The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" – Edmund Burke
Great quote!
Unfortunately Edmund Burke never actually said that…
- The above is most likely a summary of the following quote in Burke’s "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents": "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
- Also attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville.
The internet has opened up a whole new world for all of us with access to it. We can reconnect with old friends, prepare for a meeting with fresh information, and bring back memories of a better time. Once upon a time, you would have to go to the library to gain access to so much information and even then you had to hope that your library would have the most current version of whatever source you required.
With progress however, comes opportunities for missteps and misunderstandings.
The ease with which people can add to the growing body of information and news is astounding. The fact that you are reading this means that just such an event took place. The ease that misinformation can be added to the public lexicon is also completely astounding. Let’s say you were to Google the words “Infamous quotes that were never actually said” you would instantly be directed to over 12,000,000 sites that cover one or all of those words.
As humans, we have something called selective hearing.
My wife accuses me of having a finely attuned sense of selective hearing. Often times, I will be in one room and she in another and we will suddenly find ourselves at odds over something that was not actually said. The same phenomenon can be said about the written word that results from not hearing a conversation correctly. People will often add value to a thing without checking to see if it is actually true. In the internet world, that happens almost daily.
Truth is getting harder to find these days.
Maybe all this connectedness is just making all of us a bit crazy. Maybe the people who have so much to overcome for the rest of us to think they are normal just have more passion. After all, something that has been considered by many societies for thousands of years as kind of creepy and abnormal won’t suddenly become normal overnight. It will take the combined power of the media, the entire electronic internet community, social media and politicians seeking votes to completely convince us that something that is abnormal should be normal.
A good way to get your point home is attacking people with long held beliefs. If it so happens that those beliefs are attached to a deeply held conviction that an unseen God is in charge, the better the argument. Using words like bigot and small minded are not just inflammatory, they drive home the lack of “compassion” inside people who hold themselves up as compassionate. It doesn’t matter if its true or not, it falls into line with the age old question: When did you stop beating your wife?”
If you happen to be a member or supporting member of one of the groups that desires to change the way people think about a previously unaccepted abnormal “lifestyle” what better way than to attack someone in the public eye. Gather up all the people who marginally agree with you and launch the biggest barrage of false claims you can muster. It doesn’t matter if they are true or not, just keep slapping the crap out of them every chance you get. Eventually, in this schoolgirl way of getting your way, you will bully people into submission.
The cool girls are already out in force so there is no turning back now.
Until the next big target comes into view, the sisters will rage and rampage and gut the next person who tries to point out that the single quote they are operating on was NEVER ACTUALLY SAID.
The liberal church goers, the firebrand equality hordes and the folks who want to believe abnormal is normal are out with their knives drawn. People who I previously considered friends have been infected with the disease and now shun people like me as uninformed and undereducated. Hmm.
I am a simple man by nature that was a mechanic for most of my early working life.
As a mechanic, I recognized that certain things fit together for a purpose. As a submariner, I also recognized that you could make some things fit together if you wanted to but that didn’t mean they fit well or served any useful purpose. The best fit that served a purpose was always that which the Master planned. In his design, he made provisions for there to be many different devices for many different purposes. But to be held together in the best way, they should be by done so by design. The parts are there for a purpose and using them for any other purpose was just plain stupid. Frankly, on a submarine, doing so could make the boat sink.
I have spent the past few days contemplating having a chicken sandwich.
I like a good chicken sandwich and if it comes with some waffle fries and a cold Sweet Tea, it takes me back to a better place and time. My diet and my doctor wish me to limit those items now but the peasant in me says that the next time I see the familiar old sign with the “Eat more Chicken” cow on it, I am going to pull in and order a meal.
I don’t much care if any Christian bashing haters come or go to the restaurant.
I hate lines anyway and it always seems so crowded in those places. I do hope that this new crime of “being a Christian” doesn’t gain too much traction. Last time that happened, we had a lot of people hanging from trees up and down the roadside. Surely the people who hate us so wouldn’t resort to that again, would they? Those people who claim to be Christians who support the attacks will have some serious explaining to do about their views when the day comes. The God I worship is a lot more narrow minded than any person I have ever met when it comes to His laws.
theleansubmariner 
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