While most people are familiar with the concept of propaganda, they actually have a very limited understanding of just what propaganda is and how it works. If pushed to provide an example they might talk about World War I posters or something akin to them, maybe even the idea that governments might lie to people. But very few have the ability to recognize what propaganda is, what makes it effective, and how it is used to manipulate them into doing what those in power want the masses to do. This article aims to correct this limitation by providing a tool that people can use to analyze the claims and actions of the State and recognize when it is using propaganda to try and mislead or exploit the people. In this article I outline ten basic principles of propaganda, explain each element, and provide examples of them in action both historically and currently. Then, recognizing when they’re being manipulated by those in power the reader will be able to resist such exploitation, refute the lies of those in power, be able to defend their liberties from the warmongers, and able to cause positive change in the world to truly establish peace for everyone living in it.
Tag: idols
Christians, Guns, and Killing in Self-Defense
In the United States guns are an inescapable part of everyday life. Depending on what state you live in you could be surrounded by people either carrying a gun secretly or openly. Even outside the USA it is a rare country that doesn’t glorify its military and soldiers as armed heroes of the nation who do the work of fighting and killing which all within the country’s borders. The entertainment of the world is awash with violent heroes whose solutions to the problems of the world is to kill anyone who stands in their way and not even ask questions about it later. They’re just assumed to be right. Everywhere we turn violence is idolized as the ideal and justified in endless ways. But are these ways of the world also the ways of Christ?
The short answer is no, they are not. A Christian should reject killing, even in self-defense, and should instead rely upon the power of God as the only true source of safety one can have in the world. Guns, bullets, and bombs will never keep you safe. They are merely idols whose worship demands human sacrifice – your life or theirs. Instead of of focusing on killing or getting vengeance upon his or her enemy the Christian should be working to forgive and redeem his or her enemy.
The U.S. Constitution: A Covenant With Death, An Agreement With Hell
In American Latter-day Saint circles there is much idolatry over the issue of the U.S. Constitution. Most of it has to do with a particularly willful misunderstanding of most statements on the Constitution found in the scriptures, the purpose of government, the rights of the people in the face of oppressive government laws, and the supremacy of God’s law to man’s in all cases. American Latter-day Saints also tend to idolize the American Founding Fathers. Much is made of the Lord’s statement, “by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose,” that is for writing the Constitution. (see D&C 101:80) It is without a doubt that they were intelligent men. The writings of Thomas Jefferson are still worth studying even today. But that doesn’t justify us in not creating something better now than they could envision then; that doesn’t justify us calcifying out social, spiritual, political, and economic development because they could not imagine the next step in liberty and individual freedom. It does not justify us in idolizing the Constitution (or your respective national charter), ignoring the many ways it has been wrong, corrupt, and evil form the very start, and choosing it over that which is better now.