Some Simple Truths That Go Unheeded
– by David Matthews 2
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. That they are empowered by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
That’s from the Declaration of Independence. It was a great document written by a bunch of very enlightened people to justify breaking away from a tyrannical form of government.
Except that the passage I just gave you is full of flaws.
The idea that “all men are created equal” was certainly NOT “self-evident”. America’s founding fathers PRESUMED them to be “self-evident”, but that didn’t mean that they were. If it WAS “self-evident”, then there wouldn’t be a problem that necessitated the American Revolution in the first place. There wouldn’t be any kind of social stratification or even slavery if the idea that “all men are created equal” really WAS “self-evident”. And if certain rights really were “unalienable”, then the tyrannical government of the time wouldn’t be usurping them at ever opportunity, nor would the new government that replaced it be eager to do just that just a few decades in. Anyone ever hear of “The Alien and Sedition Acts”? Those laws were enacted by the very people that previously put their lives on the line for the document that they then took a legislative dump on.
That’s the problem with “truths”… they may be accepted, but that doesn’t mean that they will be heeded.
We humans are like that sometimes. We have this nagging problem sometimes of ignoring reality. Even when the reality is as simple as a “Dummies” book, we will refuse to acknowledge it for whatever reason. Usually because it’s inconvenient for us or because it goes against what we already believe is “the truth” and we egotistically refuse to accept that what we believe is false.
So here are just a few more of those “unheeded truths”…
Anything you post CAN be used against you! Hey Suzy Purebred, remember that photo you posted on Facebook of you playfully trying out that lingerie? Well your high school janitor… remember “Mister Creepy”? Well, he wanted me to let you know that he thought you looked HAWT in that! Have fun at gym class; I’m told he usually hangs around there.
Oh, and you should let your older brother know that his boss just posted a comment about the photos of his WILD time at Mardi Gras with the keg of beer and the donkey. I think he’s going to need to find a new job soon. Good luck finding one in THIS economy!
Holding or sending scandalous photos of yourself is DUMB! File this under “Duh” but people do it anyway... especially celebrities.
If you don’t want other people to see you in your “glory”, then keep them to yourself. It’s that simple.
I understand that people do stupid things when they’re in love. And, sure, they’d like to keep a memento of that wonderful weekend when they did everything in the Kama Sutra at least once. But putting it on a cellphone or blackberry which can be lost or stolen or hacked is NOT a good idea! And worse yet is when you SEND it to someone else, who, if they’re not as noble as you’d expect, would then pass them on to other people. Yes, other people CAN be serious jerks.
Here’s a little suggestion… as soon as you get home, take all of your digital memories off your blackberry or iPhone and put them on a portable drive. Then you can pull it up whenever you want to but it would still not be on a device that can be easily stolen or hacked.
Sarcasm doesn’t translate well. Are you paying attention Charlie Sheen?
Yes, I get the joke. The whole thing about “Tiger Blood” and “boogers of a nine-year old” and being on the drug named after yourself that other people wouldn’t be able to consume without causing painful death and misery. Yes, I get it! You were being SARCASTIC! Hanging around with porn stars and calling them your “Goddesses”, I get it!
The problem is that the people you were trying to communicate with DID NOT get the joke! That’s why they think you’re flakier than a neo-con.
Speaking of which, remember former House Speaker Newt Gingrich? Yeah, back in 1995 he made a little quip to reporters about shutting the government down because he and Senator Bob Dole had to ride in the back of Air Force One on a little jet-pool trip for a state funeral. Guess what happened? The media put up this big front-page picture of him in a diaper and called him “Crybaby Newt”.
In short, Charlie, these guys aren’t Jim Abrahams. They can’t ferret out the sarcasm from seriousness.
Most film/TV remakes SUCK! There needs to be a rule that Hollywood cannot try to re-invent their classics for at least fifty years. If at least two generations of movie-goers still remember the original, then they should red-flag any ideas for remaking it. Then at least the audience wouldn’t realize how much of an absolute fail the remake is compared to the original.
There’s a reason why “Friday the 13th” and “Halloween” were cinematic classics: they were pioneers into the new generation of horror at the time. Sure there was blood and boobs and more blood, but it wasn’t about how “EXTREME” they took it. In fact, it was less about gore and more about surprise for those two movies.
Take a look at the BBC… when they decided to bring back “Doctor Who”, they didn’t try to re-invent the series or pretend that Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor was a younger version of William Hartnell’s incarnation, or, for that matter, a continuation of Paul McGann’s single-run incarnation from 1996. They acknowledged (more or less) that those earlier incarnations existed and then moved on with their own version, and the fans LOVED it! THAT is how you resurrect a classic!
And finally (for now anyway)…
Some people just don’t want facts. When some idiot (usually a conservative or a neo-conservative) accuses others of not using facts, it’s not that they don’t want to HEAR facts. They just want that person to go away and not say anything anymore.
Let’s get brutally honest here… despite their own (FoxNews/talk radio) propaganda, conservatives and neo-conservatives really don’t CARE about facts! This is especially true when those facts contradict their own ideas.
Remember when President Nixon wanted to go after pornography? He brought in all of the leading experts in society, and they all concluded that porn WAS NOT the “big bad THREAT” that Nixon wanted it to be painted as. So what did he do? His dismissed the report! He dismissed the FACTS! So when Ronald Reagan’s people wanted to do the same thing in 1984, they made sure that their so-called “experts” said precisely what they WANTED them to say, and then demanded that their critics then spend the time to refute them… which they would then dismiss because they already have their own “facts”.
Facts are BORING for people who respond to jiffy-pop sound-byte emotion-jerking displays. You can come up with fifty pages full of gibberish and then say that it proves that the moon is really made of green cheese and people will BUY it if they already believe it to be so. There are people today who believe that we never went to the moon, no matter how much proof there is and no matter how many astronauts you produce to say that they really were there. And don’t get me started on the whole “Intelligent Design” concept, but I will say this: if you really believe in that particular idea, then you also forfeit any right to accuse others of not using “facts” for that very same reason.
Well, that’s a short list of unheeded truths. No doubt I’ll have plenty more in future articles.
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