Is It Folly To Be Wise?

He who tells the truth must have one foot in the stirrup.

Armenian proverb
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Ignorance is doom. It is a danger to our future that so many people desire to grasp and possessively defend their own mental invariance about things. And it is even more frightening when whole groups of people become mesmerized by the nonsense they hear from their leaders. One gang calls people who disagree with them a gang. People would rather be on a race track which goes nowhere than on a highway which does.

In Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" the Spirit of Christmas Present displays two desperate children to Scrooge who wants to know who they are.
"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased."
(Charles Dickens)

This is no idle warning. It is ignorance, which is the direct result of nonthinking and that which supports nonthinking. And why do so many people support this ignorance? Why is it even applauded in some quarters? Why is there so much suspicion of those who are trying to fray the enemies of progress? Because people don't want to know the truth. It upsets them.

I have said this before and I am saying it again. When the World Trade Center was destroyed the US Government went immediately to work forming a commission to determine how it happened. But there wasn't a single penny spent on a commission to determine WHY it happened. The government is still behind the screen on that one. Now people don't want American Muslims to build a mosque near where it happened because a group of Asian Muslims destroyed it.

One of our popular journalists, I won't name him, was interviewing an American Muslim who was just about to explain why he said that he understood the motives behind the terrorist attacks when the journalist called him a traitor and shut him off. He didn't want to know the truth.

We proudly proclaim that the United States is the best nation in the world and that our living standards are higher than other countries, and then we expect the people who live in those countries to stay there.

We can't decide who's an immigrant and who isn't. I recently read an article about a woman who was denied her Medicare benefits because she couldn't prove she was a citizen. She was born on a Choctaw reservation. She's a Native American. The tragedy of that far outweighs the irony. It just points the dial at the big I. Ignorance.

I know of a high school that closed down the theatre and arts programs in order to save power during the energy crises of years ago, and yet all the lights blazed for the basketball games.

Our government gives money, not programs but real money, to those who already have it, while it deprives the poor.

"Degrade first the Arts if you'd Mankind Degrade.
Hire Idiots to Paint with cold light & hot shade:
Give high Price for the worst, leave the best in disgrace,
And with Labours of Ignorance fill every place."
(William Blake)

That's the end of my rant for the day, but I've already got one foot in the stirrup. I'm outta here!

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

1 response so far

I await your answer.
DB
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