Just now saw Nooneofanyimport’s post on the education industry’s attempt to program children. To be charitable, most of the people trying to brainwash these kids were themselves programmed in their youth.

Repetition is the brute force approach to lying, and it works on anyone who’s not constantly steeled against it, like Linda. Or is a pattern-recognition mutant, like yours truly. Maybe Linda is also a mutant, but I don’t think so.  She doesn’t give off the Sheldon Cooper vibe.

Imagine saying out loud “two plus two equals five” a thousand times, then a hundred thousand times, without ever once believing it. But say someone put a gun to your head shouting “what’s two plus two?!” and you panic.

If you blurt out an answer by reflex…what would it be?

Your body believes the lie even though your mind never forgot. That’s the power of repetition.  Now think of all the information and stimuli you encounter, every day.  How much time do you have to test it?  And how much do you hear over and over, across the decades, without ever getting the opportunity to verify it?

Now, the W.O.R.M. can accept lies (often having no other choice).  That’s not the same as believing them.  You can’t force people out of their beliefs and can greatly harm them by trying.  Unlike Sheldon Cooper, I can let falsities slide. 

But repetitive lying has created so many human parrots I had to revise a basic axiom about communication.  My parents were honest, and demanded honesty from their children.  Growing in that environment, I childishly assumed that was the default state of humanity.

And it is, in a way.  Billions of people accept that “two and two makes five”, or lies to that effect.  They believe.  Progressives “honestly” believe they are morally superior to those who vastly exceed them in charity, compassion, humility, and plain good manners.  Feminists know that Superbowl Sunday is the apex of domestic violence against woman.  That it is not is of no import. 

So by necessity my paradigm became: 

Assume that people are honest until proven otherwise; but assume that what they say is false.

See, God requires me to be both charitable and wise. Though I’m a lousy Christian, I can assure my spiritual betters that that axiom is gold, baby.  It’s the dove-gentle, serpent-wise approach to dealing with strangers.

Because when people can be turned into human tape machines, honesty does not equal truthfulness.