It’s been a not-so quiet week in Lake Wobegon

Lake Wobegon is a fictional small town in Minnesota created in the mind of one of the world’s greatest story-tellers, Garrison Keillor. Each episode of his long-running
radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, includes a story that begins with that famous line: “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.” That has become a code phrase in our family that we use either (1) when we are about to launch into a long and complicated narrative, (2) when, truly, nothing of importance is going on, or (3) we don’t know what else to say and feel that a meaningless statement is better than silence.

I am using a variation of that phrase here primarily for the third purpose. Obviously the world is in great turmoil, and there is much that could be said about every aspect of it, but this is not the place so, since it is hard to know what to say about any of this, I merely want to leave one thought with you.

If you notice, there are several themes that, like threads in a tapestry, appear, disappear, and reappear throughout the fabric of daily news. They are fraud, deceit, plunder, murder, and war.

There is nothing new about any of these, and it could be argued that they always have been with us and always will be, because they are rooted in human nature. I agree with that analysis but would like to shift the issue from IF such things are inevitable to THE DEGREE to which they are inevitable.

I believe that most humans have instincts and tendencies for both of what we call good and evil. That being the case, it makes a difference what kind of a culture we have. Some cultures are tolerant of fraud, deceit, plunder, murder, and war. In fact, some even consider these things to be necessary and praiseworthy. Others, of course, promote the values of honesty, private property, equality-under-law, and respect for individuals against the group.

The next time you read a news report about some horrendous assault against liberty, privacy, health, or even life, itself, think about the culture that permits these things to be done in the name of national security, morality, religion, or any other variant of the greater good for the greater number.

Bottom line: If the world understood the wisdom within the Creed of Freedom and built its laws and constitutions upon them, Lake Wobegon would be a lot quieter than it is today.

G. Edward Griffin
2016 February 12