Some other point needs to be made, I think. And that has to do with gratitude. Or, obviously, the screaming lack thereof.

For I abso-freakin'-lutely guarantee you that some percentage, and quite possibly a large percentage, of those folks polled by Mr. Gallup are on government assistance of some sort. It could be Social Security. It could be Medicare, or Medicaid. It could be AFDC, or Head Start, or food stamps. It could be any number of the other social programs administered to the tune of billions, tens of billions per year.

You would think that the recepients of these payments would have some level or degree of thankfulness, of gratitude, for this assistance. Based on this poll, you would be wrong. Very wrong.

And so Otto is compelled to ask: What's up with that?

We are all base creatures, is my take on things. Base and extremely selfish. If we get a slice of cake, we start looking at the whole damn thing, the rest of it, as being ours too. Assuming it's good cake. If we get ourselves a house, invariably we start thinking about bigger houses. Or multiple houses. I'm pleading guilty straightaway on this. I'm definitely not immune.

Some on my side of the political aisle have said and are saying that Dubya isn't doing a good enough job -- or, like, isn't doing it AT ALL -- communicating the good times we're currently enjoying. Take interest rates. Everybody all freaked out now that they've gone above 6 percent. Anybody want to take a guess what they were back in 1979-81? I mean give me a freakin' BREAK here. There's high interest rates, and then there's HIGH interest rates. So maybe people forget the really bad times.

I'd be very tempted to take a different tack, and pull a stunt that is generally acknowledged as political suicide: Give the voters a little tongue lashing. Give 'em some Bobby Knight. Tell 'em in no uncertain terms what a bunch of spoiled babies they've turned into.

But the best way out of this, The Current Malaise, is the best way out of any and every bad situation you face in your life. Religion. Jesus Christ, specifically.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were, what was his answer? Loving God, with all your heart and soul and might; and...loving your neighbor as yourself.

What does that have to do with anything?

Here's my short answer.

Loving God means giving him thanks and praise and glory for all of the good and great things He's done for us. In other words, it means GRATITUDE. Isn't that what worship is?

Loving your neighbor means helping out, cooperating, and just basically downplaying their idiosyncracies, which all of us have.

When we're grateful, we're more likely to be happy with what we have.

When we cooperate, we get along better and are happier about the place where we are.

Would YOU want to be a Senator or Representative right now? Hundreds of people calling or writing or e-mailing you every day, asking or even demanding that you fix their problems...and then turning around and STILL calling you a bum when some pollster contacts them?

The problem is not with Congress. The problem is US. We, the people. We are the problem. Christ is the solution. Book it.