Misguided altruism

Helping others feels good; as does having others believe you ARE good. But if your motivation for altruism is to feel good about yourself, it is misguided and leads to the kind of violence and unrest we’re seeing in Minneapolis.

So, you’re led to believe illegal immigrants are being unfairly rounded up by ICE and perceive an opportunity to be seen as a do-gooder and make trouble for the Trump administration at the same time. You happily and self-righteously join with other like-minded malcontents and in the process of impeding law enforcement officers you assault them, spew hate, make death threats, disrupt worship services, scream in the faces of children, prevent innocent people from sleeping, and endanger the lives of the officers, their families, your fellow malcontents, and your own.

But at least you helped illegal immigrant criminals avoid capture.

It seems pretty clear that Governor Walz and others in his administration are intentionally fomenting the unrest to distract from the investigations into fraud in his state. So add “contributing to the miscarriage of justice” to the “good” these misguided altruists are doing.

I don’t know that there’s any reasoning with people who do terrible, unjust, hateful things and yet claim the moral high ground. They are not only misguided but deluded as well. And they think the same of people like me. And if there’s no reasoning with your opponent, if words don’t change minds and behavior, what’s to be done? The refusal to listen to reasonable demands and obey the law has and will continue to have very dire consequences.

Neither side is acting from purely unselfish motives. But one side is definitely wiser, looking at the big picture instead of just this one supposedly unjust thing. In a perfect world, wisdom would win out. In a world marred by sin and rebellion against God, wisdom is mocked.

Would you mock the wisdom of King Solomon, to whom God gave “wisdom and understanding beyond measure”?

“A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right, but a fool’s heart to the left.” – Ecclesiastes 10:2