Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Good Queen Bess, an(d) Analysis

by Jimmy Hopper

Apart from a veritable army of psychologists, psychiarists, and counselors; many thoughtful people believe that America has unfortunately become a nation of victims. This all began when the concept of sin went out of favor and “I’m O.K., You’re O.K.” became the mantra of, well, the sinless. There was no longer any possibility of doing any thing wrong. Your childhood environment, addiction “disease,” upbringing, sexual repression (I’ve been paying attention in Sunday School, Elder Allen!), societal prejudices, etc. all take the place of sin, make you a victim, and keep you deep down, “O.K.”

In addition to this, your rights to health and happiness cannot be interferred with by anyone because, contrary to the above ideas, anyone, for any reason, will be sued for everything they have if your rights are interferred with and you happily can claim victimhood in court. Their victimhood, whatever “made” them do it, cannot interfer with your right to victimhood.

Our victimhood tends to lead to a lot of public sentimentality in which people cry in public about things that happen that may or may not have impacted them. This is most prevalent when there is a crime of violence and a media camera appears. You can bet that a bunch of people who had no connection other than reasonable proximity to the real victims (in the true sense of the word), can’t resist getting their share of sympathy and borrowed victimhood and begin weeping on camera. This probably developed from the years of odious talk shows in which people tell in public every awful thing that ever happened to their family and then have the audience join them in weeping in public.

You are probably wondering about the title of this post by now. I recently enjoyed a two-part HBO series about Queen Elizabeth I and my wife, seeing this and knowing how much I enjoy reading history; rented the two Cate Blanchett movies about Elizabeth. While watching these, it crossed my mind how lucky Elizabeth Tudor was to live in the 16th. - 17th. century instead of the 20th.-21st.. This was a woman who became the Queen of England and led her nation to a golden age by defeating the rich and powerful empire of Spain. However, if she lived now, she would not have had time for those deeds of derring-do because she would never have gotten out of therapy. After all, her father had her mother’s head cut off! And why did he do it? Essentially because she, Elizabeth, was a girl instead of a boy! She would have been a therapist’s dream if she simply had enough sense to realize she was a victim instead of a queen.