- The most dangerous man on Earth…
- The power of belief…
- April 15 is under two weeks away. One question: Have you learned about the loophole in the tax code that can LEGALLY save you thousands in taxes?
Dear Reader,
Today we stow all discussion of tariffs. Of markets. Of politics. Of war and rumors thereof.
We instead conduct an inquest into mankind’s nature.
Who is the most dangerous human being on Earth?
After extended and painful deliberation… I have arrived upon an unshakeable conclusion:
The most dangerous human being on Earth is the ideologue.
It is the ideological human being — the human being set aflame by belief — that most menaces our collective happiness.
For the ideological man would wreck the world before he would see his ideology wrecked.
This is the man married to and devoted to ideological abstractions.
The ideologue blazes with fire to “make the world safe for democracy”… to “save the planet”… to attain perfect human “equality.”
Only the particulars separate them.
Ideological Men
As the ideologue erects his lovely castles in the skies above… he razes actual structures on Earth.
In his pursuit of Heaven he creates Hell.
See for example the French Revolution. See for example the Soviet Revolution. See for example China’s Cultural Revolution.
Others exist. All were the offspring of ideologues.
As an engineer surmounting a difficulty to be overcome, the ideologue is out to engineer humanity itself.
And his engineering fails, invariably.
Most critically: The ideologue cannot accept an honest opposition.
He cannot entertain the possibility that his opponent may simply be in error.
No. He believes his opponent is a very bad fellow — likely, an evil fellow — an enemy to the cause.
Ideology vs. Principle
Opposed to the ideologue, we find the non-ideologue.
This man is content to peg along under the world’s multiple constraints.
These restraints may be imposed by God, by nature, by what he considers reality.
He may yearn at times that reality was other than what it is.
Yet he is willing to take the world as he finds it — not as he yearns it to be.
Like any man, he seeks to improve his circumstances where possible. He is not against change.
Yet the messianic impulse is not in him. He does not seek to bend the world in his direction.
The ideologue, contrarily, believes the world must bend to him.
Now, we must distinguish between the ideological man and the principled man.
The principled man will go to the gallows for his convictions.
The ideologue will send others to the gallows for theirs.
What Underrides Ideology?
The ideologue is — above all else — a believer.
I do not mean merely that he believes in this cause or that cause.
I mean instead that a man’s beliefs form his reality.
Beliefs are invisible censors that patrol the newsrooms of the human mind.
They run all entering data through their scrubbers.
Only the inflow that confirms existing belief is shuffled along to the “conscious” mind.
The remainder goes into the subconscious hellbox, shunned and discarded.
The recipient in the conscious mind then accepts the end product as reality.
He is unaware of the vast filtering that has occurred beneath his awareness.
He is unaware of how it creates his devils, his enemies of man, his bogeymen.
He is unaware of how it raises his blood and races his hormones.
Beliefs Are Sunglasses
The ideologue is a man unknowingly sporting shaded sunglasses — be they red-tinged, blue-tinged, green-tinged — what have you.
The world before him thus appears crystalline and concrete in red, blue or green, depending on the model.
What he sees is as obvious as the very nose upon his face.
‘How can anyone disagree that the world is red?’ wonders the man with the red-tinged sunglasses. ‘Can’t they see?’
How can anyone disagree that the world is blue? wonders the man with the blue-tinged sunglasses. Can’t they see?
Each is unaware — blissfully — of the shaded sunglasses he is donning. He accepts as reality the biased and distorted images they project into his skull.
Thus Frank asks: “How can Joe vote Democrat? They are nothing else but rogues, rascals, knaves and nuts. Can’t he see it?”
Thus Joe asks: “How can Frank vote Republican? They are nothing else but rogues, rascals, knaves and nuts. Can’t he see it?”
They may both be correct. They are both — in this instance — very likely correct.
Yet their polar beliefs blind them to the other’s position. They literally cannot see it.
Ruthless Censorship
The censorship is ruthless. All rival beliefs are mortal foes to be scotched at every possible hazard.
Like the genes of the human they infest, beliefs are committed unequivocally to their own survival.
They will defend themselves to the last ditch — and to the final bullet.
Observe this simple sketch. See the young beauty glancing out toward the 10 o’clock position.
You can discern her lovely eyelashes… hear left ear… her graceful jawline… the tip of her pert nose.
Her hair flows back in beautiful cascades. A necklace encircles her neck.
Do you see her?
Now have another look…
Take the head-on view. See the wretched old hag in a scarf. Note the monster nose, note the beady pinprick of an eye.
Note the gash of a mouth… and the witch’s chin jutting horribly beneath it.
You do see her, yes?
Now attempt a synthesis. Struggle to see both hag and beauty at once. You cannot do it. You see the one or you see the other.
You cannot see both.
Once you make the psychological commitment to one, you are blind to the other’s existence.
So it is with beliefs.
And here is an observation: When fact is weakest, belief is often strongest.
That is, a man often harbors the strongest beliefs about that which he knows least.
A Matter of Faith
Among man’s strongest beliefs are religious beliefs.
Yet Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Shintoists, Kemeticists and others profess distinct versions of God.
Which is correct? How does anybody know?
Yet tell a Muslim that Allah is fictitious… tell a Christian that Jesus is not the Son of God… tell an atheist that he is the actual creation of God…
And you have a foe on your hands. But where are his facts? Indeed — where are your facts?
They are nowhere in evidence.
Again: Belief is strongest when fact is often weakest.
Perhaps that is why I believe so strongly in the government of the United States…
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
