The answer has to be ‘No.’ A resounding, ‘No,’ for that matter.  People who say they can are probably people you don’t want to have anything to do with.  And if you let them try, you’re asking for trouble, more often then not.  That would be commonsense, but we’ve run into a short supply of that, especially when people look to other people, other groups to ‘make them happy.’

We’ve run into a problem in the world, and most definitely, the Western world, and that has to do with the fact that some groups say they can be every thing for everybody, it just depends on what you want to ‘give up.’  Making people happy is part of a barter system.

Giving things up, isn’t just meant for dieting we’re to understand, because groups are just relegated to personal aesthetics here, though the way we are to see ourselves is a problem all its own, considering the constant barrage that comes from films, internet and TV of how we should look, and TV more so, because 90% of the country has at least one or two, and more for some.  The number of televisions is not the problem.  It’s the watching.

The one cure is turning the TV off, not that we haven’t heard this before.

But still it’s so simple, you can just push the button never see the TV program ever again, and be no worse for wear.  Yes, TV, the 24/7 beaming of imagery, is powerful and selective, but who has the control—who wants to be happy, but it’s difficult.  Those who ‘produce’ television have a good and scientific idea of who watches and when they watch, and when it comes to kids that many parents function in absentia.

This concern regarding the ‘entertainment media’ portion of TV can be traced back to the Golden Age of radio.  Game shows, Westerns, detective programs, gossip formats, music and more, it was all there and the complaints were there, and the same concerns, and threats from parents where there, ‘Behave or no radio’.  Complaints of the negative influences were there.  Actually, complaints about entertainment can be taken back to the pre-radio days.  Books for pure entertainment were looked down on.

So, we know that entertainment television can’t make everyone happy.   What do you give up to watch TV?  Time.  The more you watch the more time is gone, and time is the most valuable investment anyone has.  Maybe just for the sake of time, people should just turn away from the machine.  Get a hobby.  It’s amazing how many people don’t have hobbies.

What else do we know about TV?  Besides the ‘entertainment’ produced, which doesn’t make everyone happy. We know the news, or what many would say is passed off as news.  Because what has to be understood is ‘news’ is its own entertainment format and discussion and we all know, that the news media doesn’t make everyone happy either.  We all recognize the fact that car crashes, plagues, floods, natural disasters and human conflict be it a war or the vandalism of someone else’s property, is not entertainment and anyone who revels in the misery of others is, well, questionable for any number of moral, ethical, and political reasons.

But news makes people unhappy—considering the imagery would anyone be surprised?  But, again, along with the imagery are the words issued from the mouths of everyone who’s image is flashed across the screen.

How many times have we been faced with words uttered as if they were fact, and then they become lost in the continual flow of images and more words?   But ‘news’ as it is called has always been suspect:

"Modern man is staggering and losing his balance because he is being pelted with little pieces of alleged fact which are native to the newspapers; and, if they turn out not to be facts, that is still more native to newspapers."  --G. K. Chesterton

G. K. puts it in a nutshell, and he considered himself a journalist, among other things, and he saw it, the production of ‘news’ firsthand, and what I just quoted by Chesterton was written in 1923. 

So, the speed of light and of words and seemly short memory, other manipulation of memory, or re-writing, some would say, of the news by the producers appears to facilitate the appearance of what can be call a fallacy of fact, and fallacy of fact seems to have a longer life than fact, and happiness is one of the casualties.

But everyone wants to be happy?  Well, I can’t say that TV is a route to that particular destination, and I will go so far as to say any group, which does use TV as a platform for rallying for the happiness of others, should be studied, if not with total suspicion, with a wary eye.  Preferably, both eyes.

Groups could be any kind, secular and non-secular, and most assuredly political.  And the list can go on.  A special attention percolates from the television especially on the subject of religion, specifically Christianity.  The news media is always seeking some way to showcase that particular faith.  Usually in a bad negative light, being that if ‘it bleeds it leads’ mentality, but bearing in mind how the ‘news’ was dealt with in the previous paragraphs, we’ll leave the news media out.

We’re dealing with happiness here, and religions can provide route through life, which can be lined with gifts of happiness.   Of course, this does have something to do with a belief in something beyond the material world. God comes to mind.  And there is a variety of religions in the world.  Much good—and happiness can be found in religion, in particular religions. Of course, atheists, militant ones in particular, have issues with organized religion, particularly Christianity, interestingly enough, while there are religions, such as Christianity, which have no issues with atheists at all.  An interesting conundrum there.

So, when it comes to religion, and a religious group says we know the way to happiness, and then offers the way and their leadership, one needs to be watchful, using ‘both eyes’ as previously mentioned.

We should be familiar with the fact that organizations, private, and political—most political, do this all the time, and we have seen this in the most materialistic and secular of ways.   Frequently, we are asked to vote for ‘happiness,’ something which will be at some later date ‘done for us’ or ‘provided as a service.’  And we know the human species is a gullible lot, because so many believers believe that this kind of ‘happiness’ is free.

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Many people are ‘concerned’, about the end of the world or, at least, fascinated by the idea.  Books, movies, and television programs flood popular culture on a regular basis.  Think 2012, the Mayan calendar film, which was a science fiction film, where the Mayans were so much smarter that we are now, and so much smarter than the Europeans, now and those far in the past.  Because, as a side note, ancient man starting with the Sixties was always considered stupid, and required space aliens to do everything for them.  Of course now, that has changed some.  Ancient man wasn’t stupid.  Especially, when modern man, grudgingly, figured out that, modern man, which includes women here, has overrated himself—a lot.

Murderous secular ideologies, like Marxism, have succeed to slaughter more people than religions have, and have done it far more efficiently, but has yet to destroy the world, but the secular world has come closer to perpetrating total destruction than God has.  I’m not even going to mention nuclear weapons or biological or chemical devices, I’ll just say, Malaria, which has killed millions in Africa, but can be stopped by a simple and useful chemical called DDT.  J. Gordon Edwards, Ph.D. and advocate for the use of DDT—would eat DDT to show how safe it was, and he died at age 84 while mountain climbing.  The DDT ban is a fraud; so is the radical environmental movement, being that most environmental movements are radical leftist/Marxist/progressive charlatans, and apparently, want to enforce the ban on DDT, and could be considered  partners in mass murder. 

Murder?

I always keep in mind Stalin, one of the great leftist totalitarians, by his order manufactured a famine in the Ukraine which killed millions.  So, yes, murder.

Now, back to popular culture’s fascination with the ‘End of the World.’

G. K. Chesterton is quoted often by many, and by me, and here is one highly relevant quote:

The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.

People are like that.  In the secular West, many have ‘kicked out’ God, and replaced Him with all sorts of theories, beliefs and hates—especially, hate.  Hating the Christian faith is very popular.  Why?  I think it all has to do with sex, really. 

Sex and sexuality dominate the media and of course, the minds of people.  And of course, we want fun of all kinds without consequences.  The birth control industry is a billion dollar business which the Democrats never seem to find fault with, and add to that abortion, which we can easily call Big Abortion.  There’s a lot of money in abortion and a good portion of it comes from the pockets of the American taxpayer.  Again, it’s all about sex.

But getting back to hate.  Hating is easy.  Hating takes no work.  People hate all the time everyday and not necessarily like it, but hating is easy.   It’s also easy to hate a faith which says, you shouldn’t do that, whatever the action maybe, because every action has consequences, and that is why there are billions of dollars dumped into prophylactic ads and a multitude of other ads, so ‘you can do ‘it’ and not have to worry.  Which of course, we all know innately is a lie, or there wouldn’t be Big Abortion. 

Think about it now, we are fascinated with the end of the world, death coming in many forms.  The secular world is actually facilitating own end, or own Armageddon.  No Mayan apocalypse is needed.  We will just stop begetting.  Stop begetting and the end will come soon enough. 

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The Democrat bucket brigade has run out of the liquid dollar and now trying to put out a raging fiscal disaster with air.  Yes, they were called back to Washington to pass another spending bill for cash which just does not exist. 

Spending money you don’t have is bad.  It creates debt…, and debt is bad.

What about this don’t Democrats, especially, the president, don’t understand?  It’s simply economics and it also angers people, voters, who you need to vote for you. 

But, this is what the people voted for.  I can’t forget that.  “Hope and Change” was the mantra, which easily transmuted into “Spend and Debt.” 

But remember, George Bush was a horrible man.  

Why? 

Well, I do recall the he allowed the late Ted Kennedy wrote the most expensive i.e. costly education bill in American history, and the Left didn’t love George for that.  Even though he was a big spender when he signed it, but no matter, George was and still is horrible.  Just name something, even if the Democrats did agree with him at the time. 

Right now, though, the Democrats and the President are in trouble for spending, and spending, and spending.  Sadly, only now, have Americans begun to understand the economic mess which is growing by leap and spending bounds. 

The massive authoritarian structure which is being built up in the Federal structure—if it can be taken down will require decades of serious and dedicated effort.  But politicians being politicians are weak.

How did this all happen?   Greed and jealousy, of the common voter:  “What you have I want, even if I propose to steal it through legal means, but if I can’t have it I want it taken from you.”  Whoever the ‘you’ is.  Be it big business or anyone’s business.  Or the neighbor with the nicer house.  Or the color of someone’s skin for redress of historical wrongs they had nothing to do with.

Greed and jealousy.  And there is always someone, a politician will to say, “Vote for me.  I’ll satisfy your every selfish thought. 

The Democrats are now trying to put out a fire—the selfish, unquenchable fire of insatiable voters, while trying to hold on to power, to fulfill their own greedy and jealous desires.

Some fires can’t be extinguished.  And some fires destroy everything.

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