My boys have been “working out with Dad”. Basically, we have been doing pushups. We have started this because the boys have started participating in school-boy wrestling. It was pretty apparent when they started that some work was needed to enhance their physical strength.

So we started pushups. My little guys were frustrated at first that the pushups hurt their arms. I explained that the pain was their muscles getting stronger and they needed to push through it. With childlike honesty and straightforwardness, they asked how in the world I could ignore the pain and keep doing pushups even when it hurts. I replied that I focus on every failure in my life, every time I’ve been told I was not good enough, and every short coming and humiliation to drive me to keep going. My sons looked at me like I had three heads (cue sound of crickets).

I realized my boys had no concept of what I was talking about. My wife and I have worked so hard to provide a good comfortable life for them that the imagery of failure as a driving force for accomplishment was lost on them. That’s understandable, I guess, with boys as young as mine. In time, life will happen and they will have to face its harshness. Hopefully, they can learn how to take their failures and turn it into motivation.

So that’s two little boys. We can smile at their youthful innocence and give them a free pass for now, but what about adults?

We now have grownups in powerful government positions behaving like ten and eleven year olds with no life experience. With terms like “too big to fail” and “bailouts” from individuals who are supposed to be safeguarding the health of our nations infrastructure, one could definitely question the life experience of our leaders today. The truths of failure and success which are the foundation of capitalism have been completely ignored.

In order for a pond to remain healthy it must have an inlet and outlet. The outlet takes the old water out. The inlet receives new water from the stream above. Without an outlet, old water begins to back up and soon stops the pond current from moving. Less and less new water comes into the pond and even begins to redirect elsewhere. At last, the pond stagnates and everything in it dies.

We have done this to capitalism. Capitalism is predicated upon the competition of new ideas and old ideas. When the old ideas cannot withstand the pressure of new ideas the old is pushed out. But government wouldn’t allow that. They stopped up the outlet with bailouts. Now we see a nation in danger of stagnation. Why was our government so attached to the old?

It was many of their own ideas which caused the crises in the housing and banking. So invested were they in their own agendas, they could not tolerate the fact that capitalism had done its job and their weakness. What was that weakness? Socialism.

You see, Socialism cannot function in an environment that competes. When Barney Frank and others implemented socialist ideas into the housing and banking industry, it could not withstand the pressure of capitalism. Capitalism demands production. Socialism does not produce; it consumes. Socialism cannot stand unless it has no other competing ideas. That is why our government stopped the outlet. The flow of new ideas would have naturally pushed the socialist ideas out.

So now, the way to knowledge is blocked. Socialism is propped up and we are left with the stagnating stench. This the residue of aristocrats and bureaucrats who did not want to fail and learn from their mistakes.

Knowledge is a blessed thing. It should be sought after, but many see the road that leads to it, recoil and turn back. Knowledge will never compromise the path one takes to find her. It seems to me that some compromise, for themselves, what is true knowledge gained, …. and the current of ideas grows weaker and weaker.