“This is a leading politician from your party. Do not listen to them. They are lying to you. There is no brainwashing manipulation occurring. You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives, sheep.” In reality, this happens with any number of mediums, and not politics alone.
Bloodsucking creatures are of course not exclusively native to the realm named after them, and frequent other habitats as well, such as churches, schools, and the media. While these denizens of unmitigated evil most commonly take the guise of lawyers, politicians, prosecutors, and televangelists, they will spring forth with light and cheery steps from their dank caverns like small evil fairies; slavering at the thought of material gain merely a sinister deception away.
Ultimately, a single truth can readily separate these seeming angels of light as other than they appear. You see, their innocuous facades are exposed via their duplicitous methods to those who remain wary. These treacherous wolves in sheep’s clothing garb their true motives within a guise of pandering agreement, and as a certain famous messiah once said, “beware when all men speak well of you, for so did they also of the false prophets.”
Darkness hides from light. Not the other way around. But light, when it is revealed, inevitably creates discord and controversy. Lack thereof suggests that one quite possibly is not speaking loudly, honestly, and frankly enough to draw the vipers away from their pits in outrage.
The tactics of darkness, therefore, are to convolute and obscure the truth. True tolerance, as Canadian philosopher Michael Horner points out, implies disagreement, else there would be no need for tolerance. Intolerance would be to silence opposing points of view, whether through ad hominem tactics, prejudicial refusal to hear out such viewpoints, scoffing, insults, violence, coercions, or simply saying “shut up”.
As Horner concludes, “We show more respect for our religious claims when we take them seriously than when we clothe them in a patronizing cloak of relativism.” Since religions, as with much else, differ in their fundamental attributes, they cannot all equally be right. Likewise as with much else in life. Intolerance masquerades as ‘tolerance’, in seeking to silence those points of view which claim absolute truth. Logic alone dictates that differing claims of mutually exclusive principles cannot be equally valid, yet many are those who will shout down as offensive the mere suggestion of absolute truth.
Politicians are renowned for their character assassination, i.e. ad hominem, tactics. This mudslinging serves to distract from the topic, focusing instead on their opponent, rather than the logic of the argument (which in all probability they were losing). Commonly a last-ditch resort, such modus operandi can be difficult to discern if one does not know what to look for; rendering it consummately ideal for the aspiring scoundrel.
Such subtle tactics commonly begin fruition as a subtle, yet marked change in the conversation, which the antagonist typically initiates via a seemingly benign question about the target’s background or personal life. The ruse, should it be wandered into, serves as a lead, inevitably ensuing in a fierce, self-righteous reviling of the opponent. Once a conversation disintegrates into such reprehensible and petty name-calling, the malevolent villain has successfully effected his ulterior design of altering the audience’s focus.
Dishonest fiends from the pit of hell, you see, tend to be self-serving hypocrites little interested in sincere examination of the truth, with interest solely in looking good… rather than being good. Their brainwashed followings depend on the fragile framework of deceptive subversions. Expect an indignant demagogue to scurry out quickly to defend his or her web of lies from the most tactless, docile, and unobtrusive truth seekers.
The mass of people are naive, lazy, and readily finagled muttonchops at the mercy of wolves who spare not. Critical thinking, a healthy dose of skepticism, scrutiny of history, and most importantly, honest communication, would alleviate many of this world’s regrettably tragic evils; propagated as they are upon an unsuspecting public by unprincipled scions of hades.
And that, my friends, is my story about bad people.
