The Age Of Synthetic Emotions

     We are living in the age of synthetic emotions, where condemnation is a result of the tyranny of the outraged, and apology is forced by the oppression of the offended. There is a desire in this society that is the bastard child of Karl Marx to not only control behavior, but emotions as well. In the Leftist Utopia it is not sufficiently adequate to worship in the holy place of voluntary oppression, one must practice the sacrament of proper and state approved emotions. To be outraged at that which is state approved to be outrageous, to be contrite for that which the state requires contrition, and to practice compassion in the only state-recommended way available to those living under the reign of synthesized emotions.
     In the relatively short span of my time on this earth (52 years and counting) I have seen the Land of the Free be transformed into the Land of the Freeloading, and the Home of the Brave be mangled into the Home of the Constantly Offended. We have limited free speech, not by the force of government necessarily, but more by the force of a twisted and corrupted culture which requires apology for speaking ones mind. Instead of the virtue of true contrition for acts deserving of such, we have settled for the politically correct vapidity of public contriteness simply for offending with words those dedicated to being constantly offended.
     The malleable minds of the masses have been trained by their Leftist masters to be outraged by an expectant mother smoking, yet be religiously devoted to that same mother's "right" to have her unborn child murdered in her womb. They have convinced a significant number of the formerly free that the criminality of government in the pursuit of "good intentions" is not worthy of outrage, but that the pursuit of legitimate wealth is. The Leftist succubus that has attached itself to the healthy body of American liberty has manufactured outrage for all that is decent, moral, and just, while selling the public the snake oil of "social justice."
     The false compassion of wealth redistribution has been inculcated in a large swathe of the American public, especially the impressionable young. Leftist demigods have redefined the virtuous act of compassion to the venality of government largess fueled by the wealth of an ever decreasing pool of producers and at the expense of everyone's freedom. Compassion has been demoralized by the mitigation of one man freely giving some of his plenty to a man that has none, and the expansion of the authority of government to confiscate from the former and give to the latter. This system of forced compassion replaces magnanimity in the benefactor with resentment, and gratitude in the beneficiary with entitlement.
     We will never solve our problems as a society until we break free of the prison of synthetic emotions and begin to value true and legitimate emotions that spring forth from the human heart, not from the edicts of government or a cancerous ideology. Children never mature into productive adults until they learn the appropriate nature of their emotions. Our nation, I fear, has become juvenile in our disposition of emotions that are promulgated more and more by government and media than by the very souls of a free, just, and moral populace.