There is no more sure means of destroying a civilization, a society, a religion or any other institution than by employing democracy. A lot of people go on and on about how great democracy is. They mention freedom and democracy together, as though freedom is gotten or ensured by democracy. But it has always been known that democracy is nothing more than the tyranny of the many over the few, the ignorant over the enlightened, the base over the excellent, the mean-spirited over the noble-spirited.
You know from my blogs that I never make ostentatious appeals to other men greater than myself. I don't quote them to make my points, but I resort to the application of reason. However, on this subject, why should you believe me? Since childhood everyone around us has been filling our heads with democracy. They've been telling you since the first time you said the pledge of allegiance," A free country is a democratic country!" and,"Democracy makes all men equal!" You've even seen us "bring" democracy to more than one country by force in the last twenty years. Whenever someone would say something about another form of government, they were shot down with their comments and ideas, unless they were shooting down the other forms of government.
Republics were for Romans, Nazis, and Soviets. Monarchies were for the British and Arabs. Dictatorships were for banana republics and Asian people. And all those countries that were truly democratic, like so many African states, were simply doing it wrong. I can't undo the last 20 years of brainwashing with one blog. But I can break from tradition and give some quotes from greater men than myself. Listen to them:
"In our so-called democracy we are accustomed to give the majority what they want rather than educate them to understand what is best for them."
~Carter G. Woodson~
"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time."
~E. B. White~
"Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy."
~Ron Paul~
"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians."
~Benjamin Disraeli~
"Democracy is indispensable to socialism."
~Vladimir Lenin~
"Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton~
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
~H. L. Mencken~
"Democracy is the road to socialism."
~Karl Marx~
"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."
~Franklin D. Roosevelt~
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
~Oscar Wilde~
"The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."
~John F. Kennedy~
"Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure."
~Ronald Reagan~
"The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart."
~Mohandas Gandhi~
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
~Winston Churchill~
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
~John Adam~
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. "
~John Adams~
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."
~John Adams~
"Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal."
~Aristotle~
"Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers."
~Aristotle~
"In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme."
~Aristotle~
"Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms."
~Aristotle~
"The mob is the mother of tyrants."
~Diogenes~
"Democracy passes into despotism."
~Plato~
"Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike."
~Plato~
"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."
~Plato~
"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Friday, 7 January 2011
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Conspiracy Theories and Their Theorists
It is important to know and acknowledge that conspiracies do exist, often elaborate in nature and other times deviously simple. They can occur at all levels of society amongst virtually any number of people. Indeed, we ourselves can unwittingly play a part in these conspiracies. However, just because anyone may be enacting a conspiracy anywhere does not mean that everyone is part of a conspiracy everywhere.
Most reasonable people will evaluate facts as they come and attempt to make sense out of them, according to their varying abilities, cataloging them chronologically into certain genres. As these facts and evidences become abundant, they build a case for something in their own mind. This same process occurs with the fomenting of a conspiracy theory. The problem is that often benign stimulus from unrelated events, such as any fact, may coalesce with what we think we know about the nature of a given entity.
To explain what I mean in the main, imagine if you will that Adam thinks he's been ripped off by the federal government on his tax return. Later, in his Psychology class, Adam learns that the U.S. government has performed many unethical psychological experiments on their own soldiers in the past. Next, Adam sees an insurance report that says he failed to appear in court. Finally, Adam sees Barack Obama openly criticizing and censuring U.S. citizens. Adam, finally, theorizes that the government is steadily pushing the limits of what it can get away with because it wants to have control over everything.
However, Adam has made this rather life changing decision from passion and not reason. Adam fails to realize that the government took back taxes from his tax return and thus it was smaller than he expected. Secondly, he does not know that the insurance report is showing the failure of a clerk to log his payment of a citation. Adam's tax return and citation have nothing to do with each other, further they have nothing to do with the President of the United States, neither do they have anything to do with psychological experiments from the 1950's and 1960's. In fact, each of these stimuli are so insular in nature that you can not logically connect them in any fashion, therefore, they do not corroborate.
What does corroborate is the emotion. Each even would cause any reasonable person to have feelings of disgust, anger, and indignation; all these emotions that Adam felt were directed toward government. The emotions were so intense that Adam's mind did not catalog these events according to their appropriate genre, but according to the emotion solicited. Each time the emotion comes up in relation to the subject at hand, in this case the government, it reinforces his conclusion.
To call a conspiracy theory a "theory" is a bit misleading; "theory" is a safe nomenclature that saves the conspiracist shame and embarrassment. In fact, most often the conspiracist is not propounding anything at all, rather they are stating what they believe to be a fact by the presentation of evidences. Adam believes the government is evil, he knows it, and instead of coming out and saying it plainly he does as much by stating all the things that we previously mentioned. He presents these evidences in such a fashion that will make anyone who doesn't agree with him seem unreasonable or stupid; this of course is an insecure attempt to manipulate the beliefs of others. Now, Adam is doing the conspiring.
Adam falls victim to something called cognitive dissonance, which is the tendency to accept information and ideas that confirm our beliefs, ideas, and world view, while at the same time it is the tendency to reject that information and those ideas that do not agree. Imagine that someone hears Adam's story and begins with great enthusiasm to commiserate with him and recount their own worse stories of how the government screwed them over. Do you imagine that Adam will continue with caution or will he not rather think," FINALLY! Someone who understands!" Then they get together and make even more elaborate theories and repeat them over and over until those become beliefs as well.
On the other hand, imagine that someone does not agree with Adam; instead they bring up various benevolent government programs with patriotic fervor and begin to laud the country. Do you imagine that Adam will immediately go along with them and abandon his point? No. He will attempt to point out the flaws of the person's argument and try to prove that the positives they mentioned are actually diabolical negatives designed to trick you into thinking the government is good. And if the person doesn't take what Adam says wholesale he will write them off as brainwashed imbeciles.
There is no sobriety of moderation in Adam, and in this case there is none in either of his opponents. That is the real problem with conspiracy theorists, they do not believe that what they are saying is a viable theory, but rather that it is bullet proof, ironclad, air-tight fact. Therefore, they become frustrated with anyone who doesn't agree with them. They offer their so-called "theories" with a disproportionate and imprudent enthusiasm, because to them they are factual discoveries. When they conjure up a so-called theory, it's like they are Isaac Newton having an apple fall on his head all over again. Ergo," People accepted Newton's apple, why not mine?" Which creates another conspiracy theory.
People who "live for conspiracy theories" are people who try to establish their self-worth through various substitutes, people who can't conquer reality so they criminalize it, people who are emotionally insecure, people who are lonely, people who have something to prove, who are cowardly, who worry themselves to death, or neurotic people who are bored.
Some conspiracy is real and some theorize soberly, but that is rare indeed. One should be careful not to become a laughing stock, just like one should be ashamed to make eyes roll. One should be careful not to become afraid of their own shadow.
Most reasonable people will evaluate facts as they come and attempt to make sense out of them, according to their varying abilities, cataloging them chronologically into certain genres. As these facts and evidences become abundant, they build a case for something in their own mind. This same process occurs with the fomenting of a conspiracy theory. The problem is that often benign stimulus from unrelated events, such as any fact, may coalesce with what we think we know about the nature of a given entity.
To explain what I mean in the main, imagine if you will that Adam thinks he's been ripped off by the federal government on his tax return. Later, in his Psychology class, Adam learns that the U.S. government has performed many unethical psychological experiments on their own soldiers in the past. Next, Adam sees an insurance report that says he failed to appear in court. Finally, Adam sees Barack Obama openly criticizing and censuring U.S. citizens. Adam, finally, theorizes that the government is steadily pushing the limits of what it can get away with because it wants to have control over everything.
However, Adam has made this rather life changing decision from passion and not reason. Adam fails to realize that the government took back taxes from his tax return and thus it was smaller than he expected. Secondly, he does not know that the insurance report is showing the failure of a clerk to log his payment of a citation. Adam's tax return and citation have nothing to do with each other, further they have nothing to do with the President of the United States, neither do they have anything to do with psychological experiments from the 1950's and 1960's. In fact, each of these stimuli are so insular in nature that you can not logically connect them in any fashion, therefore, they do not corroborate.
What does corroborate is the emotion. Each even would cause any reasonable person to have feelings of disgust, anger, and indignation; all these emotions that Adam felt were directed toward government. The emotions were so intense that Adam's mind did not catalog these events according to their appropriate genre, but according to the emotion solicited. Each time the emotion comes up in relation to the subject at hand, in this case the government, it reinforces his conclusion.
To call a conspiracy theory a "theory" is a bit misleading; "theory" is a safe nomenclature that saves the conspiracist shame and embarrassment. In fact, most often the conspiracist is not propounding anything at all, rather they are stating what they believe to be a fact by the presentation of evidences. Adam believes the government is evil, he knows it, and instead of coming out and saying it plainly he does as much by stating all the things that we previously mentioned. He presents these evidences in such a fashion that will make anyone who doesn't agree with him seem unreasonable or stupid; this of course is an insecure attempt to manipulate the beliefs of others. Now, Adam is doing the conspiring.
Adam falls victim to something called cognitive dissonance, which is the tendency to accept information and ideas that confirm our beliefs, ideas, and world view, while at the same time it is the tendency to reject that information and those ideas that do not agree. Imagine that someone hears Adam's story and begins with great enthusiasm to commiserate with him and recount their own worse stories of how the government screwed them over. Do you imagine that Adam will continue with caution or will he not rather think," FINALLY! Someone who understands!" Then they get together and make even more elaborate theories and repeat them over and over until those become beliefs as well.
On the other hand, imagine that someone does not agree with Adam; instead they bring up various benevolent government programs with patriotic fervor and begin to laud the country. Do you imagine that Adam will immediately go along with them and abandon his point? No. He will attempt to point out the flaws of the person's argument and try to prove that the positives they mentioned are actually diabolical negatives designed to trick you into thinking the government is good. And if the person doesn't take what Adam says wholesale he will write them off as brainwashed imbeciles.
There is no sobriety of moderation in Adam, and in this case there is none in either of his opponents. That is the real problem with conspiracy theorists, they do not believe that what they are saying is a viable theory, but rather that it is bullet proof, ironclad, air-tight fact. Therefore, they become frustrated with anyone who doesn't agree with them. They offer their so-called "theories" with a disproportionate and imprudent enthusiasm, because to them they are factual discoveries. When they conjure up a so-called theory, it's like they are Isaac Newton having an apple fall on his head all over again. Ergo," People accepted Newton's apple, why not mine?" Which creates another conspiracy theory.
People who "live for conspiracy theories" are people who try to establish their self-worth through various substitutes, people who can't conquer reality so they criminalize it, people who are emotionally insecure, people who are lonely, people who have something to prove, who are cowardly, who worry themselves to death, or neurotic people who are bored.
Some conspiracy is real and some theorize soberly, but that is rare indeed. One should be careful not to become a laughing stock, just like one should be ashamed to make eyes roll. One should be careful not to become afraid of their own shadow.
"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~
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