In this thought-provoking episode, we delve into the complexities of anger and its omnipresence in both historical and modern political spheres. Reflecting on past leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we explore the importance of controlled leadership and the dangers of acting on anger. Through a careful examination of political responses to crises and anger-fueled rhetoric today, listeners are invited to consider their role in the democratic process, questioning both the anger they face and the anger within.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 02 :
Are you angry? Are you mad at what’s going on in government? Oh yeah, we can be mad at the bankers just like we’d be mad at a thief who broke into our home and stole some stuff. Of course, here’s the question. If you forgot to set the burglar alarm before you went to Walmart, you can also be mad at yourself, can’t you? If you’re a Republican these days, you’re probably mad at the Democrats. If you’re a Democrat, you’re probably mad at the Republicans. If you’re an Independent, well, you get to decide who you’re going to be mad at. But even here, we are really forgetting something very important. There’s something Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address to a generation of Americans talking about the men who had fallen in battle at Gettysburg. He said, “…it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.” that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Boy, that last line rings down through time and is a part of our very language. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. And it serves to remind us that if we need someone to blame, someone to be angry toward, we really ought to look in the mirror. Blame Congress. Blame the President if you must, because they were asleep at the switch. But you really ought to blame, we really ought to blame ourselves for putting them there. Isaiah, oh, so long ago, in a situation very much like what we’re in today, wrote in the 56th chapter of his prophecy, all you beasts of the field, come to devour all you beasts in the forest. Now, basically, this is a metaphor. These beasts are other nations and other peoples. You all come to devour. His watchmen are blind. They are all ignorant. They are all mute dogs. They can’t bark. Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yes, they’re all greedy dogs. Oh, is that a word we’re familiar with nowadays? Greed. They’re greedy dogs. They can never have enough. They are shepherds that cannot understand. They all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter. Come, you, say they, I’ll fetch wine and we’ll fill ourselves with beer, and tomorrow shall be as today and even better. Boy, it would be hard to find a more apt description of where we are right now. God knows there’s a lot to be angry about. Problem is, free-floating anger is a bad thing. It leads people to do bad things. It’s okay to be angry, but it’s a big mistake to act in anger. James, one of the apostles in the New Testament, wrote in his very first chapter, My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God. That’s one of those scriptures that I memorized a long time ago, and it comes back every once in a while just to remind me, the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. And I was shocked, I mean I really was, to see President Obama express his anger publicly and appearing prepared to act in anger, even stirring up anger in his audience. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? The more power a person has, the worse it is for him to let anger come to the fore. Remember, There’s a man close to the president at all times who carries a little thing they call the football. You know what that is? That’s a little box that has all the codes required to launch nuclear missiles and nuclear warfare. Last night, I searched the Internet and I found Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech to Congress on December 8th, 1941. If ever a president had a right to be angry, this was the occasion for it. The Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor the day before, killed hundreds of American servicemen and some civilians as well in that raid on Pearl Harbor. nearly wiped out, in fact, most of our Pacific fleet that was in harbor at the time. Just by miracle of miracles, none of the aircraft carriers were in Pearl Harbor when that attack took place. And what’s really terrible is the Japanese appeared one hour after the attack had begun with a continuing commentary about negotiations and all this. And Roosevelt’s speech that he made lays it out very clear. He says the distance they had to travel from Japan to Pearl Harbor made it very clear that long before they started this diplomatic initiative, they knew they were going to bomb Pearl Harbor. So, did he have a right to be angry? Sure. But when you listen to the speech, and you can look it up on YouTube, it’s right there. When you listen to this speech, the dominant impression that carried in the speech is not anger. I would call it rather a grim determination. Roosevelt systematically laid out the facts of what had happened in the last 24 hours. Because it wasn’t just Pearl. They had also attacked the Philippines and Guam and Wake and other places as well. It was obvious that the Japanese were embarking on a secret, well-planned campaign for domination in the Pacific Ocean of the world. So he declared, as he systematically laid these facts out, that we would triumph. He asked for the congressional declaration that a state of war existed between Japan and the United States of America. Now, whatever you may think of Roosevelt, and boy, do people ever have their opinions of Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a statesman. And what the nation needed on that day was not anger. We needed leadership. We needed the calm determination to fight and to win. And we needed the assurance that our leadership would point us in the right direction and back us all the way to victory. Now, I contrast that to President Obama’s expressed anger over bonuses paid under contract permitted by U.S. law to officers of a company the U.S. of America had just bailed out. No blood had been spilled. Hundreds of Americans were not lying dead at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Money had been paid out to people that people thought shouldn’t have got it. And after watching all that and listening to all that, one wonders… What the reaction would be, will be, when Americans die in large numbers at some future time. Anger is out of place. No, not out of place entirely, but anger in public is out of place in men who have that kind of power. Let him go to the White House gym and punch the heavy bag for a while and get it out of his system and then come lead the people to a calm, reasoned determination to fight to win. Congress also indulged themselves in a lot of righteous anger that was sadly lacking in the righteousness that should go with righteous anger. I’ve seen a lot of anger in my time. And I’ve concluded that anger bubbles up from different wells. It can arise from hurt feelings. It can arise from fear. It can arise from hatred. It can arise from frustration, trying to get something done, you can’t get it through, and you get angry. It can arise from resentment because of a wrong that’s been done to us. It can arise from envy because somebody got ahead that we thought shouldn’t have. It can arise from pride, wounded pride in particular. It can even arise from embarrassment. It arises from getting your hand caught in the cookie jar. And anger serves to deflect attention from your failures, which have suddenly become very apparent. You know, I don’t know if Congress was embarrassed or not, but they should have been. Because they were the people that we had set as watchmen on the wall. They were the people who were supposed to set things up so that this type of crisis that we’ve just gone through would not happen. And they were sound asleep. The expression Isaiah uses for it is mute dogs. And what in the world is the value of a dog that can’t bark? I suppose there are times in the middle of the night you wish you couldn’t. But that’s the duty. Dogs feel duty-bound to bark and to let you know somebody’s at the door, someone’s coming down the driveway, someone’s breaking in the window in your bedroom. The next time you see a congressman or a president expressing anger, ask yourself, which well this anger is coming from? and how anger serves the purpose of leading a nation. Grab a pencil and a pad. I want to give you an address and a phone number. And when I come back, I’ll go on.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Just between you and me, I find anger coming from powerful men to be frightening. And I also believe that anger confuses judgment and can lead one to unfortunate decisions. It’s the emotion of a lynch mob, not a deliberative body like Congress or perhaps like a jury. Any juror who expressed anger over the crime should be disqualified and probably would be in court when they got around to examining the jurors. He’d say, no, no, you’re emotionally involved in this case. You cannot deal with it objectively. Congress, having hearings up there, should not allow anger to come into the picture. They are, in a sense, like a jury. Years ago, I had just finished a study I was doing in the book of Psalms, and I decided I would go into the book of Proverbs. Now, in those years, I used colored pencils and a scheme for marking. The reason I did it was so that it would make it easy for me, if I was sitting down counseling with a person, to just paste the Bible in my eye and go immediately to what I was looking for. Well, I didn’t get very far in the book of Proverbs before I started noticing the way Solomon addressed the issue of anger. And I picked out my own little color code so that I could find my way back to those at the drop of a hat. The book of Proverbs is an absolute goldmine of common sense. I’m lucky. I’m a person not much given to anger. I say I’m lucky. A part of that may be because I’ve been reading the Bible since I was a kid. I went to a church back in the good old days when every Sunday night we had a little envelope we had to tick off things on. We’d study the lesson, and we had done our daily Bible readings all week long. The influence of the Bible is subtle. It doesn’t necessarily stop you from doing things you shouldn’t do, but at least it reminds you that what you’re doing is wrong. And that’s an awfully great value because whenever things go wrong afterward, at least you have something to fall back on to say, well, I should have known better than that, and here’s why it happened. And more than once in my lifetime, when facing a situation, the perfect proverb comes to mind, and more than once it has saved me from doing something stupid or outright harmful. Now, on the subject at hand, take chapter 14 of the book of Proverbs as a case in point. Proverbs 14 and verse 15. The simple believes every word. The prudent man looks well to his going. Now, this verse isn’t about angry, but a lot of times we get angry because we believe something that isn’t true. It happens all the time. You can’t pick up and read a newspaper straight through and believe every word you have there and not get screwed up in the head. You have to evaluate it. The simple, we are a bunch of simpletons who believe every word. You know, it’s a terrible embarrassment to have to climb down off your high horse. So I suggest not getting up there. By all means, listen to the talking heads. But remember, it’s a simpleton who believes every word they say. He goes on, though, in this context. He says, Now, rage is foolish. Fear can be healthy. Fear can keep you out of trouble. Rage can blind you to danger in the road ahead. A fool is hot-headed and reckless, and I guess that danger of recklessness is what worries me when I see a leader who is angry. Is he as reckless as he seems? Well, I don’t know, but recklessness, I think you would agree, is not a good thing for the man who’s got the football close at hand with the nuclear codes in it. He that is soon angry deals foolishly. The fool rages and is confident. Now, this is fascinating to me because what it is saying, if you’re wise, you know when to be afraid of things and to stay away from bad stuff. The anger that a man has blinds him to that. It gives him a confidence that he should not have. It’s just dangerous. And apart from what you’re seeing around you in society today, it’s just an awfully good thing to think about when you look in the mirror in the morning. Later in that same chapter, verse 29, he will say, A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly. One of the worrisome things about our national leadership right now is an apparent lack of patience. Have you noticed that? Every time you turn around, somebody’s pushing something new at us, and nobody’s taking the time. I mean, this huge expenditure of the stimulus bill that they passed early on in the Obama administration, the people who voted on that bill hadn’t read it. Most of them had not even read a word. Maybe some people on their staff had seen some of that, a general idea of what was there, and they all voted aye and passed that bill through the House and through the Senate, and the president signed it into law, and I have a feeling even the president had not read it. Some of the stuff that needs to be done will take time, and contrary opinions need to be heard. You know, one of the most stupid things a person can do is to close his ears to people who disagree with him. Because you may not even have to listen if you listen and you still don’t agree. That’s one thing. But if you don’t even listen, you’re playing the fool. Proverbs 12, verse 15. The way of a fool seems right to him. But a wise man listens to advice. A fool shows his annoyance at once. A prudent man overlooks an insult. A wise man listens to advice because he knows that the way of a fool, even the way of a fool, seems right to the fool. And he doesn’t want to be one himself. And someone was observing, I saw in a column just this morning, how dangerous it is if you have a bunch of sycophants, a bunch of yes-men surrounding you in powerful office, and nobody is there who will tell you that what you are about to do is going to get someone killed. Are we there? Proverbs 15, verse 16 says, Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil. I have a feeling there are a few people who can tell you that right now and agree with it. Better is a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fatted calf with hatred. A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension. A patient man calms a quarrel. And you know, that was the thing that struck me about FDR’s demeanor in giving that speech. The realization that our nation had been stabbed in the back, our realization that there had been betrayal, that we had been attacked when there was no reason for the attack, or even if there were a reason, we had been attacked. And what he was counseling was, we have got to go to work. This is going to take some time. We’ve got a job ahead of us, but we will triumph. Well, when I read that proverb, I hearkened back to the day after that attack on Pearl Harbor, the speech that President Roosevelt gave. He did not need to fire up the population. Everyone was angry enough at being attacked without warning. The nation was furious. What we needed in that moment was a patient, calming influence, some direction, action. Anger could be turned into determination, and that was what Roosevelt was trying to do. Actually… where we stand right now, what we need is calm, reassuring leadership. Stay with me.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’ll be right back with more. For a free CD of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, Are You Angry? Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44. That’s 1-888-242-5344.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man. That’s Proverbs 22, 24. I think that is awfully good advice. But why does he tell you don’t do that? Do not associate with somebody who gets angry easily, he said, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared. You know, he’s not talking about a person who’s a leader. He’s just talking about a friend. I think it goes double for people who are in responsible positions of leadership. Later in chapter 29, Proverbs 29, he says, “…an angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered man commits many sins. A man’s pride brings him low.” But a man of a lowly spirit gains honor. Notice this. This is really interesting to me because it draws a straight line between pride and anger. And I suspect wounded pride is the source of a great deal of anger. On the other hand, a man who has a lowly spirit. Now, the funny thing about this, a person can be a leader and be humble. A person can be very strong in his leadership and yet not be self-exalting. And this is what he’s talking about. A man who does not have too high an opinion of himself is far more likely to gain honor than the man who’s a hothead. Proverbs 17, verse 26. To impose a fine on the innocent is not right. Or to flog the noble for their integrity. It’s stupid to do this kind of thing. It’s not justice. One who spares words, he said, is knowledgeable. One who is cool in spirit has understanding. Even fools who keep silent are considered wise. When they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent. Oh, that is so sweet. How many times in my life I have been on both sides, I’ve opened my mouth and proved I was a fool. And on other occasions, once I had learned better, and because of this particular proverb, I have sat there and kept my mouth firmly shut. And lots and lots of times, people will look at you and think, now there is a man who knows what he’s talking about. I think, looking at this scripture, it is dead wrong for a congressional committee to flog the people they call before them or to humiliate them. If the people are criminals, they should make a referral to the Justice Department and let the Justice Department handle it. Their object should be the accumulation of knowledge, understanding about the situation, so that when the time comes to write a bill, and just as important, when the time comes to read a bill and vote on it, they will know what they are doing. which frankly the dominant impression I have gotten out of the government over the past several months is they don’t know what they are doing. They feel like they’ve got to do something. Maybe they’re right, but what if they’re wrong? Solomon in Ecclesiastes said this, The end of a matter is better than its beginning. That’s kind of a curious thing in a way, but at the end of it, you know where you’re at. At the beginning… You’re kind of guessing, really. And if you are guessing, you probably ought to say so, so the people you’re trying to lead will at least have some confidence in your honesty. Patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. Do not say, why were the old days better than these? It’s not wise to ask questions like that. You know, I suppose that’s because we haven’t been given the old days to work with. You understand what I’m saying? There’s no point in talking about the old days. That’s not where we are. We have what we have, and we need to deal with it here, now. Keep these passages in mind as you watch your Congress at work. Frankly, what I see in these men is that they have been embarrassed. hugely embarrassed, and they are angry because of it. And, of course, they really should be embarrassed because of the failures that they have done. But they go on their way, and I don’t recall a single one of them apologizing to the American people for the failure of Congress to be our watchdog. Presidents come, and presidents go, and presidents are important. But the founders placed the real power in the hands of Congress. Therefore, when something like this economic crisis hits us, the men of Congress know they have dropped the ball. They should have headed it off. And now they are in a position of trying to straighten things out, and they’re trying to do it in a hurry, and they’re very likely to get it wrong. A little humility, it seems to me, would be in order, and it would go a long way toward calming the nation for us to know that our representatives know where they went wrong, and they will do their best to correct it. But as long as they’re up there posturing and getting angry and pretending that they didn’t go wrong, how can you have confidence in them? The British have a tradition in government that seems strange at first, but it’s crucial in leading a people. When an important man has screwed up, he doesn’t merely say he accepts responsibility. He shows that he accepts responsibility by prompt resignation. He also shows that he knows that no man is indispensable. When he has failed, it’s time for him to get out of the way and let another man have a go at it. I would not call the president, nor any senator, nor any congressman a fool. But intelligent people do play the fool from time to time. And the smarter the fool, the greater the danger. Do Christian people have a role in times like these? Plainly we do.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I think you know what it is.
SPEAKER 01 :
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