When reality keeps getting in the way

“Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon… No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.” – Author currently unknown to our editorial board.

Talk about not thinking outside the box! (OK, you got me; I did put the box around the statement on the shirt as a subtle reminder of that overused yet rarely acted upon saying. And, ironically enough, I actually thought I was thinking outside the box when I did it!)

So, let’s consider what and how we are actually “teaching” not only our young, but each other. The word indoctrinate is quite often used to point out how the other group whose ideas are in opposition to one’s own, are cloaking their motives as “proper” education. Yet, in actuality, a certain amount of indoctrination is required in order to establish and maintain societal norms.

The issue to be raised by the competing factions is not if the other is indoctrinating its adherents, since they all are, but to what end their methods of indoctrination are working. Yes, all disparate ideas create competing factions; that is how they quite often come to pervade our consciousness and mobilize the details of their agenda.

Indoctrination is not an inherently negative process.

The criterion we must adhere to for the sake of not only accuracy, but freedom, is whether or not the indoctrinators have included as a fundamental aspect of their doctrine, the tools, and an in depth training as to their proper use, by which the indoctrinated will be able, and encouraged, to question the doctrine. All doctrine. That is the only peaceful way of propagating what are actually the most accurate ideas.

Our history is the use of physical domination by those whose ideas would otherwise be extinct were they to be freely considered for adoption by people who were taught to be qualified judges of its merit (adoption is implementation).

Don’t be fooled, physical domination is not limited to fists, guns, and the other assorted weapons and tactics that are conventionally associated with warfare. Physical domination is occurring in myriad, not at all subtle, ways.

Every product on display in supermarkets and department stores has been placed where they are by design. The products that catch, or should I say dominate, your attention have had their location secured for them because their manufacturers had the means to ensure such placement. Studies are constantly being done to perfect the craft.

I dare you to come up with a great idea, and then bring it to the level of national exposure while maintaining full control of it. The companies who currently dominate the fields related to your idea are the ones’ who have crafted, and are constantly re-crafting, all manner of regulation regarding the coming to fruition of all ideas in such fields (this includes all fields, from sneakers to politics).

But don’t despair, this is the history of the world. All that has changed are the names of the players and the techniques employed. Through proper education we are able to see through the subterfuge of sound bytes, nifty slogans, high tech imagery, star powered promotion, and even threats of eternal damnation.

As a general rule, the tools which the powers that be have enabled you to utilize with the greatest of ease, to seemingly serve you, are in actuality tools for their methods of maintaining and increasing their level of control.

They’ll help you use those tools to the point that they have trapped you with them, so that you become the perfect tool for their purpose.

Once your routine or way of life depends upon those tools, the tool becomes your purpose; and you are now functioning perfectly as a tool for their purpose. Credit cards anyone?

When the populace is not properly educated, the few can impose their will upon the many.

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