Shamocracy

Submitted by Lindsay
Melbourne Australia!

Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing – a very horrid thing. - John Wesley, 1719

(3/2019) We live on our beliefs. Babies don’t need to believe until they can distinguish time and have the ability to choose, but everyone else does. From the normal belief of the sun rising to the complex one of relationships, from believing they will be paid for the work they do to that of having the right to speak freely, we depend on belief.

We are prepared to trust those in power because we believe what they say and promise. Well, one time, long ago we did, but now? Hardly. Society was ordered on belief, we obeyed because we were made to believe we would suffer if we didn’t. Belief was essential when the first clans formed, for we necessarily lived on trust, and trust is the brother of belief.

This trust has been eroded over the past hundred years or so, little by little so we wouldn’t notice it’s loss, as the deck of belief began to be marked so the powerful could pick the right card – sorry, strategy – to keep is in the game, keep us believing they had not only our interests at heart, but that we would win. Win the things that we believed mattered, like money, jobs and independence. Yes, you and I, suckers all. A little reward every day if we keep playing the game, a casino of promises.

Back then they were amateurs, but now professional persuaders have done their degrees and gone to work for multinationals who reward them with real things – money, power, belief in themselves and accolades.

Then came the internet, which has exponentially increased the power they have over our lives. Now these master manipulators are wet with orgasm at their success, a drug-induced sweat of glory, yet just regular people with ideas of genuine grandeur - or so they believe - but who in many ways are just as gullible as us, because there is a master behind even their works.

I could call him the Wizard of Oz, but that would pour ridicule on this country of ours, so let me call him the last great emperor. Just as Rome fell on hard times when Caesar started the god thing, America is going down the same fairway with the laurel wreathed master of deception. He’s using the conditioning that we have absorbed from the psychological marketers to steer us into believing the greatest lie of all times: That he is god, able to put everything to rights, give everyone who supports him a place in heaven, to banish our enemies to hell, to protect us from unbelievers.

To do the impossible. All knowing, all seeing and all powerful, he’s in his heaven guiding us poor sinners to the Promised Land.

The horror of this is that he believes it. An even bigger problem is that his hard core followers believe it also. They trust him, and that reveals the core of the problem – that they don’t want to think. They are so conditioned into accepting the authority of a president and a god; they are happy to just believe. Even when the promises are as substantial as smoke they believe.

They are of the faith. They have abrogated their intellect, are happy to be told what to believe; it is simpler and easier to do just that, to not look reality in its ragged face, to accept that poverty is for now, tomorrow in heaven they’ll be rich. And they really can no longer think. Not critically, not analytically, not even simply. Yes, many Americans believe in God but still can turn a critical mind to certain areas like belief in hell and damnation, but Mr. god wants them dumb. His gospel could be in Aramaic, so confusing it is, but he cannot lie or cheat, his tweets are heavenly, his song sublime.

They see barbarians at the gates – Jews, blacks, Mexicans, Muslims- all strangers who defile the purity of their race, (their compatriots are naturally the only pure ones), and they have learnt to be quiet, to use smugness as a wall of superiority. They believe in his will, not theirs and if it is his will that decrees hurricanes, ice down to Florida, raging fires summonsed from the underworld, then that to is right.

And that has led to the saddest thing. Isolation. When you cannot tolerate your neighbour, when others try to tear down your beliefs, you have to ignore them. You cannot fight back, there are too many of them, and somehow it is them who have the money. When the enemy lies its way into congress you know the devil is at large. And they ignore calls for help from non-believers, they don’t get the plight of Samaritans because he doesn’t, and while they take all the handouts they can from a crooked government they do because they know it is their right.

They may think democracy is alive and well because that is what god has told them, but shrug their shoulders and will not believe any slander that he is corrupt, indulges in base misconduct, is a self-serving egomaniac that brags about his genius, and is a confirmed chauvinist. They simply accept that these things are the privileges of being god.

If asked, they will say that democracy means freedom. That is, freedom to believe what they do, not what you do. They come from a long line of so-called believers who, having buried reason and tolerance, set out to kill the unbelievers. The pilgrim fathers took the example of the crusades to establish their faith to the exclusion of all others, and these poor folk are following in that tradition.

When someone stands before the people and speaks as though imbued with the Holy Ghost, it is wise to run as far as you can. Two hundred years ago John Wesley condemned someone for just this. Whether you are a Christian or not it is an insult to truth and decency, a shame for a country as great, honest and caring as yours. Trump does not deserve to run any nation, Christian or not.