How many people have noticed the huge erosion that is taking place in the arena of free speech? Apart from officially designated 'forbidden' topics of discussion, there is now a huge ground swell of a 'lack of opinion' that is denying many people the ability to generate free and open discussions on just about any topic you care to mention.
Look through any blog that allows comments and you will see how moronic imbeciles will attempt to throttle 'free speech' by posting quotations from any written work in order to, not only make or break a point, but also to end any further discussion. You can almost hear them say "check mate" when they post "To think thus is to be ignorant - Fred Fernackerpan's book of wisdom, page 42, line 5".
It seems to me that the western world is becoming the hunting ground for the enfeebled brains of charismatic preachers who can rave a good rant but not string two convincing ideas together to justify their claims.
For example, the latest craze for 'self improvement' is a very destructive form of brain washing that is affecting huge sectors of society.
If a burglar breaks in to your home and steals something from you, he is committing a crime. How much more criminal is it to break into someone's mind, the place in which he really resides, and steal the foundation upon which he has built his whole life?
It takes an average person about 25 years to create themselves. This process involves swimming in a vast ocean of knowledge and sifting from it those elements that best suit the life style to which he has become attracted.
Despite many claims of instant changes in direction, these are seldom as instant as all that. They will build from an accretion of ideas and opinions that swing the decision making aparatus in a different direction. One of the benefits and one of the drawbacks of sentience is the very fact of being sentient - of being self aware.
It is a very rare person indeed who will wake up one day and say to himself 'I've been doing it all wrong' because such an epiphany would be self destructive and probably lead to a total break-down as has been witnessed by many a psychiatrist in loosely grounded patients who have simply become unearthed and separated from the support system that they had created for themselves.
'Self improvement' protagonists deliberately assault the inner well-being of their clients. Some are quite subtle and will form cults to entrap the unwary by the initial application of loving praise to the new member until they become more pliable and prepared to accept the new reality that has been created for them. Some cults are very expert and can do this within a few months, others may take years.
Other protagonists are driven by a single factor - GREED. They create a publicity machine and then exploit the weaknesses of their potential victims. While the cults are organised and rigidly structured, the exploiters are much more insidious and use the greed element to encourage 'followers' to create an atmosphere in which free thought is seen as unacceptable.
The most blatant and destructive of all the indoctrination techniques used is that of the 'constant drip'. The most constant of all recent constant drips has been the claim "you are so negative". This creates a block to further discussion and the lack of further discussion will lead the more gullible to think that you really are negative. The first nibble at the foundation that each person who takes note and allows the accusation to stultify conversation has been made.
Free speech is no longer allowed in forums to which purveyors of any sort of programme are allowed to post a product link. Forums are no longer open and frank discussions - they are a competition between purveyors to get their product in front of as many readers as possible by attacking the very bed rock of their belief systems.
What I find most alarming is that the purveyors of these destructive ideas are only in it for the affiliate commission - it looks good in ClickBank Marketplace and sells well so they promote it without even sampling the wares.
Do you think that you enjoy free speech?
Really?
Whom the gods would destroy, first they make insane.
Whom the purveyors would exploit, first they make doubt.
