Arguably, the biggest threat to our representative democratic
republic today is the division of our people—the primary challenge to our
leaders and to anyone whom we elect as our president. Our nation cannot survive
as we know it, with a divided people. You’ve heard it before, “United We Stand,
Divided We Fall”. The unification of our people, the unification of our
country, must be the first priority on the agenda of anyone (everybody) elected
to public office today. It is imperative, the vast inroads of our
representative governance of the people by the Corporatocracy and Power Elite (our second priority)
notwithstanding.
In my mind, our nation hasn’t been this divided since the
American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. I submit to you that the primary
contributor to this division of our people is their biased and myopic thinking,
the subject of my following discussion. There must be some reason why two
people can look at the same facts and view them so differently.
Let’s begin with the definition of the word “bias” as defined
by The New Oxford American Dictionary, copyrighted in 2005 by the Oxford
University Press, Inc., eBook Copyright, 2008:
Bias is defined as prejudice in favor
of or against any one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in
a way considered to be unfair. The word prejudice is defined as a preconceived
opinion that is not based on reason or experience, i.e. dislike, hostility, or
unjust behaviour formed on such a basis (the key word here is ‘preconceived’).
Preconceived is defined as an idea or opinion) formed before having the
evidence for its truth or usefulness.
Now, let’s define myopic or myopia:
Myopic or myopia is defined as
short-sighted, lacking foresight or intellectual insight. An example might be: the government still has a myopic attitude
to public spending. Some folks call this condition of the mind, “narrow
minded”.
Everyone has their biases. Everyone has their preferences, as
do I. We are that way from the day we are born, and they increase daily with
our experiences, feelings, and consequential learning. They are buried in our
subconscious. They are reflected in our reflexes. But they are not always
accurate. In fact, I suspect they are not accurate most of the time because we
don’t always have the facts. You have heard it before: “My father was a Whig;
my mother was a Whig; by gum and by golly, I’m going to be a Whig” (or
something like that). Let’s face it. That’s just the way we are, but we don’t
have to be that way. We can change. We must! We must learn to base our thinking
on facts—not unconfirmed opinions and feelings! If we can learn to do that, we
will not only greatly enhance the quality of our judgments, but also, our
living.
Why do we often not know the facts, the lack of which
knowledge exacerbates our bias and prejudices toward the issues we face daily,
and what can we do about the problem? One significant contributor to this
problem is our nature. Most, if not all, of us are mentally lazy. Don’t get mad.
We are all that way to one degree or another. It’s just the way we are, some of
us more than others. I know I am; and, the older I get, the worse I become at
this.
How many times have you heard someone say, “I don’t like to
read”—not good. We must keep abreast of current events, i.e. keep up with what
is going on. We must search for the truth, the real truth—not just what we want
to hear. We must read books and periodicals, view the media, i.e. television,
internet, etc; and we must do this with an “open mind”, with full awareness of
our biases and prejudices as well as that of those writing and publishing the
information we are studying .
Living in today’s busy world, this is not an easy task, but
we must do this to the best of our ability. It is our duty and responsibility as
a citizen of the sovereign representative democracy in which we live. Figuratively,
there is an Adolph Hitler behind every door. If you don’t want your democracy,
he will be only too happy to take it from you. Democracy is like leaving a
purse in a shopping cart in the supermarket. If you don’t “keep an eye on it”
someone is going to steal it from you. This is not only a fact, it is happening
to us every day. Here we are again, back to the subject of the Shadow Government of the Corporatocracy and Power Elite. Either
we the people are going to govern this nation or they are.
To this end, I submit to you that the first step to unite us lies
in the hands of our leaders—real leadership, leadership which unites us rather
than separates. If we don’t get back together, we will surely fail as a people
and as a nation.
These are my views. What’s yours?
In the meantime,
This is Ronald Miller
P.S. To my readers on Facebook, you can view past postings to my blog by clicking on the
item, “older posts”, below, or going to my website indicated above.
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