It’s the nature of the activist. Wrongs and injustices are identified and then people begin raising money and awareness about them until one day they look up and realize they’ve got a career.

One of the replies to my post about unions was that without them, we wouldn’t have proper work safety, child labor laws, etc. First, I wonder, wouldn’t we? But either way, yes, the union concept was an important piece of improving the work place… over 100 years ago.

But do union activists ever sit back and reflect on the good they’ve accomplished. Has there ever been a union activist that walked in to work one day and announced to everyone, “OK, I think we’re going to close up shop. Looks like our work is done. Nice job everyone.”

How about the man-made climate change believers? When have you ever heard an environmental activist sit back and acknowledge all of the progress they’ve made in the United States? Wow, everyone’s recycling now. People are driving hybrids instead of Hummers. Businesses pollute less than ever before. Nice work, everyone. (I’m still wondering what happens if we discover we’ve over-corrected. Do we bring back the aerosol cans and Hummers?)

When is the National Organization of Women going to pack it in. As far as I can tell, I’ve worked for more female managers than male managers, and there sure seem to be plenty of productive and well-paid women in the workforce.

How about racism? Without racism, what would Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton do? They may have acknowledged the differences in race relations between now and even 30 years ago – but I’ve never heard it. There’s simply no way to know or prove this, but it’s my opinion that before George Floyd, there was less racism in this country than arguably ever before.

There are more high profile successful black people than ever before. Police brutality against blacks was trending down, even though more incidents were captured on video and highlighted. Black unemployment was at its lowest point on record.

But when do you ever hear anyone acknowledge the amazing progress we’ve made, as a country, on ridding ourselves of racism. Instead, the only have an incentive to keep finding racism to extinguish, almost always when it’s not really there.

So long as there are people making careers out of social problems, they’re never going to go away because activists can’t afford to be successful.