Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Check your default settings…




This is something each of us rarely do.   Why would we?  They’re default settings.  No muss, no fuss.  Doesn’t matter if they’re set by a software provider or our own prejudice.  The end’s the same.  No muss, no fuss.  Just the way we like it.  Don’t mess with what has worked in the past.  If it ain’t broke, no need to think about it.  Therein lies the rhubarb. 

We like it when we don’t have to think about things like our beliefs, our haircut, our diet, or our significant others.  But time and time again it is precisely these things that sink us because we ignore them in order to avoid the hard work of introspection.  A smarter man than me once said, “People don’t want to be edified, they want to be rallied.”

Too many of us fall into that latter category.  Preferring to let someone else do the thinking.  Let someone else lead so that all we have to do is follow.  Knowing this, Adolf Hitler was able to set Europe ablaze, murder millions and taint his people in the minds of the rest of the world—forever.  This is the singular burden of Germany, as well it should be.  We can never forget, lest they forget, and doom us all again to needless slaughter.

This is the single most important reason I can think of that we, as Americans, as human beings, must ALWAYS question authority.  To not ask questions, to go along with the flag wavers, to bury our heads in the sand because someone told us that doing so was the way of patriots, is to play into the hands of tyrants and worse—to be made willing accomplices in their crimes. 

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