I wanted to take the next few blogs and examine our current world and how I se us falling into the seven deadly sins and why this is a problem for us as a country.
With pride being commonly listed as the deadliest of all and the root of all evil I figure it is a great place to start. Pride is both self-respect and arrogance at the same time. Having pride in your children, family, job, etc. can propel you to do great things and inspire you to work hard to accomplish goals. But when pride becomes arrogant and egotistical it can lead to selfishness and isolation. An understanding that we all have things we can be proud of without excluding others. Pride has led us to believe we may not need religion or belief in God. Pride has divided us as Americans. Most of all pride has sewn the seeds of hate and vitriol we see in our society today.
The phrase "Pride comes before the fall" is paraphrased from Proverbs 16:18 which states "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." This was written as a warning to all people that once we let pride take over it is only a matter of time before we as a civilization fail. Pride prevents people from being compassionate, understanding , and most of all loving to one another. In recent months we have seen some cities devolve into chaos with riots, murders, beatings, arson, and many other violent crimes. This is due to the rise in pride stoked by our politicians and other community leaders. Various people from these groups have told their followers that they deserve more. That they are better than the other side and should be allowed to have things the way they want them. Terms like social justice and economic justice are used to drive division and tell groups of people they are starting from a point of disadvantage. Every day we se another video of someone being killed by cops and citizens alike and it further drives the narrative that "our side" is being treated unfairly. It furthers the idea that we need to band together by race, gender, sexual identity, or any other characteristic we can think of. That is where pride comes in and becomes dangerous.
We have seen more and more posts about brown pride, gay pride, white pride, etc. and each and every time it is accompanied by a video or audio showing how another group is denigrating us and treating us unfairly. So why is that? The answer is simple, hate. The people that drive this are driven by hate. That hate comes from their own sense of pride, or in this case ego, that they are superior to everyone else and anyone who disagrees must be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. In reality most Americans are nowhere close to any of those things. If you listen to the left and their politicians you would think we are living in the early 1900's and still immersed in slavery. They want us to believe that black people are starting from a place of disadvantage and all white people are trying to hold them back. Including the police. We have been told that the police are hunting down and killing black people every single day. You would expect the numbers of those "murdered" by cops to be in the thousands or millions when in reality last year only 9 unarmed black men were killed by police. Conversely 19 unarmed white men were killed by police. I know people will say "You don't understand, the cops are always pulling me over" "I cant go into a store without being followed" "People look at me and I can just tell the hate me". Why would these be common responses to the facts at hand? Because in that community they are taught from a very young age that these things are what is happening. They are taught they cannot overcome their starting point. And when someone rises from that environment and becomes successful they are outcast and called a coon or uncle tom. Why would leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson not highlight these successes? Why do they canonize the criminals killed by cops in the act of committing crimes? Very simply, it makes them rich.
We see pride on the other side too. White Arian Nationalist also exist. We still see Nazi flags and hateful rhetoric in our society. This is also wrong on every level and 100% is due to pride becoming arrogance. In recent months we have seen these two sides clash. We have seen whites killing blacks, blacks killing whites, and both races killing themselves in record numbers. The worst I have seen was a video where a large group of black people was forcing white people to kneel and apologize for their skin color and the crimes committed by white people of the past. If the races had been reversed the white people would have been arrested for hate crimes. Just yesterday I saw a video of an old white man walking down the street and a young black man runs up from behind and smashes him in the head with a brick. The people recording start cheering and approving of these actions. Why is this ok? People should be stopping this from happening!
Pride has become the best representation of yourself in our society. People have turned away from a sense of community and love for one another. In every single great civilization we saw the same thing happen. And just like every single great civilization I think we are beginning to see the fall of a once great nation. Sure we have had terrible things in our history but even today we are one of only a few nations which has banned slavery, struggled to make equality a reality, and treated everyone with equal respect and justice. I truly believe we live in the land promised by God to be the breeding ground for all people to come together and show the rest of the world what greatness really is and can be. It is my pride in America and belief in God that gives me hope we will overcome this before Pride truly comes before our fall.
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