Ruses
Ruses are the tricks and deceptive maneuvers employed to achieve a certain goal, or goals. Some are very subtle, escaping notice, but the effects can be crazy.
The “It’s Not a Perfect Solution” Ruse
There’s so much side-stepping that goes on, and there’s an obscene one where someone proposes a better solution to a problem.
Because someone can come up with a potential flaw in anything, even a good solution, this new solution is often demonized and discarded. In some cases the motive only ties in to laziness and inertia, where people are content to tolerate a problem if they can continue to sit on their ass and not exert any effort.
There is an old joke about this, about a man who goes into some hick’s shack and the hick starts complaining about the shack having a leaking roof.
“Why don’t you fix it right now?” the man asks.
“Cain’t – it’s raining outside!” the hick replies.
“Then why don’t you fix it when it’s sunny?”
“No point to that, don’t leak then!”
Worse, there are lots of people with a vested interest in not seeing a solution to the problem, which is what we see with political problems that persist endlessly, contrary to reason.
Pandering to Victim Mentality
They were raising the roof (in 2013), over this trumped-up “Treyvon Martin,” case, where some supposedly “white guy” (who, it is painfully obvious, is not white) shot this 17-year-old black kid, Trey, over nothing, except walking through a neighborhood where he was staying at a relative’s house after going to buy iced tea and Skittles candy.
Old0311 in reply to fscarn. | February 27, 2017 at 10:17 am on legalinsurrection.com
Zimmerman killed the one guy smart enough to find a cure for cancer.
As it turns out, the kid was laying a beating on old Zimmy. Though there is a fishy aspect. If Trey had the upper hand, why was Zim waiting until after he could get his head dribbled like a basketball in Trey’s “’hood” to pull his piece?
There is a possibility that these two – George – and Trey – don’t even exist, and this was something cooked up to create more racial strife, like the St. George Floyd incident (another George) because the economy is going to hell as the privileged people are robbing it blind, since the courts have been hijacked and none of the robber barons are going to jail. Very dangerous. So now, people have to be told who to be incensed about, where to riot, etc... Yikes!
The big news sources trumpeted “White Man Shoots Innocent Black Kid,“ to once again stir the blacks up against whites. That no whites were up in arms, and aren’t still up in arms, when Zimmerman is mestizo, speaks very poorly of whites, and the rabble-rousing media.
Both whites and blacks fall for these ruses head-over-heels. For another example of how this is structured, with clear choices being made on what will be considered “anger worthy,” and what will not be, it’s reported that Michael Jackson was murdered. Why isn’t the black population calling for the head of his murderer(s)? Yet another case of that phenomenon “because you're told,” where the authorities have us so conditioned, that they even have to tell us when and where to be outraged.
The Commie Ruse
They’re constantly trying to sell people on the Communist agenda, and it’s a very subtle game they play, but it seems like most everyone has been affected by this and naively become commies at heart.
“I, the People”
Here’s something by Carl Sandburg:
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool, then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name ‘The People’ with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision. The mob – the crowd – the mass – will arrive then.
That should be too much mawkish sweet sentiment for anyone. Just having the audacity to make up some syrupy litany doesn’t mean it’s true.
Maybe Sandberg is sincere, but that is irrelevant because the mob/crowd/mass isn’t going to “arrive,” because it wouldn’t be the “mass“ anymore. There has to be an unenlightened mass, that’s just a fact of life. The masses do not, ever, elevate themselves and “arrive.”
You can’t change “the mob,” the “common folk.” They wouldn’t be common then.
You can’t change the mob, so people have to change themselves. It’s foolish to speak of “changing” a great bundle of people, but sensible to speak of bettering ourselves!
There will always be a median class. Even if we all had IQs above genius level – 180, say – there would be a “dumb class” – those at 180 as opposed to 210 IQ, say. And, no doubt, the “dummies” would be exploited by some of the smarter ones.
If you were moved by that Sandberg statement, you’ve just found yourself caught in another Egregious Zone, the desire we almost all seem to have to want to indulge ourselves in cheap sentiment, no matter how clearly farcical and out of touch with reality.
“The mass ‛arriving’” is not inspirational, it’s seditious rabble-rousing to promote Communism, to push the huddled and trampled masses into a hysterical reaction.
“The Greater Good”
Communism, which is of course just another form of dictatorship, is promoted as being “for the greater good,” while, in the meantime – right in front of everyone – millions were and are starved and slaughtered. Read up on this in, for example, The Gulag Archipelago, by Solzhenitsyn.
They love that brand of crap. You may remember Mr. Spock from Star Trek blathering about, “The greatest good for the greatest number,” supposedly being some Vulcan principle. Hollyweird really is the worst, having to ruin everything with its propaganda.
No, you can’t marginalize or trivialize the lives of the few with that scummy ruse. Anyway, that old line is and always has been just an excuse for the most horrific crimes.
We have all the “communism” we need, in that people are, already, often very charitable.
The French Revolution was supposedly for “The Greater Good.” Look at how crappy that worked out for them.
This isn’t to say there aren’t times to revolt, but for the most part, people don’t seem to know when those times are.
People aren’t really equipped for justice. They tolerate abuses to the breaking point, then rampage like mad hyenas – usually when stimulated into it by provocateurs. They don’t operate rationally either before or after such incidents. Never has the mob gone wild and rampaged over someone not getting a fair trial or being unjustly accused. Nor do they revolt over a violation of “the Constitution,” or the common law. Those riots are always tinged with jealousy, revenge, hatred...
There have been a few lynch mobs or posses that have set out and achieved justice when the “official” law failed, but the masses are almost never inspired by the pure pursuit of justice, for some reason.
Therefore it never impinges on the consciousness of the “mob,” the “seething masses,” that they might have been manipulated into a frenzy by those who desire a revolution for their own ends. (That is, they plot and foment ahead of time, front-run the reaction, and use it to their advantage.)
Suckholery: The Phony, Fake or Contrived Sentiment Ruse
War-criminal Henry Kissinger’s 1979 eulogy for Rockefeller:
Henry Kissinger made his way to the pulpit. The hushed audience waited, poised in anticipation.
Then, seemingly with tears in his eyes, Kissinger began to speak of Nelson Rockefeller, whom he referred to as: friend, inspiration, teacher, and “my older brother.” It was a masterful eulogy, causing some to weep.
The final passage was about sitting with Nelson Rockefeller, “on the veranda overlooking his beloved Hudson River in the setting sun... Nelson Rockefeller would occasionally get that squint in his eyes, which betokened a far horizon.”
And as the last words of the eulogy, Kissinger claimed that Rockefeller would occasionally say: “Never forget that the most profound force in the world is love.”
Heh. Seems a little overblown. Well, because it was a funeral, we’re conditioned to expect mawkish, sweet sentiment. Those moved by it, are easily manipulated.
Now for the facts. Rockefeller’s pappy was a Snake Oil salesman, which meant he sold poisons (derived from petroleum, called “coal tar” back then), as health elixirs to an unsuspecting, gullible public. He loved to “teach life lessons” to his sons, by way of making deals where he tried to “skin ’em” at every opportunity, then gloat about it.
And Nelson reportedly wasn’t much better. He campaigned as state senator to ban guns, while possessing his own submachine gun on his estate. (He did not want to ban that, of course.) He was not a great humanitarian and teacher. From all reports, he was self-serving, greedy and manipulative.
No one considered, during that touching eulogy, that such a scoundrel probably didn’t sit on his porch, waxing poetic about love, unless he was cracking wise. Further humor is found when we discover there is a claim that suggests Kissinger had a hand in killing Rockefeller, having had much to gain from his death!
This is one of the ruses whereby the biggest fakes and phonies get their names emblazoned in history as Giants. Someone soft-soaps them, tells a few phony, syrupy lies, and voilà!
Suckholery is a mind worm, inviting false conclusions, like the idea that Rockefeller was some great humanitarian and patriot.
If we want to “arrive,” as Sandberg suggests, then we need to spot the baffle-gab and stop it dead in its tracks. We must recognize in ourselves the need, the yearning, for these piles of steaming waste to be true, while facing that there’s no need for them to be true. Try to be your own hero.
The “Too Stupid to Be True” Ruse
An anonymous web commenter made a wonderful remark, that the public is cowed by audacity.
There are a lot of cases like this, where the sheer boldness and transparency of a ruse serves to lend it validity instead of deriding it.
This has been noted in the past, the public is fooled by the big lie, since they themselves prevaricate in the little things, but would be too embarrassed to try to pull off a humongous lie.
The “Talk Nice/Act Nice” Ruse
Politicians “love everyone.” But they act like they hate everyone except themselves.
Just because someone says he or she likes people, doesn’t mean that person does. Does that person really “like” people, are they really honest?
Is someone really deserving, if he pretends to be nice, or powerful, or a “man of the people.”
A hilarious performance ran on the WWE wrestling program not long before Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for California governor.
Arnold was a guest, sitting at the ring announcers table, supplementing the color commentary. Paul Levesque, wrestler “Triple H,” a “heel” or “bad guy,” was sadistically beating the tar out of some small “jobber” (an opponent that is destined to lose quickly and make his opponent look powerful).
Triple H must have outweighed the guy by 100 pounds, and clearly could have won the bout at any time, but was toying with, tormenting and torturing the poor guy. All the while, “good-hearted rube” and “naif” Arnie was getting outraged.
“Vhy iss he keep HITTING heem?” he kept asking the announcers, in frustration and desperation. Not receiving any answers, he finally couldn’t contain his rage at this wanton injustice, and he stormed from his seat to face the cad.
He confronted Triple H, who took the first swing and a miss, then Arnie replied with a cold-cocking that blasted Triple H into unconsciousness.
The “crowd went wild,” when Arnie decked that heel.
Then when Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy on Leno, that was perhaps an even more effective ruse. It was structured as a “will he or won’t he” (run for governor) and it was played to the hilt.
These little skits, “demonstrating” his “heart” and “good nature” helped propel Schwarzenegger into the governor’s seat, which is to say that the entire entertainment industry is in bed with the political system, in a weird intertwining.
This calls into question the wisdom of having voters in the first place, if all it takes is a little acting magic, a little mumbo-jumbo sweet talk, to sell people on a candidate. Which leads to the next ruse.
The Voting Ruse
They say that if voting changed anything, it would be illegal. So, voting doesn’t change anything.
Oh, sure, anybody can run, but the only people who get any significant support are those who won’t be “making any waves,” that are with the “in crowd,” on board with the corruption.
The illusion of “democracy” and “the electorate,” must be pushed heavily to hide that there are very real and practical improvements and alternatives.
Voting for a candidate should be harder, and the voter should be able to describe the candidate’s character, policies and history, stating what aspects of the person appeal to him, what he hopes the candidate will accomplish, and why.
Casting a vote on a referendum or plebiscite, should be harder. Anyone ready and able to vote should be able to explain his or her reasoning.
In politics, an elected politician should be capable of stating both sides of the argument, and the preponderance of the evidence that swayed him to voting on one side of an issue or another. That way, when there are inevitable mistakes, and successes, it will be easier to later assess the politician’s overall record.
“Wasting” Your Vote
A discussion in 2003 was about the U.S. elections which were just over and an acquaintance really didn’t like Bush, but didn’t really like Kerry much. I think Nader was running then, and a bunch of others. It sounded to me he was more aligned politically with some of the independents, so I asked why he didn’t vote for one of them.
“I didn’t want to waste my vote.”
“So who did you vote for, then?”
"Kerry." (The losing Democrat candidate.)
“Well, it looks like you wasted your vote doesn’t it?”
There must be some reason for this fallacious concept of “wasting your vote” to get so much play. If you were running for office but felt likely to lose, would you vote for the other guy so you didn’t waste your vote?
Voting is supposed to be for the person who is the best candidate. One might wonder how it ever turned into such a sham that helps keep better alternative candidates out of the running.
Vote for the people you really want to win, even if they just get that one vote, otherwise they’ll never win.
The “Explanation” Ruse
Have you ever seen a group of people “demanding an explanation?”
So out comes a “spokesman,” and gives an “explanation,” and everyone goes, “Oh,” and goes home.
Now the “explanation” is just lies or deception, but all they asked for is an explanation, and they got it. “What more do you want?”
People are easily cowed and embarrassed by asserting themselves, and don’t really want to make waves or confront “authority,” so this trick works again and again.
They pulled this one in the Kennedy assassination spectacle. Ruby said he killed suspect Oswald, “to spare first lady Jackie Kennedy the trauma of a trial.”
“Oh, okay,” they said, “That makes a lot of sense!”
It isn’t supposed to look absurd, not always, yet it always does, to anyone with any common sense.
Try these ones on:
“We shouldn’t investigate this crime out of respect for the families.”
“We’re sealing these crime investigation records so as not to upset people.”
So, killers are extremely lucky these days, as they won’t be tried for it if they get caught; after all, we need to spare the feelings of the victim’s family. A trial might upset them, so we won’t have one.
It’s not the criminals in government who do these cover-ups that are the root of the problem, of course; it’s the public that can be cowed, bullied, fooled and manipulated into supporting this kind of transparent nonsense without a murmur.
Lawyer Logic
It makes no difference whether you’re right or wrong or even know anything about a topic, as long as you argue the other side to exhaustion.
“Just because it’s lying, doesn’t mean it’s not true!”
“Yes, I did!” “No, you didn’t!” “Yes I did!” “No you didn’t...”
“Hey, you told me this would be done in 22 days – it’s been a month and it’s still not ready – what’s up?”
“Well, stupid, a month is not 22 days, is it??”
Sort of a non-sequitur. But it goes deeper than that – it is the “snappy comeback,” with no real substance, that may sound good or leave the opponent dazed by the stupidity of the remark.
We are in a dire situation. When judges are themselves lawyers, how are you going to get a fair “day in court?” Especially if you are charging a lawyer with some malfeasance.
We’ve seen this before: Just argument doesn’t mean a good argument. Just an answer doesn’t mean a correct answer. Just an explanation doesn’t mean a responsive explanation.
Whenever you have a system – whatever the system may be – there’s someone trying to get around it. One of the tactics or techniques to do so is to make a farce of the system. Or, to preserve the form of the system, without the purpose.
However, Bill Clinton, a trained lawyer, responded to a question with, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” and everyone guffawed and said, “Oh, that Slick Willy, always pulling a fast one.” In that case, Bill was, inadvertently or otherwise, showing us something very important, of which we laypersons should take note. Of course the meaning of a word is important. Courts don’t use plain English, but Legalese. Which is to say, you assume that their definitions of things are the same as yours, the same as in conventional English, at your peril.
Goodies vs. Baddies Ruse
This observation hit like a ton of lead. Apparently, teaching of logic/the Trivium has been discarded in schools, to be replaced by “What a ‘good guy’ says is the truth, and what a ‘bad person,’ or ‘baddie’ says is a lie!” A bad guy’s ideas are all wrong and a good guy’s ideas are all true. We’ve already discussed that the so-called fallacy, “Appeal to False Authority“ is itself a fallacy since it’s, “Appeal to Any Authority,” that is the real fallacy. Of course they had to corrupt that to carry out their ruse that the good guy’s, or the “authority’s” word is law.
This argument by absurdity raises the problem that we will never be able to talk sensibly about any real problems. Anyone who does can automatically be branded the “bad guy,” if he says something against the “approved” explanations/dogma.
If we are unable to discuss problems, we’ll never solve them.
The easily swayed, self-indulgent nature exhibited by most of the public makes it easy for manipulators to get away with ruses. The conclusion is hard to stomach: People are fundamentally unjust, because, for the most part, they don’t truly understand the notion of “justice.”
This shows up in things like excuses a person will pull up for not wearing his seat belt, like because he “wants to be thrown clear in an accident,” or some other equally stupid rationalization. When this plea is used in court, a person using it is begging his god (the government) to heed his exquisite reasoning, because it is a fair god. Because the almighty government will hear his plea, and see the good faith he has behind it. And, besides, he’s, “one of the good guys.”
Such people just don’t get it. The reason you don’t wear a seat belt if you don’t want to, is because the government has no right to enforce that requirement. The government is “breaking the law,” itself, to pass such an absurd “law.” You’re harming no one by not wearing a seat belt. The human race survived, for years, much worse vehicles, without any seat belts whatsoever. But again, that’s not the issue. The issue being, law recognizes your right to do whatever you want if you’re not harming another in so doing.
We would never hear that “thrown clear” argument from someone that understands that right is right and wrong is wrong, and there is no need for any side arguments.
As a matter of fact, this point is hammered home again and again in courts and TV shows discussing how to behave in court, but people don’t absorb it.
One of the most fundamental aspects of defending oneself in a courtroom situation, is to stay on point.
“Your Honor, my mother is sick and my dog threw up all over and that’s why I got the speeding ticket...” is the type of irrelevant defense judges cope with constantly.
And it always fails, but that doesn’t stop this type of approach from being re-used ad infinitum.
Because to most people, the concept of justice, is the concept of excuse. Somewhere along the line we were trained, drilled and conditioned into this belief. And that isn’t justice at all. In fact, justice, not being intrinsic or fundamental to the reasoning process of most people, needs to be studied. We weren’t trained properly regarding our rights and obligations, and that needs to be remedied.
No mistake, the courts pretend to be exasperated, but they want it this way, of course. They want the masses to lose their “cases” with their embarrassing arguments and be appropriately chastised and demeaned, and pay their money, and demonstrate to the rest of the sheep to stay in line. It confirms to them that yet another ruse is working.
Things like “Lawyer Logic,” “Goodies vs. Baddies” and the “Explanation Ruse” might be called Argument by Absurdity.
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