Happiness

            On New Year’s Eve, an estimated crowd of one million people will mass in Times Square to watch the ball come down. “Happy New Year” will scream the revelers. But what, I wonder, would actually bring them happiness in the new year?  

            For our Founding Fathers happiness was something to be pursued, one of those inalienable rights endowed by our Creator. It was clear that independence from England is what would make Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin happy. It doesn’t get any more serious than that, considering it was going to take a war to gain that independence. But what about the folks in Times Square? How would they define happiness?

            Most of us would agree that world peace and the end of war would make us happy. But that kind of happiness is too impersonal. What causes one to be happy is often something simple and immediate. For the homeless man sleeping on a New York City grate, it might be a warm bed; for the 10-year old girl, the bike she got for Christmas; for my wife, getting to see her great-grandkids over the holidays.

            True happiness, I prefer to think, is something that comes from deep inside. Call it spiritual, if you like. Jon Voight, in a recent interview with Mark Levin, talked about a trip he had taken to Russia where he found the people looking very unhappy: they walked with heads down and would not look at him in the eye. He thought these people had a fear of strangers resulting perhaps from decades of deprivation and abuse, a people with a deadened spirituality. A people without laughter.

            Voight’s characterization of Russian people may have been too severe and certainly too broad. But he made a good point. Contrast that with this simple anecdote. The other day my wife and I were shopping at Food Lion when she suddenly burst out laughing for no apparent reason. “What’s so funny?” I asked. She pointed at her feet…her shoes didn’t match. We both laughed out loud. And then my wife shared this little absurdity with another woman, a shopper and a perfect stranger. She burst out laughing, too. It was a joyous moment for the three of us. Silly, perhaps, but a bit of happiness that Jon Voight might have observed would not have happened in Russia.

             Happy New Year, everyone, in maters big and small.

Multiculturalism Doubts

            Paris has been the scene of riots and demonstrations ignited by the announcement of a big fuel tax increase. French president Emmanuel Macron was quick to rescind the tax increase, but the riots have spread to many French cities and show no sign of abating. Why is that? Pundits opine that demonstrators are really protesting the financial burdens imposed on a struggling populace by the president’s climate-change agenda. But it may be more than that. Is it possible that we are seeing the beginning of a pushback against Western Europe’s love affair with multiculturalism? And why should that concern us here in the United States?

            There are Muslim-controlled “No-Go” zones in Paris where infidels are not welcome and even the police fear to tread. They are a direct result of France’s generous immigration policy toward Muslims. And France is not unique in that respect. Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands have all opened their doors to Middle Eastern migrants, only to realize that they are losing a power struggle with Muslim immigrants as a result. These immigrants for the most part have no intention of assimilating culturally or politically in their host societies. Worse, the most radical Islamists among them intend to conquer and rule.

            The Western European elites who sing the praises of multiculturalism have been very late in recognizing what is happening. But it’s the people struggling to make ends meet that have felt the effects of misguided policies. They have not only seen rising rents, high unemployment, and crushing taxes and regulations, they also wonder why they should bear the burden of sympathetic social policies toward immigrants they increasingly view as invaders.

            The flames on the Champs-Elysées have now spread to Belgium and the Netherlands. Who knows where else in the coming weeks and months? President Trump has been undisguised in his attempt to prevent Muslims from coming to this country, just as he is now insisting on a wall to prevent drug dealers, criminals, and gangs from overwhelming our southern border. The president may be ham-handed in executing his policies, but are his instincts correct? We may be insulated from European travails by an ocean. But how different is the left’s advocacy of open borders so different from European elites’ willful blindness?

           

           

Paris Is Burning - Again

            Cars burning on the Champs-Elysées, graffiti sprayed on the Arc de Triomphe, and smashed windows of high-end Parisian stores certainly qualify as attention-getters. But that shouldn’t be just for people of French ancestry like me, because these events demand that we focus on global warming and how to deal with it. Notice I did not say “climate change.” Climate change has been happening for billions of years and will continue to happen irrespective of humanity’s efforts to control it. Global warming, on the other hand, is caused by humans. At least, that’s what we’re led to believe by eco-fascists who tearfully predict that our addiction to fossil fuels will destroy the planet in 20 years.

            What the events in Paris are telling us is that ordinary people who struggle to make ends meet have it “up to here” with government leaders who impose outrageous taxes to finance their climate-control agenda. Of course, conditions in France hardly compare with those in America. France must rely heavily on oil and gas imports, one of the reasons gasoline costs over $7 a gallon at the pump; it also has extremely high taxes that squeeze wage-earners to fund very generous social programs; and it has one of highest unemployment rates in Europe, a sure sign of ineffective government economic policies. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the announcement by Emmanuel Macron of a 30-cent gas-tax hike would turn into the match that lit the conflagration in Paris. The flames tell us all we need to know about what ordinary Frenchmen think of the Paris climate accords and Macron’s priorities.

            We are nowhere near this point in this country. We are now the biggest producers—and net exporters—of gas and oil, we enjoy low gas prices at the pump, and we have economic policies that have given us, at least in the last two years, a booming economy and full employment. At the same time, we can point out to climate doomsayers that the United States has done far more to reduce noxious emissions than other countries. Should we be concerned with the long-term effects of climate change? Of course. But mass hysteria is not the answer. Rather, we should continue to support sensible measures that foster prosperity while protecting our environment. And we should take note of Paris and what could happen if we don’t.

           

A Modern Scourge

            I have just returned from Florida where I celebrated Thanksgiving with my son Marc and his family. There were eighteen of us enjoying the turkey with all the fixings. But the real focus of the celebration was family. My son is so blessed in that regard. All three of his children and their three children are within a short drive, as well as in-laws and their families. There was indeed much to be thankful for that day. But much to be concerned about as well.

            Upon returning to North Carolina I read in two daily papers about the continuing decline in life expectancy in the United States. The articles presented in gruesome detail the two main reasons for the decline: suicide and drug overdoses. One statistic is absolutely stunning: 70,237 deaths from overdoses last year, a number that has quadrupled since 1999. Over that period, deaths attributed to opioids had grown six-fold. The greatest factor by far in the increase of those deaths was fentanyl, which accounted for 28,466 deaths all by itself.

            Fentanyl has become our modern plague.  And it is easily available, because China floods our markets with it. The Chinese government knows where the illicit drug is being manufactured but refuses to do anything about it. Considering how many of our young people die from this poison, we could reasonably view China’s complicity as an act of war.

            How can we stop this scourge? I can think of at least three ways. One is to engage all means of communications, especially social media, to increase awareness among young people of the deadly nature of fentanyl. Another is to make stopping the importation of fentanyl a priority in our trade negotiations with China. The third is education, beginning in our families and reinforced in the classroom. Easier said than done, considering the growing incidence of broken families, especially those where the parents themselves are struggling with addiction. But this is a war, and it must be fought on all fronts. We must not tolerate the increasing death toll on this battlefield.