“Little errors in the beginning lead to great errors in the end.” Some medieval philosopher said that. I forget which. Never has a fundamental truth been more central to our time than this one. It is certainly true in artillery aiming and golf. Just cock that club head a degree at the beginning and you will spend the day in the weeds. Big cannons are even worse.

I never took any philosophy classes during my college days. My mind has never much worked in these introspective ways. It always seemed like mumbo jumbo goofiness to me, a practice for navel gazers who had too much time on their hands and no real work to do. It was something sentimentalists did on their rich parents’ money in preparation for being a liberal elitist. 

Most liberal Democrats, some Republicans, most professors, some federal judges and the entire Washington Swamp cling to the ideal of the “Fundamental Error” that modern people continue to make. They, like the Communists, believe that every person can be made to be good if the system around them can be made right. Evil and wrongdoing in their minds are a function of situation and if we get the situation just right, bingo, all bad behavior will vanish and the sheep will lie down with the lion.

It is an attractive idea. I wish it was so. The Utopian Socialists chased it and finally gave up mostly broke. If you continue to try and implement it, it leads to death, misery and the destruction of society.

Just take the subject of sex. We have had the sexual revolution in my lifetime. Before Hefner, we had a bunch of rules about sexual behavior. All the leaders then began to teach us that these old rules were the problem and all we had to do was make the new rules of free love universal and bad behavior would stop. How is that working out? You would at least think the members of Congress would have more important things to do. 

And how about violent crime? The idea was that crime is caused by poverty. So we made war on poverty. Just give people money and make their situation better and they will be nice. We now have places in the USA that police fear to go. 

I can go on and on with examples of the wrong notion that evil is a function of situation.   Goodness knows, this snake oil idea is throughout our society and it is the root error in the beginning which has resulted in the multiplication of evil around us. Don’t believe it.

If you want to slow down evil, read and try to follow the Ten Commandments. Do not look to the ruling elites to construct the perfect situation for you.

Gary Pichon

Marble Hill