Griffin ’s law of finger pointing states simply: The person doing the finger pointing is in all likelihood the one who should be blamed for the problem.
This law was brought to my attention in a 1952 sermon delivered by my favorite clergyman, J. Harrison Griffin, pastor at the old First Baptist Church on the corner of Washington and Faulkner. Griffin pointed out: “When you point your finger at someone there are three fingers pointing back at you.”
At the time of the sermon I didn’t pay too much attention to its meaning as it appeared somewhat corny. However, with a half century to think about it, I realize that Griffin had revealed a basic law of human behavior.
Right now, one of the most important finger pointing exercises concerns the high price of gasoline. The politicians have pointed their fingers at oil companies, middle men, owners of gas stations, speculators and virtually anyone they can possibly try to blame for the high price of gasoline.
Meanwhile, the politicians have passed laws that prevent drilling, prevent building new refineries, put costly constraints on the gasoline mixtures that must be use in various places and a host of other things that push the cost of gasoline higher and make it harder to keep the public supplied with gasoline.
In other words, the politicians are pointing their fingers at people who are trying to solve the problem that the politicians have created with their legislative meddling.
On top of this, they have mandated that ethanol be mixed with gasoline which makes no sense whatsoever from the standpoint of reducing the use of oil or reducing pollution. Meanwhile they have raised the cost of fuel, made it less efficient and caused more hunger in third world countries.
The next finger pointing exercise is aimed at getting the population mad at the insurance companies for the high cost of health care while ignoring the extensive role of the politicians and government in creating the high cost of health care.
There is a lot of finger pointing at drug companies because of the unnecessarily high cost of drugs. No one in Washington wants to own up to the fact that over Ninety per cent of the cost of drugs is caused by the actions of the FDA which add cost and loss of time while contributing very little if anything to drug safety.
There is no doubt that the Democrats are pointing at the Republicans because the stimulus and other measures are not having any beneficial effect on the economy.
Just in the last few days, the Democrats have been pointing their fingers at “The radical right wingers” who they accuse of inciting the voters at the town hall meetings with politicians concerning health reform and other issues.
They will never admit that the real source of their constituents fear and anger is the radical, destructive, Marxist content of the proposed legislation.
One last thought on finger pointing is, if you see two people pointing a finger at each other, they are no doubt both guilty.