"Think the old saying; "if it did us any good, they probably wouldn't let us have it", has a lot more truth to it than i'm cosy with."
People used to be more sceptical for sure, think this wise adage from a Quaker, which was the influence behind Kevin Spacey's quote in The Usual Suspects, is spot on: "One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist"
Personally think infantilisation and other forms of societal dumbing down, are more tools employed recently too . Along with many adults of a similar age, we had a much higher reading age than is normal now. I read Revelations when i was eight but it wasn't an exceptional thing to do back then.
Forgive my little tangent, but this is just me, and I'm definitely not trying to speak for anyone else.
I tend to meet 2 types of people who want to talk about conspiracies:
1. The ones who have VERY strong personalities, and if you don't believe the things they do, boy are you stupid and someday (any day now, really) you're going to find out! You can't talk with them, you can't reason with them, and you better not have your own thoughts or opinions because they are going to shoot down everything you say.
But if something could effectively be done about "Big Brother" and everyone out to get us, THESE are the people who would try to take power. And you can't tell me they would be any different -- and I think might even be worse -- than what we have now. It would be Orson Welles' Animal Farm all over again, with a group of pigs replacing the humans and the common people not being able to tell the difference, because they have the same attitudes, even though the principles might look different -- but only on the surface.
You can't tell me that having people with these types of personalities wouldn't result in developing THEIR OWN lists and camps of ANYONE they started to suspect as "threatening our way of life." But what they'd really mean is, "threatening MY way of life," because they're convinced they know best for everyone. And we've seen plenty of crazies just here on this forum -- you couldn't tell me people like this wouldn't stoop to the same tactics as the people they complain about.
I'm not convinced that anyone who thinks so strongly (and that everyone else is wrong) won't go bad when put in charge and also given mass amounts of money and power. Power, in all forms, will always claw its way to the top. And I believe once it gets there, it will always become corrupted. It's been that way from the beginning -- Satan thought he could do better than God, and look where it got him.
2. The second group are good-hearted people who just want to live independently without much government interference to do their own thing. They mostly just want to be left alone to live their own lives.
And these people, sweet at they are, would not be able to take charge either, because they wouldn't want to have to care what everyone else was doing. All they care about is their own business -- many don't even want to know what other people are doing.
So who does that leave us with to put into power instead of what we have now? I could be completely wrong, but I think we'd just be replacing one group of fanatics with another, and that's why I don't spend time in conspiracy group circles.
I want to spend my time on things that hopefully produce something.
Spending time in productive Christian circles -- though they're hard to find -- gives me hope and equips me to help others.
Spending time in the finance community -- which has plenty of crazies as well -- at least gives me a few tools to try to prepare for emergencies.
Here in the USA, we have savings plans like 401K's, IRA's, and Roth IRA's, which I think are great, but they're all dictated by corporations and/or the government. And these entities can and do change things all the time. "Sorry, now you can't touch your IRA until you're 95..." as they keep upping the age -- and penalties -- of when people can access their own money.
The finance space, though you have to weed through a lot of muck, has taught me a lot about building my own independent emergency fund (call it "prepping" if you will.) Yes, there are still regulations. Yes, I have to pay more in taxes. Yes, the government could technically lock it down or take it away at any time.
But at least it's something, and it has a lot more flexibility than other options. And I try to spend my time with people who are doing what I can see is actively building a productive, independent life that helps -- not scares or preaches to -- others.
This is my own way of fighting back against "everyone out to get us." I learn what I can, do what I can, and try to live independently in the areas I have understanding in. I could care less about politics, but several years ago, God told me to start learning and vote when I could as another way of "fighting the system."
And if that's not good enough, well I have God -- and if He can't save us or at least send us on to heaven -- all the prepping in the world isn't going to help.
But again, this is just me, and I completely understand that others feel differently.
