Some people say we live in the age of deception, the post truth era. All is spin and dissemination, perception is all.
Here are a few things to hold on to from great thinkers of the past 1000 years.
Can you add, in the comments section, to the wisdom quoted here about why we should not subserviently and blindly believe in and bow to governmental, medical, scientific, educational, religious, or consensus authority?
> "Those who make you believe absurdity, can make you commit atrocity." - Voltaire
> Those who trade rights for safety, deserve neither.
> "Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” - Albert Einstein
> "We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” -- Ayn Rand
> "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H L Mencken
> "The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.” - Nikos Kazantzakis
> "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” - George Orwell
> "In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” - George Orwell
> "The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks ... It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.” - Samuel Adams
> "The greatest inequalities arise from efforts to make unequal thigs equal" Aristoltle
> "The power to lead is the power to mislead, and the power to mislead is the power to destroy.”
- Thomas S. Monson
> "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
- P. J. O'Rourke
> "The real violence is committed in the writing of history, the records of the legal system, the reporting of news, through the manipulation of social contracts, and the control of information.” - Bryant H. McGill
> Power has the primary purpose of retaining and growing power.
> "The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime.”
- Emma Goldman
> "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain
> Distance in time or geography lends power and enchantment to the prevailing view.
> What part of authority bothers you? The part where you have to make decisions for your own life? Or the part where you don't get to make my decisions for me?
> A wise and sage person is never recognized by the followers of authority.
> A governmental edict passed as truth that is too sacred to be challenged is already dead.
> The powerful must muffle the voices of those at odds.
> "The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.”- H. L. Mencken
> Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found. - B. Russell
> It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. --Voltaire
> People are bad so we should put people in charge of other people.
> The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
> Fear of being different forces people into group think.
> Fashion entrances every age without people realizing tyrants rule over them.
> Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do. —William Ellery Channing (1780–1842)
> A few scientific and government approved "truths" that have become new "truths":
- Geosynclinal theory of Mt. ranges accepted in texts until 1960 when they were replaced with plate tectonics.
- Newton has been one- upped by quantum physics.
- All genetic information dictated by DNA dogma had been replaced by epigenetics.
- Gravity has been replaced by space-time.
- Countless medical, health, and nutritional science ideas are replaced continuously.
- Cosmology and cosmogony are constantly being revamped.
> The red tape of government approved peer review does not substitute for facts, reason, and experience.
> Peer review is policing of conformity to the current consensus dogma.
> "Terrifying statistics can inspire panic and despair that shuts people down rather than motivating them to action." - Friedrich Nietzsche
> There are 22M articles in Pubmed, 1M added each year, each one is subject to interpretation and disagreement.
> Let us never ever doubt what nobody is sure about.
> Argumentum Ad Baculum-- is argument with threat of force against opponents, a favorite of despotic governments..
> The key to power is bread and circuses.
