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Helicopter government – Part V – Overprogramming

Posted by :admin On : June 26, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Socialism

This series of articles describes helicopter parenting and helicopter governing, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part V we shall examine our helicopter government’s overprogramming of the lives of its citizens through excessive and burdensome rules and regulations on individuals and culture at large and the pathologies and consequences thereof.

Overprogramming

One of the great tragedies of modern life over the last several decades is the loss of childhood in America. Perhaps a better word is “condensation” of childhood. Dr. David Elkind described this phenomenon in his 1981 book The Hurried Child.

…it is important to see childhood as a stage of life, not just as the anteroom to life. Hurrying children into adulthood violates the sanctity of life by giving one period priority over another. But if we really value human life, we will value each period equally and give unto each stage of life what is appropriate to that stage…In the end, a childhood is the most basic human right of children.[1]

Helicopter parents overprogram the lives of their children through obsessive scheduling, micromanaging, and monitoring. In such a regimented world the child becomes a pawn of the clock and calendar rather than a child of the moment or season. We see well-meaning parents over schedule their children’s lives with play-dates, organized sports, extra-curricular school activities, and the like with virtually no down time for just being a kid. The cell phone has become a child’s wireless umbilical cord by which parents micromanage and monitor the minutest actions and decisions of their children. One of the signs of an overprogrammed child is a frequent complaint of boredom (which means they have found themselves with an unfilled gap in their schedule). But whatever happened to good old-fashioned play? By “old-fashioned” play is meant unstructured, voluntary, no goals, curiosity unplugged, and fun. In other words, when does a child have his own personal and private downtime?

For many serious psychologists, sociologists, and education professionals, old-fashioned unstructured, purposeless play is as outmoded as yesterday’s bell-bottoms, a waste of time and energy, and non-productive. Yet, researchers have discovered the enormous benefits of unstructured play. It stimulates the brain; thrives on complexity, uncertainty, and possibility; makes us mentally quick; teaches social and survival skills; and stretches us as we grow toward adulthood. Effectively, play is practice for adulthood.[2] But in our children’s overprogrammed lives, play is now work and its activities (sports, music, camp, and other such activities) are now competitive and professionalized.[3] Children are now treated as miniature adults.

The governmental equivalent to parental overprogramming is a pervasive governmental interference in the lives of its citizens. Socialism is the practical application of the tenets of humanism which are being infused into society. The essence of a life overprogrammed by a humanistic helicopter government is a loss of freedom, a freedom by which is meant the absence of coercion as opposed to humanism’s new freedom which is not freedom at all. The new freedom is merely another name for leveling society through an equal distribution of wealth and circumstance. Rather than expanding the range of choice, leveling results in greater limitations on choice, and those limitations, which by definition is a loss of freedom, are the ultimate outcome of all socialistic systems.[4]

Leveling society requires omnipresent rules—petty, complicated, convoluted, uniform, voluminous, tedious, wearisome rules which dulls the mind, weakens the spirit, saps energy, crushes creativity, and opposes initiative. To give an inkling of the size of the overprogrammization of American life, Title 27 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations is the U.S. Tax Code which contains 16,845 pages including the part written by Congress. It is available for purchase from the U.S. Government Printing office for $1,153. However, the U.S. Tax Code is just one of 50 titles found in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, each of which contains one or more individual volumes, which are updated once each calendar year, on a staggered basis.[5] To these we add a multitude of state, county, city, and other regulatory entities’ rules and regulations. These have become the official handbook for living life. Who needs freedom when the government has all the answers?

Overprogramming life, whether the catalyst is a helicopter parent or a helicopter government, robs child and adult alike of perspective as to the important things in life. As we travel through various seasons of life, perspectives change but the things of importance never do. As we enter adulthood, the appointment book fills and the “to do” list lengthens. That is a normal part of life, but such things are temporal and appear much less important in life’s rear view mirror. It is the moments and seasons we savor, store in our memory banks, and protect for they cannot be recreated or rescheduled.

Who hasn’t smiled at the joy and wonder of a four-year-old boy focusing on the fascinating complexities of a dandelion or gazing at the playful wanderings of a butterfly on a sunny spring afternoon all the while oblivious to yells from parents and coaches as the soccer ball rolls past him?

How many of us adults are secret Walter Mitty types who have on occasion snatched a moment from our childhood to ride with the Commander as he pilots the Navy hydroplane through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying…or stand beside Captain Mitty as we strap on our Webley-Vickers 50.80 automatics and prepare to fly forty miles through hell while the cannonading shells from the box barrage crash around the dugout…[6] We all deserve a childhood, and if we are fortunate, a little bit of our childhood’s innocence, wonder, and adventure will survive in us and act as a respite if not a reprieve from our helicopter government’s overprogrammed world.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] David Elkind, Ph.D., The hurried child – growing up too fast too soon, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2007), p. 221.
[2] Hara Estroff Marano, A Nation of Wimps, (New York: Broadway Books, 2009), pp. 86-87.
[3] Elkind, p. 214.
[4] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 243.
[5] “What is the Real Size of the U.S. Federal Tax Code,” Isaac Brock Society, February 12, 2012.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/02/12/what-is-the-real-size-of-the-u-s-federal-tax-code/ (accessed April 9, 2014).
[6] James Thurber, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” Introduction to Literature, 4th Edition, (eds., Louis G. Locke, William M. Gibson, and George Arms, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 418-421.

Helicopter government – Part IV – Overindulging

Posted by :admin On : June 19, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Humanism, Socialism

This series of articles describes helicopter parenting and helicopter governing, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part IV we shall examine our helicopter government’s ruinous overindulgence and the pathologies and consequences thereof to individuals and culture at large.

Overindulging

Life is one of limitations. In every facet of life we face restrictions, either natural (e.g., gravity) or man-made (e.g., laws, codes of conduct, regulations, rules). Children must learn at an early age that those limitations include both actions and material things. A child who is always given whatever they want or allowed to do anything they want will have difficulty relating actions with consequences, developing a work ethic, understanding the relationship between effort and reward, and appreciating the concept of delayed gratification. Many parents have ignored these lessons when training their children, and their overindulged children have grown up to be overindulged adults with a sense of entitlement. Richard Weaver compared those with an entitlement mentality to a spoiled child. He wrote, “The spoiled child has not been made to see the relationship between effort and reward. He wants things, but regards payment as an imposition or as an expression of malice by those who withhold for it. His solution…is to abuse those who do not gratify him.”[1]

The Boomer generation (born between the end of World War II and the end of 1964) was the first to wear the badge of entitlement. Boomers grew up in an era of unbridled economic optimism, abundance, and prosperity which they assumed would last forever. In 1965, the first year after the Boomer generation officially ended, Charles Reich wrote, “Society today is built around entitlement.” In other words, there was a firm popular expectation that some specific or general outcome will occur, whether or not it is formally embodied in law. These expectations include professional licenses, executive contracts, stock options, social security pensions, and education, and most of the more important entitlements flow in some form or fashion from government. But, whether private or from government, “…to the recipients they (entitlements) are essentials, fully deserved, and in no sense a form of charity.”[2]

The growth of the Boomers’ embryonic entitlement mentality would be dramatically boosted during the last birth year of their generational cohort. In his 1964 State of the Union address, President Johnson proposed a massive legislative assault that would move an already “…rich society…upward to the Great Society.” This was the beginning of the war on poverty built on a massive array of new federal programs designed to aid the poor. However, over the next two decades, federal legislation and social policy engineers and architects would “…re-enslave many poor and minorities into a web of government dependency.” One of the most damaging programs was the Aid for Dependent Children whose qualifying requirements were changed to include any household with no male family head present, that is, it became more lucrative to not be married than to be married. The effects of these policies were devastating to the family and traditional marriage. In 1950, families comprising a husband and wife in a traditional marriage were represented by 88 percent of white families and 78 percent of black families. With the modification of AFDC guidelines by Johnson and Congress, the black family structure began a rapid decline in 1967. By the late 1970s, intact black families had declined to 59 percent compared to 85 percent for white families.[3]

The entitlement society is a derivative of humanism as can be seen in the Humanist Manifesto. If an individual cannot contribute to their own betterment, “…then society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including whatever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income.”[4]

As the humanistic worldview has ascended in America, the nation has moved toward economic bondage in both government and private sectors as socialism and its entitlement mentality have become ingrained in the American consciousness.[5] An entitlement society ultimately fails because it is based on a false understanding of human nature. The fatal flaw of an entitlement society is utopianism, “…its presumption that we are inexorably on our way toward a perfect society.”[6] This is humanism’s faith in the utopian concept of human perfectibility known as progressivism which denies the fallen, corruptible nature of man.

It is right and proper to distinguish between what is government’s responsibility and what is private (individual or institution) responsibility. However in this division of responsibility, Americans have forgotten that they are the government and that the government has and always will have limited resources. The political system now dances to the music of the entitled who have the loudest and/or largest band. With an entitlement mentality, we attempt to fix unlimited numbers of problems with limited resources rather than reasonably allocate available resources to the most pressing problems while providing a safety net for the poor but not a chaise lounge.

In 2006 Leonard Steinhorn published The Greater Generation-In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy. He makes an exceptionally revealing statement about the general mindset and attitude of the Boomers—that of entitlement—which had become pervasive by the end of the twentieth century. He wrote, “The problem is that the reality of Greatest Generation America fell far short of the ideal—the America that Boomers beheld wasn’t even close to the America they were promised.”[7] (emphasis added) What generation was ever promised anything? Each generation receives the cultural heritage of all that have gone before. Each generation is given the opportunity to do great and good things, and they should do better for they stand on the shoulders of their ancestors. Each generation is given an opportunity, not a promise nor an entitlement.[8]

America has become the land of entitlements whose national anthem is now “We deserve”, and for three generations there has been little memory of the historical relationship between actions and consequences, effort and reward, a work ethic, and delayed gratification. Americans’ concept of the role of government has changed dramatically in the last eighty-five years. To illustrate the transition from an independent, self-reliant people to an overindulged entitlement generation, I retell the story of an incident my long-deceased grandmother told to me many years ago and about which I’ve written before.

My father’s family was considered poor even by the standards of the Great Depression. During that time, my father’s mother, my grandmother, cared for a sick husband and five children, cleaned people’s houses, and did laundry and sewing for others. When she was in her eighties, she told me of an incident that she experienced during the Depression. There was no food to feed her family. So she went to the back door of a little restaurant at closing time in the small rural town of Collinsville, Oklahoma, where they lived. She asked for any leftover soup. It was some fifty years later, but she still called it the worst day of her life. Her attitude may seem strange to a twenty-first century citizen with a typical entitlement mentality prevalent in United States today, but such were the people of the Greatest Generation and their ancestors.[9]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 113.
[2] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 3. Quoted material from: Robert J. Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, (New York: Vintage Books, 1995, 1997), pp. 46-47.
[3] Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States,” (New York: Sentinel, 2004), pp. 687-688.
[4] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 20.
[5] Johnson, p. 406.
[6] Samuelson, p. 218.
[7] Leonard Steinhorn, The Greater Generation – In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy, (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006), p. 69.
[8] Johnson, p. 41.
[9] Ibid., p. 3.

Helicopter government – Part III – Overpraising

Posted by :admin On : June 12, 2015
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Category: Archives, Education, Government, Humanism

This series of articles describes helicopter parenting and helicopter governing, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part III we shall examine the consequences of a culture of overpraising encouraged by the indirect but pervasive influence of our helicopter government and the American educational system. The obsessive, destructive, and faulty efforts of the educational establishment to build child self-esteem at any cost has enabled a culture of overpraising resulting in pathologies and consequences harmful to children, adults, and the culture at large.

Overpraising

To understand the emphasis on self-esteem we must look at the development of a new view of self in America following World War II. Alan Petigny summarized the seismic change in the view of self as, “…a rejection of the belief in the innate depravity of mankind, the celebration of spontaneity, and a pronounced turn toward self-awareness…[This] gave rise—on an unprecedented scale—to a more secularized notion of the individual.” From this humanistic view of self came a belief in the basic goodness of man and a rejection of Original Sin; loosened behavioral codes that allowed one to get in touch with one’s true self rather than discover truth as defined by tradition, scripture, natural law, and other authoritarian sources; and a preference for self-expression as opposed to self-discipline. Rejecting the external, there was a decided inward turn to discover one’s guiding principles and the meaning of life. In the 1950s this process of getting in touch with one’s self was called self-actualization in which answers to the big questions of life come from within and can only be found by trusting one’s own reactions and doing “what feels right.”[1]

However, the self must not only be actualized but must be made to feel good about it. Dr. Robert Hudson believes that the whole “overprotection racket” with regard to children began with a popular fad of the 1980s in which a child’s self-esteem was built through giving them a multitude of choices.[2] Through the efforts of the American educational system and complicit parents, this process of self-actualization or getting in touch with one’s true self, co-joined with building self-esteem, begins in the earliest preschool years and continues through all primary and secondary levels and into adulthood at the university level. So many hours are spent by educators on building self-esteem that teaching skills and knowledge are neglected which is one of the major reasons for the dismal condition of American education, the most humanistically-indoctrinated institution in American life.

The problem of overpraising children and efforts to build high self-esteem are fundamentally linked to humanism’s false assumption of the basic goodness of man. The root of the problem of overpraising children lies in the mistaken belief that achievement follows self-esteem rather than self-esteem as a result of achievement.[3] Here we must distinguish between overpraising children and that of expressions of love and affirmation that all children need. Although we must not put love, affirmation, and encouragement of a child on a praise-as-you-achieve basis, we must be careful to not persistently build up within a child a false understanding of the source and value of his or her self-worth and abilities through overpraising. Overpraised children are being setup for disappointment and failure in their adult years because they were never taught how to cope with failure and disappointment in their formative years. And the consequences of those lessons denied in the childhood years are far more painful, longer-term, and costly in the adult years and radiate outward to family, friends, and society in general.

So what does all this overpraising of children have to do with a helicopter government? The emphasis on high self-esteem for children has effectively robbed them of those learning and coping experiences (especially bad experiences) in their growing up years. The effect for many is to Extend childhood forever.[4] These adults living in perpetual childhood often become wards of the state. And our helicopter government is always ready to swoop in and minister to the wounded self-esteem of those individuals or groups who feel themselves slighted, offended, insulted, or snubbed. In other words, the feelings of these pseudo-adults have been hurt, and the government must punish the perpetrators.

Professor John Portmann, professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, believes that the quest for high esteem in children is damaging the whole fabric of society. Marano quotes Portmann who

…sees young people becoming weaker right before his eyes, more responsive to the herd, too eager to fit in—not just less assertive in the classroom, but unwilling to disagree with their peers, afraid to question authority, more willing to conform to the expectations of those on the next rung of power above them.[5]

Children raised on the pacifier of high self-esteem disconnected from reality become weakened adults living in an extended childhood. These overpraised, self-actualized adults continually in need of a self-esteem fix attempt to find their value and worth from within but are constantly demoralized by the external world’s failure to affirm their inner vision of themselves. Their dismay and distress is a result of the humanistic worldview’s false understanding of the source of a person’s value and leads to an attack on the biblical view of man which is really an attack on his true dignity and worth.

Richard M. Weaver has identified the steps in the progressive demotion of man in modern society while he unsuccessfully attempts at the same time to elevate himself through humanism’s false measures of self-worth.[6] The author has previously written of Weaver’s analysis of modern man’s confusion as he struggles to understand why humanistic concepts of his worth do not bring satisfaction.

First, astronomers in the last half millennium have discovered that the earth is but a mere speck on the fringes of a vast universe. Because the earth is physically “insignificant” in relation to the totality, it is implied that man is also insignificant. As reasoning goes, the creator must have little concern for insignificant man…

Darwin’s theory of the descent of man was the second means of depreciating the worth of man. No longer the center of creation, he was robbed of his special origins, the divine spark snuffed out, and was now counted among the animal kingdom sharing a common ancestry with other creatures that struggled out of the primeval ooze and late of the anthropoid clan…

The third assault on biblical individualism occurred when man was robbed of his freewill, and his actions are now explained by material causality. He is now brute beast, a slave to animal passions, and those actions can be predicted and explained (or will be at some future point after enough study) by materialistic determinism… [7]

Humanists speak eloquently of the individual, his dignity, his worth, and his freedom to choose. They promise a freedom from the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past by which humanity has achieved a measure of civilization. However, it is a false freedom that gives unbridled control to the self and senses and ultimately leads to bondage. For all of man’s time on this earth this personal license has been the path toward disaster. To believe that such personal freedom will lead to the greater good of mankind is folly for man is a fallen creature, and he cannot lift himself by pulling at his own bootstraps.[8] And no amount of societal or self-generated esteem will fix fallen and unregenerate man.

In the humanistic worldview, the praise of self is a relentless chorus and signals the retreat from relationship and unity. This humanistic emphases on self and its consequent conceits and egotism are systemic poisons leading to fragmentation of culture through redefinition and radicalization of various concepts such as egalitarianism, multiculturalism, tolerance, feminism, and diversity. Such fragmentation of culture leads to cultural decline and disintegration because of the loss of a unifying central cultural vision.

In the Christian worldview, value or worth of a person is not dependent on what that person or someone else thinks of him. Man’s worth has been pre-determined by our Creator, and that worth is inestimably great. God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity. Being God, He knew the course and cost of His creation. Rejection was not a surprise to an omniscient God. Before creation, God knew the cost of the regeneration of man would be the death of His Son, and this is hinted at in Revelation 13:8, “…Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” God’s infinite love exceeded the cost of that love at Calvary.[9] To compare the value humanism places on self-actualized and highly self-esteemed man with the value God places on His special creation is to compare ashes with gold dust.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Alan Petigny, The Permissive Society – America, 1941-1965, (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 226, 238-239.
[2] Jason Ashley Wright, “Nurturing in Excess,” Tulsa World, March 24, 2014, D1.
[3] Robert Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, (New York: Regan Books, 1996), p. 243.
[4] Hara Estroff Marano, “A Nation of Wimps,” Psychology Today, November 1, 2004.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/nation-wimps (accessed March 31, 2014);
Hara Estroff Marano, A Nation of Wimps, (New York: Broadway Books,2009), pp. 243-244.
[5] Marano, “A Nation of wimps,” Psychology Today.
[6] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006), pp. 136-145. Originally published by Louisiana State University, 1964.
[7] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 222-223.
[8] Ibid., pp. 220, 221-222.
[9] Ibid., p. 158.

Helicopter government – Part II – Overprotecting

Posted by :admin On : June 5, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Socialism

This series of articles describes helicopter governing and its similarities with helicopter parenting, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part I we observed that a helicopter government is rooted in socialism which is the required and eventual end of government under a humanistic worldview. A humanistic worldview is flawed because if fails to reflect truth as to the purpose and nature of man and therefore cannot give answers to the basic questions of life for which man continually seeks in developing his worldview. In Part II we shall examine the origins of our helicopter government’s propensity to overprotect and the pathologies and consequences thereof to individuals and culture at large.

Overprotecting

First we must ask why helicopter parents are overprotective of their children. A short, vague, and somewhat unsatisfying answer is that parents are a product of their overprotective culture. And much of that culture has been shaped and defined by the radical element (about 25%) of the Boomer generation (born between the end of World War II and the end of 1964) which has ascended to positions of leadership in the institutions of American life. That leadership has embraced the humanistic worldview and imposed and implemented laws, regulations, policies, and practices consistent with the tenets of humanism. In essence, we can say that over time the rise of helicopter parents are a derivative of an overprotective government. And from the overprotectiveness of parents and government arose both individual and cultural pathologies. In support of this view we again contrast the perceptions of the two worldviews regarding the purpose and nature of man.

Purpose of Man

For the Christian, the ultimate purpose of man is to know God and dwell with Him as His child for eternity. Therefore, relationship is the focus and end purpose of man and implies a right relationship not only with God but one’s fellowman. According to renowned humanist Paul Kurtz, the ultimate purpose of man is happiness and is further refined as “…the greatest-happiness-for-the-greatest-number…”[1] In other words, the focus is on the individual but only in the larger context of the common good. Under the humanistic worldview, government has become the judge and guarantor of happiness for the individual. However, humanism judges economic systems by whether or not they “…increase economic well-being for all individuals and groups, minimize poverty and hardship, increase the sum of human satisfaction, and enhance the quality of life…and judge it by its responsiveness to human needs, testing results in terms of the common good .”[2]

In his influential book The Philosophy of Humanism, Corliss Lamont agrees with Kurtz.

On the whole, however, a society in which most individuals, regardless of the personal sacrifices that may be entailed, are devoted to the collective well-being, will attain greater happiness and make more progress than one in which private self-interest and advancement are the prime motivators.[3]

Again, we see the humanists’ supremacy of the common good over the individual. But how is the humanist’s “common good” different from the Christian’s emphasis on relationship? It is different because the Christian’s concern for his fellow man is based on the eternal and unchangeable laws of God through an act of his or her freewill as opposed to the humanist’s required group adherence to state-defined interpretations of an ephemeral “common good” which is susceptible to revision with each change of leadership.

And it is here we see humanism’s overprotective government collide with man’s freewill and consequent desire for freedom. The tenets and assumptions of the humanistic worldview are inherently collectivist and are a direct contradiction to the independence, self-reliance, and pioneer spirit demonstrated by Americans in the colonial era and first 150 years of the nation’s history. And with this brief understanding of the humanist worldview with regard to the purpose of man, we begin to see the rise of a helicopter government that breeds dependency of the populace on a government that will be the provider and guarantor of happiness as opposed to merely making possible the pursuit thereof.

It is not that the Christian worldview is opposed to the happiness of the individual. Rather, it is the source of a Christian’s happiness that is different. A recent op-ed piece by Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, made some very shrewd observations which hit at the heart of what it means to be happy. He pointed out that personal moral transformation was the most important factor in social justice. Using information from the 2010 General Social Survey, the nation’s best sociological database, he made the following observations as to what makes people happy.

Take the example of two men, identical in age, education, race, and income. The first is religious. He’s married with two kids. He also works more and participates in his community more than 90 percent of the rest of the country. The other man meets none of these qualifications. The first man is nearly 400 percent more likely to be happy…real social justice must encourage people to participate in faith, family, and community. Their chances of happiness—and success—are inextricably linked with these moral institutions.[4]

In other words the true happiness is a collateral result of focusing on right relationships with God, spouse, family, and community.

Nature of Man

Contrary to humanist belief that man is basically good, the Founders held a biblical understanding of the corruptible nature of man and a belief that government was untrustworthy due to man’s corruptibility and therefore should be limited. Traditional ideas of limited government prevailed until the Great Depression and World War II in the first half of the twentieth century. Americans still distrusted government, but as a result of the growing influence of the humanistic worldview, they saw government as a mechanism for dealing with a multitude of societal problems. Politicians happily acquiesced and more and more “problems” were discovered that required governmental answers or intervention. Because man was basically good according to the humanists, social problems arose not because man was fallen but because of corrupt social systems. Thus, a growing number of social and political solutions by government social engineers in the name of the general welfare of its citizenry became the catalyst for a monolithic and overprotective government.[5]

However, funding government and the growing list of wants, wishes, and synthetic rights of the populous has become difficult if not impossible because government cannot do everything for everybody. Samuelson calls this “the politics of overpromise…the systematic and routine tendency of government to make more commitments than can reasonably be fulfilled. First, government resources are not adequate and never can be. People (and institutions) must do some things for themselves. A second problem arises when a helicopter government can’t fix the problems of the day; it is perceived as a failure and leads to less trust in government and growing disunity.[6]

The falseness and failures of the humanistic worldview become evident when one examines the pathologies of an overprotective helicopter government that is based on a wrong understanding of the purpose and nature of man. These pathologies are evident in much of America’s citizenry and include self-centeredness, disunity, petulance, lack of discipline, inability to function well in organized endeavors, aimlessness or lack of purpose, inability to cope (addictions), codependency, poor problem-solving skills, and a false sense of entitlement. These labels apply in varying degrees to both children who have experienced helicopter parenting and adults conditioned by a helicopter government.

The application of the overprotective policies and practices of the humanistic worldview in all institutions of American life (particularly in government and education) has resulted in a pervasive victim mentality. The consequences of this mindset have led to cultural carnage including institutionalization of poverty through multiple generations of welfare recipients; broken families without the presence of a father to be the role model of a responsible provider in lieu of various welfare agencies and social workers; and an obsession with “rights” as opposed to fulfilling one’s responsibilities, duties, and obligations to family, clan, community, and country.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Paul Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1983), p. 68.
[2] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 20.
[3] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, 8th Edition, Revised, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), p. 272.
[4] Arthur Brooks, “The right must reclaim social justice,” Tulsa World, April 1, 2014, A-14.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 252-253.
[6] Robert J. Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, (New York: Vintage Books, 1995, 1997), p. 141-142.

Helicopter government – Part I – A Nation of Wimps

Posted by :admin On : May 29, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Socialism

Back in the late 1980s the term helicopter parenting came into vogue to describe a style of parenting in which overprotective parents discourage a child’s independence by being too involved with the child’s life. In other words, a helicopter parent hovers over a child like a helicopter, ready to swoop in at the first sign that their child may face a challenge or discomfort.[1] According to Dr. Robert Hudson, a clinical professor of pediatrics and co-director of the Center for Resilience at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, there are four ways helicopter parenting manifests itself: overprotecting, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. Each of these types of parenting has serious consequences for the child.[2]

A nation of wimps

Bad things happen to everyone in life, and children must learn through experience including bad experiences while growing up. Psychology Today’s Editor-at-Large Hara Estroff Marano described the consequences resulting from parents who overprotect their children from experiencing failure and discomfort: inability to adapt to the difficulties of life, psychologically fragile (depression and anxiety), risk-averse, loss of identity, loss of meaning and a sense of accomplishment, lack of self-control, and lack of perseverance. These consequences can last into adulthood. Quoting one child psychologist, “Kids need to feel badly sometimes. We learn through experience, and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn to cope.” According to Marano, “Whether we want to or not, we are on our way to creating a nation of wimps.”[3] As these overprotected children move into adulthood, American government and its bureaucracies have willingly assumed the role of surrogate parents of this nation of wimps.

It appears that unhealthy consequences of helicopter parenting for children are strikingly similar to the pathologies resulting from a nanny-state government increasingly involved in its citizens’ lives and which we might also label helicopter governing by a helicopter government. Government involvement with the details and intricacies of the lives of American citizens has grown dramatically commencing with Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Judiciary’s exceptionally expansive re-interpretation of the Constitution’s general welfare clause in the 1930s. This involvement was greatly exacerbated by the Great Society programs of the 1960s and continues under the socialistic policies of the current Obama administration.

Under modern judicial, legislative, and executive branch interpretations, the general welfare of American citizens has come to mean far more than those fiercely independent and self-reliant Founders ever imagined. In the twenty-first century, America’s helicopter government stands ready to swoop down and fix, mend, change, smooth-out, correct, adjust, or repair any problem, difficulty, or perceived injustice that may arise. No aspect of its citizens’ general welfare is too large or too small to escape our helicopter government’s attention and involvement, be it the size of our sugary soft drinks or the kind of cars we are permitted to drive.

Before we examine the consequences of a helicopter government, we must understand the driving forces behind it and how these forces have changed America over the last 75 years. America has changed because the worldview of much of the leadership of the institutions of American life and the organizations they represent have changed. A worldview is a person’s belief about things, an overall perspective or perception of reality or truth from which one sees, understands, and interprets the universe and humanity’s relation to it and that directs his or her decisions and actions.

The collective worldviews of a nation’s citizens becomes its central cultural vision, and in America there are two worldviews contending for dominance in its central cultural vision. One is the Christian worldview which reflects the central cultural vision of the colonial Americans, the Founders, and the nation for 150 years following its founding. The Christian worldview rests on the universals reflected in God’s creation and the biblical revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. Humanism is the competing worldview that contends that Nature is all there is and that man is a product of a long, developmentally progressive period of evolution. For humanists, there is no God or life after death, and all truth is negotiable and determined by the current needs of society.

The best way to contrast the two worldviews is to look at two fundamental differences that stand at the heart of the conflict. The first centers on the purpose for which man was created. For Christians, the fundamental purposes of life center on an eternal relationship with God and earthly relationships with his fellowman. For the humanist, the ultimate purpose is happiness through the exaltation of self. From these basic differences flow a whole myriad of conflicts which we call the culture wars.

The second major point of divergence relates to the nature of man. Christians view man as having been created by God but subsequently having a fallen nature because of his disobedience that resulted in a broken relationship with God. Consequently, man is in need of redemption. Humanists believe that man is basically good and therefore not fallen nor in need of redemption. Hence, humans are masters of their own destiny, and reason and science alone point the way to an ever-progressive improvement of mankind.

Because the humanistic worldview does not present a true picture of reality (truth) as it relates to the purpose and nature of man, the tenets of its faith are flawed and from this flawed perception of truth we see pathologies develop as humanism fails to adequately address the basic questions of life.

America’s helicopter government is the product of a humanistic worldview that has gained ascendency in America during the last seventy-five years. The required method of organizing society under a humanistic worldview is socialism. As the humanistic worldview has advanced, so has America’s tendency toward socialism of which a helicopter government is its heart and soul.

In this series of articles we shall examine the four types of helicopter governing (overprotecting, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming), the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “helicopter parenting,” Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/helicopter+parenting (accessed March 24, 2014).
[2] Jason Ashley Wright, “Nurturing in Excess,” Tulsa World, March 24, 2014, D1.
[3] Hara Estroff Marano, “A Nation of Wimps,” Psychology Today, November 1, 2004. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/nation-wimps (accessed March 31, 2014).