On the path to enlightenment there are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, want to keep you from the truth and they have a few ingenious techniques for doing so. One of these goes like this:

Present a little bit of truth along with a lot of falsehood and the truth will easily be ignored.

Present a little bit of falsehood along with a lot of truth and the falsehood will easily be accepted.

A spoonful of sugar…

An example of something like this would be to combine the true history of an elite banker class with the absurd notion that the world’s political leaders are not really human beings, but are a species of reptilian alien. See how beautifully that works? If a single person is spouting both of those ideas, you will likely imagine that you can safely ignore both. This device relegates all discussion regarding the elites and their plans for a New World Order to the New Age section in the bookstore, where everything is assumed to be pseudoscience and no self-respecting college graduate would be caught dead.

A very similar method is used in the development of political parties. It goes like this:

Package a position on issues of emotional importance to the common man, but of little political importance, with the politically important, but likely to be ignored, doctrine that you wish to bring to pass.

Package the opposite position on those emotional issues of importance to the common man, but of little political importance, with the VERY SAME politically important, but likely to be ignored, doctrine that you wish to bring to pass.

Pit these two against one another and you will pass the doctrine you wish to pass with the blessings of the masses.

Examples of this would be the abortion issue, the gay marriage issue and of course the ever-present ”science” of global warming, which, fraught as it is with so much nonsense, is easily swallowed by those who attach to it all the truths that science has ever uncovered.

Together the principles are part of a kind of dialectic which is really just a fuzzy equivocal term (another important technique for confusing people) for the fallacy of false alternative. These are, among others, some of the tools used by the “sagacious lawgiver” to ensure his particular rules will be followed. Speaking of equivocation, which I discussed in a previous post, if you are going to use the above techniques, make sure that whatever doctrine you wish to pass is named using words that evoke positive emotions, but mean precisely the opposite of whatever you are doing. This gets people used to using these words in conjunction with your ideas and prevents anyone from using them with their true meanings. You know, freedom is slavery, war is peace, and liberals are people who want more government (and hence less freedom).

With these techniques in mind, you’re well on your way to despotism.

The Dow/Gold Zoom has been updated. The current ratio is 7.63.

Also updated is the “How Low Dow” chart, as I’ve started calling it.

For those of you that might have been lost by my reference to “sunglasses” in a previous post this is the movie that alludes to. Pretty funny and entertaining… but with a bit of truth???

Note: you can use the drop down box under “Google” to go directly to Google video.

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. It’s harvest time, which means lots of food, the trees are brightly colored, the temperature is perfect, the air is dry, and the sky is blue. What’s not to like? Lately, however, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the Halloween decorations.

Halloween was never a big decoration holiday when I was a kid. A few black cats in the windows, a jack o’lantern or two, a witches black hat or broom. Mostly people decorated with harvest-time decorations: a pumpkin, a bale of hay, some corn stalks, a big bunch of mums. Today people are decorating their front lawns with murder scenes. These are elaborate set ups. One person in town has a table set up on their front lawn with a realistic looking human monster butchering human body parts while tortured souls look on. Right up the block from me someone set up a scene with two men lying on the lawn with axes in their chests, a sign strung up on a tree reading HELP! scrawled in something that looks like blood. Other houses have realistic looking cemeteries with something that looks like vomit all over them. Damn, these decorations are ugly. What’s worse, I fear, is the ugliness hiding on the insides of these people’s heads. What was the psychology of people when going to the colosseum to watch men brutally murder one another was an acceptable form of fun? How far are we from that sort of psychology? I want to hope that we are still far from it. I’m worried that the decorations are just the tip of iceberg.

With the economy in the state it’s in, there is a lot to be afraid of going forward, and not just the continuing drop in the stock market. Very few people have any idea what is going on, but when the time comes they WILL react to it, and likely violently. Maybe knowing this is what is making me so sensitive to ugly Halloween decorations. Whatever it is, it worked. I’m petrified.

This was pointed out to me by someone noting the Obama signs in the yards of neighbors. Not only do I doubt very much this is a coincidence, but even if it was, one would imagine that the distaste alone would be enough to crush Obama’s campaign. That it doesn’t is really, really, telling. No doubt this joke is meant to show those of us who can see it just what we’re up against. As the socialist fist descends upon us, some fools are dancing on the roofs celebrating it’s arrival. Hence, I’ve come to realize that an Obama sign on a lawn tells you volumes about what the occupant DOESN’T know. Goddamnit, PUT ON THOSE SUNGLASSES!!!!!!

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the Company of Men
Sony Pictures
Neil LaBute writer/director

LaBute (writer and director) aptly sets his movie in the ubiquitous American scenes of dating and business — work and women. His scenes are all too familiar to the average American — and this is exactly as LaBute intends. Evil does not necessarily wear the guise of an SS uniform. Evil begins long before the death camps of Auschwitz or the Killing Fields of Cambodia can emerge. LaBute’s message: Evil can exist anywhere, on any scale, and men must always remain vigilant or suffer the consequences. LaBute’s story revolves around the interplay of three characters. During a business trip, two old frat buddies, Chad and Howard attempt to mutually seduce a pretty deaf girl at the office. Of course things are not as they appear. Chad and Howard are really potential rivals vying to move up the corporate ladder. The seduction of the girl is Chad’s attempt to unravel Howard and divert him from his role as the overall supervisor — a job Chad wants.

Of the trio, Chad is certainly the most tragic figure. He is the one most capable rational action and using means to achieve ends. He lectures a college intern, “I want you to know a thing because it’s true not because some man says that its right”. After the lecture, Chad finds that he can easily make the intern undress himself simply because he is told to do so. He reveals his philosophy on corporate work, “That’s what business is all about — who is sporting the nastiest sack of venom and who is willing to use it.” Despite his tragic flaws, he is the only character with any sense of integrity. The American culture of the 90’s, and the people who dwell within it, have left Chad a bitter and oppressed man. He despises whiners and affected compassion — thus he hates almost everyone.

Christine is the deaf office girl who is being seduced by both Howard and Chad. Outwardly she appears the victim, but she is playing her own game, a game that must inevitably hurt one of two men. After sleeping with Chad, she continues to date Howard out of compassion. But is that really compassionate? Although her own ends are not so well defined as Chad, they are certainly more defined than Howard’s. Howard is the most despicable character, he acts without knowing why, he does what he is told and never questions it. Seduce a lonely young girl — for the sole purpose of wreaking emotional havoc — sure why not. At least Chad had a personal motive in the seduction. Without thought and deliberation, men are incapable of purposeful action and they become automatons. Howard is the kind of man capable of anything, the kind that makes evil on a vast scale possible.

Early on Chad tells him: “Never lose control — that’s the key, Howard — that is the real key to universe — trust me.” Unfortunately, for Howard control is impossible — as it is for any man incapable of reflection. As the last scene of the movie suggests, Howard is a man totally out of control. In the end, the film delivers justice. Chad after admitting the entire plan of seduction and the real victim, contemptuously asks, “How does it feel to really hurt someone, Howard?”

What did you expect?

Recently ABC performed a version of Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment on obedience to authority. Of course the psychology of the participants in the study is certainly interesting. But the psychology of the experimenters is, too. For example, the questions they ask reveal something about them. How can “ordinary” people perform “unthinkable” acts? How do “good” people go bad? These questions are interesting because they imply that people willing to cause pain and injury to another at the urging of an authority were, at least before the experiment, good people. Somehow, due to the psychological makeup of humans in general, the urgings of an authority figure “made” them go bad. What’s interesting is that it never occurs to the experiments that those who would do such a thing were never good people. The experiment exposes the immorality of the people, it doesn’t create it. Good people don’t suddenly go bad. They were always that way.

Morality is a very touchy issue. There are a lot of emotions wrapped up in the concept, at least partially because most “moralities” are attempts to fool people into doing things that are against their own interests. You heard that right. What passes for morality is actually a control mechanism put in place by authority figures to make people want to obey their rules. The only way to get people to obey rules that are against their own interest is to convince them that they will be rewarded for it eventually. And this is how most “moralities” operate.

Continued…

From ‘depravityscale.org’:

Courts across America are using terms like ‘heinous’, ‘atrocious’ and ‘cruel’ when weighing penalties for a variety of crimes. However, the interpretations of these terms and resulting punishment, vary from state to state.

The Forensic Panel seeks to provide a standardized scale for the justice system to determine with scientific certainty which aspects of a crime represent depravity. The scale addresses not who is depraved, but rather, whether a specific crime reflects depraved intent, actions and/or attitudes. Therefore, The Depravity Scale is race and socio-economic blind, and promotes fact-finding in resolving questions of depravity.

Michael Welner is a forensic psychiatrist currently seeking to define evil for the courts with his Depravity Scale (www.depravityscale.org), an online survey generally targeted at lawyers and judges. In his survey, Dr. Welner gives examples of specific crimes and asks responders to rate them according to the degree of depravity. By this he hopes to define such terms as ‘heinous,’ ‘cruel’ and ‘atrocious’ so that courts across the 50 states will have consistent guidelines for punishing crime. Dr. Welner wants to ensure a ‘balanced representation of differing viewpoints’ and claims his scale promotes ‘fact-finding in resolving questions of depravity.’

Continued…