Okay, I'm open to suggestions, part I

"Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and [sic] self-serving men. The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth."

Just for one moment, let us examine that little nugget of wisdom, buried in a little-known short story, penned five decades ago. Let us, for a moment, theorize that the quote is true.

Or worse, an even more awful truth may be closer to the reality in which we live: People do not want to know the difference, and do not care enough to distinguish the lie from the truth, because they cannot or will not see how it affects them. So even if we were capable of distinguishing the difference (which the quote clearly states that we cannot, as it assumes that we, the general masses, are of "imperfect brain"), the larger percentage of us are not even motivated to try.

I despair in this knowledge. Even in my despair, however, I tend to find myself asking: "How often have I been lied to, by whom, and for what reason?" The answer is so broad of scope, so all-encompassing, as to not even allow me enough provable truth by which to judge. I do not know any better!

I do not want to believe that it is because I am stupid, or deliberately, consciously ignorant. I do not want to believe that it is because I myself lack the motivation to become educated in the fields in which I should be knowledgeable, because, in my limited vision, I see that the very education which would cause me to become knowledgeable, is fraught with the very lies I am trying to detect.

I cannot go into specifics. I have neither the time nor the patience to give examples, much the same way that most of us have neither the time nor the patience to learn the political issues that govern us and will govern our children.

This article will not be a polemic about gun control. My previous articles already have flogged that deceased equine to unrecognizable matter. Instead I write this as a moment of self-searching, realizing that I myself fall short of my own goals of knowledge, and that the despair of knowing that I am being lied to without knowing when, how, or for that matter, why.

Well, my fellow thinking Freepers, I am open to suggestions. No amount of ranting or raving is going to get people to see reason. I am not giving up, but I am looking for an idea, some ray of hope in an otherwise darkened gloom of societal despair. We are in a De Facto police state. Our freedoms are lip service. Our way of life a government-supporting and government-supported sham, where deception and circumventing of proper channels is rewarded, and "doing the right thing" results in lost time, lost money, and in many cases, lost freedom.

How do you all deal with the frustration? How do you deal with the despair when it finally dawns on you that "the right thing" is something someone dreamed up to keep simple-minded dolts like you and me in line?

I've tried apathy; But the trouble with apathy is that not caring will only get you so far; Eventually something smacks you in the face, usually painfully, and you are forced to deal with a situation you would rather not even admit exists, let alone affects you. So apathy is right out.

Try to make a difference? Okay, I'm working on that. But, say for the sake of argument the the above quote is completely true. If it is, just exactly how are we supposed to make a difference when the common man is already predisposed to being snowed? When hypocrisy is not only tolerated but expected from leadership?

Whatever happened to integrity? Whatever happened to us caring about integrity?

My goal, as idealistic as it sounds, is to get people to realize that their freedoms, our freedoms, so carefully protected by the US Constitution, are already usurped by our elected leaders. I want people to want liberty again. To be free to be creative again. To be free to live as we choose, where we choose, worship whom we choose (or not to worship at all), to own what we choose, without someone else who says they "know better" standing over us like an overprotective parent.

As long as it is not hurting anyone else, I believe that any adult over the legal age of 18 should have absolute dominion over his own life and destiny, with all the benefits and consequences thereof. Anything less is tyranny.

I have been thinking about these things, too, and despair lies in wait. But I've been reminding myself that God explained in His Word that men will get worse and worse towards the end. That evil will magnify.

But He also explains there will be a day when evil is utterly destroyed. The same God who ALLOWS wickedness to flourish in this life will also punish it in the next.

I think what we want is Him to punish it HERE. We want people to be fair in political discourse, not dishonest. And seeing that so many are dishonest, we wish deeply that colorful lies weren't so easy to tell and make interesting as opposed to the truth, which requires thought and difficulty!

It may sound corny, but you can KNOW that God loves YOU (if you're wanting some certainty). He isn't in a jam over all that is going on in the world. He is stable at every moment in all of Earth's history. Look at the utter hopelessness of man's condition just as you are doing, and realize that God sent Jesus on our behalf so we could put our faith in Him and be saved.

I think it's better for us to be up against the wall, so to speak, because we are so self-reliant that until we are pushed into the Dead Zone of our despair we have no need of God.

I dispared about 20 years ago, but decided that I could live with myself better if I fought against the police state anyway. Now I find that I have more reason for optimism than at any time in the past 20 years. People cannot make good decisions based on bad data, and they have been fed bad data for probably 60 years at least. The reason for optimism is that more and more people are getting a variety of data sources, and some of them are pretty good. Freerepublic is a clear example of the type of data source that is developing over the internet.

International competition for talent is starting to break down the barriers that make slaves of most to a particular national interest. Technology gives us the promise of long lives, control over our bodies, and enhanced minds.

We can dispair all we like, and it changes nothing. I believe wonderful possibilities are within our reach.

To paraphrase Howard Beale . . .

Get up out of your chair, step away from your PC, go to the window and shout as loud as you can:

'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!'

Eventually something smacks you in the face.

You have to find the thing that will smack the most amount of people in the face and then smack them with it. Again and again, and again.
If you're smacked enough you finally get tired of it.
Personally, I finally got smacked enough when the debate of what is "is" came about.

You have to find the thing that will smack the most amount of people in the face and then smack them with it. Again and again, and again.

You know, I think that just might be it. I now have a new topic for research.

Thanks, Joe!

"Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and [sic] self-serving men. [ LIBERAL DEMOCRATS MODERATE REPUBLICANS AND THE TALIBAN !!!]

The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth." TRUST NOBODY BUT GOD AND YOURSELF AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE AND NONE OF WHAT YOU HEAR !!!

When the porter, at the next station, threw the door open, Lydia drew back, making way for the hoped-for intruder; but none came, and the train took up its leisurely progress through the spring wheat fields and budding copses. She now began to hope that Gannett would speak before the next station. She watched him furtively, half-disposed to return to the seat opposite his, but there was an artificiality about his absorption that restrained her. She had never before seen him read with so conspicuous an air of warding off interruption. What could he be thinking of? Why should he be afraid to speak? Or was it her answer that he dreaded?.

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