"Victimology" , that grand bit of insidious liberal balderdash and creeping hokum that has slithered, like kudzu vines across our nation, choking the spirit and self-esteem of all it touches, is a subject, it seems to me, worth exploring. Worth exploring because, in my opinion, "being a victim" is a psychology that preys on one of Homo neanderthalis’ greatest weaknesses. To wit, the unquenchable desire of the species to believe in something, which is not to say anything, when all evidence is against it. Evidence the widespread belief in the Tooth Fairy and unicorns among children and steroid-free sporting competitions, a tolerant Islam, Arab-Israeli peace treaties, honest politicians and equality among the adults. In the face of overwhelming evidence flying into the teeth of some of our most jealously-guarded and fiercely-defended fantasies, the Americanos still hold a death grip on many of their mass delusions. And "victimology" (which I define as the ill that may befall you when you are at the wrong place at the wrong time) - as a concept, a social dictum and an excuse - is one of the most recent illusions to infect the national consciousness.

As a society, I suspect we are conditioned from birth to believe in the illogical and the fantastical. When our mother is still joyously wiping away our spittle and our fathers are concocting excuses to avoid the activity, our earliest fairy tales coerce us to believe in such fiddle-faddle as Prince Charming, sleeping princesses, witches, dwarves, dragons, trolls, the man in the moon, wishing upon stars and a female pig that loves a talking frog. As we get older and throw off our diapers and leave our bibs to scrapbooks and attics, the indoctrination into the surreal does not cease. Only the format that we are fed the propaganda changes; from mother’s lap and father’s knee to the ubiquitous television. The new vista serves to enlarge and expand our fiction and give a visual realism to the spoken word. All the while, imbedding ever deeper the malignant, pernicious and, ultimately, debilitating fallacy that proposes the existence of a world not as it is but as it should be.

Thus, in that grandest of American traditions, it is surely not our fault that we believe in giants that live in the clouds and can smell the blood of Englishmen, super heroes that can stop bullets and leap tall buildings in a single bound, female tomb raiders that can beat the snot out of villainous men, academies that train witches or, for that matter, victimology. Our fertile (if congenitally flawed) imagination doesn’t even break into a sweat in conjuring up a world where actions have no repercussions, choices have no consequences and all the ills that might befall us are not really our responsibility but someone else’s. After all, Jack escaped the Giant, even the laziest of the Three Little Pigs survived unscathed, Goldilocks escaped the three bears and O.J. skated, scot free. If you only believe hard enough, you, too, can get aboard the victimology train. Close your eyes, click your heels together three times and, viola! You are fat, dumb and happy and a defender of your God-Given right to victimhood. Incidently, you are a Democrat.

Let me try, futilely I am easily convinced, to have you believe in yet another fairy tale. Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a land where all the people wanted nothing more than to be left alone to fend for themselves. They didn’t mind the occasional neighborly gesture, for example, prying up a tree stump, filling sand bags together when the river swelled over its banks, raising a barn or manning a bucket line when the aforementioned barn was struck by lightening or an errant hoof met a misplaced lantern. But the people of this land always reciprocated for the good deed and kept their debits and credits in the community ledger fairly balanced. Strange as it sounds to us today, they held the quaint notion that "good fences make good neighbors".

The one thing these people all agreed upon was that government had no business in their affairs, be they good or ill, happy or tragic. They would no more expect Uncle Sam to take care of their flooded fields or their burned-down barn than they would have expected that same government to take care of them when they were old and decrepit, teach their children what to learn or tell them they can’t put a Christmas tree up at the town’s courthouse. I understand, at this point, we stretch the fibers of your capacity to dream, but try and stay with me. After all, it’s a fairy tale, people!

One day, a whole city of these strange folks was hit by a wham-doozle of a hurricane. Against all advice, these folks liked living by the sea so much they were willing to take the risk, which they thought sufficiently small, that their town would be hit by "the big one". But it happened. Their beautiful little piece of heaven was plowed into by a blow that virtually washed the whole city away. The community of 50,000 lost over 10,000 souls in the destruction.

But the people didn’t give up or give in. True to their nature, the thought that they were helpless victims (there’s that word again) who had no other choice but to beg the government to come in and take care of them never entered these citizens’ minds. Sure, they accepted all the help offered by neighboring towns, the Red Cross and even a rich newspaper fella from the Big City. They appreciated the helping hand. But the President never visited (and probably wouldn’t have been welcomed; they were too busy rebuilding) and the Congress never held any sessions to figure out who was to blame or how much it would cost to rebuild the little town. The residents of the little town by the sea went about starting over. They buried their dead, rebuilt their homes (with their neighbors’ help) and, just to be on the safe side, put up a taller sea wall just in case it might come their time again.

The little town grew and grew, the people were proud of their hard work and new residents, seeking the scenic seafront life, flocked to it. And the little town they called the little city named Galveston lived happily ever after.

I really don’t know when the American people first became infected with the "victim virus". My best guess is that the index cases appeared on or about the time that "The New Deal" (i.e. Medicare and Social Security) was injected into the national bloodstream. Like the great apes infected with Ebola, once Homo americanis became infected with the victim virus, the population was doomed. It has spread, unabated, to welfare, assistance for unwed mothers, methadone programs, the ACLU, assistance to victims of violent crime and to funding for the prevention of publishing BLOGs by the politically dangerous. Ok, I made up the last one. So shoot me!

The hyperbole was reached after the tragedy of September 11, 2001. I admit that what I am about to say will very likely chaff a large number of readers but, despite the lack of P.C., it must be said: there was absolutely no rationale (beyond an overriding sense of national grief) for the government to pay compensation to the survivors or their families for that tragedy. What was the justification? Where in the constitution is it laid out? I can’t find it. I truly would like to but I can’t. In a country where we have yet to provide recompense for the illegal internment during the 4 years of World War II of thousands of Americans who happened to be of Japanese descent - a wrong actually perpetrated by the sitting government - I can not find it in my logic, which is not to say my heart, to pay out enormous sums of money for a tragedy that was only the fault of foreign fanatics.

The result is that, now, after any disaster - natural or otherwise - you hear the deafening drumbeats crying out for compensation of the "victims". The price tag for assuagement of public guilt has risen from around $100 million dollars for Hurricane Andrew (and the 3 other hurricanes that devastated the region in short order) that hit southern Florida to $16 billion for Hurricane Katrina. And that is just the government outlay, to date. Where does it all end? If San Francisco falls into the Pacific (as it very well might), if New York gets flooded by a rising ocean (which Al Gore tells us is inevitable), if Seattle is washed away by a tsunami (which is one of the current disaster models working in the N.O.A.A), will we again claim victimhood for the damage caused by something we know to be just a matter of time and unalterable chance?

It is my opinion - and it might be a lonely one at that - somewhere along the way, we all need to read some new and different fairy tales. And, in doing so, possibly acquire some new national resolve, character...call it what you will. Everything that happens is not the fault or responsibility of the government or the nation, collectively.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, this was understood.