Looking For Better Beliefs

WE LIVE IN A world haunted by demons. The demons are thoughts and ideas. In particular, misconceptions. Falsehood, fueled by emotion and imagination, engulfs the global culture, and holds us back, keeps in in the dark ages, by preventing us from knowing and responding productively to reality. The people in Ferguson, Missouri, U.S.A. are protesting what they consider to be an unjustifiable homicide. Perhaps a cop should aim at the knees,and aim to cripple, not kill, or should use electrical shock, but they are trained to either use deadly force, or none at all. And perhaps they are protesting what they perceive to be a pattern of police brutality against black Americans. Among conservatives there is a widespread misconception that such racism is a myth, but in fact it isn't a myth at all; blacks are arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated at a rate grotesquely higher than white for the same crimes. Police brutality against blacks indeed does not happen in America with constant frequency, but the entire system of justice is indisputably stacked against them. We should all be out protesting against that. Likewise, we should all be out protesting against war, which, contrary to the popular misconception, most definitely does not stimulate and enrich the economy. War is incredibly expensive, and destructive of wealth, damaging to any economy. No serious economist anywhere believes that war stimulates economic productivity. And let's protest grotesque economic inequality, and hence social and political inequality. Supply side, trickle down Reaganomics is a sham, contrary to popular opinion. Again, go ask the experts. Go to the folks at Harvard and M.I.T.. they'll tell you that demand side, trickle up economics is the way to go. Get money into the hands of the poor, turn them into consumers, first........ All of these ideas, about racism, war, and Reaganomics should be consigned to the trash bin, or to the realm of pseudo intellectual thought, along with pseudo science. Doubtless we live in a universe full of marvels, such as life, and spirits, and magic. But until we can prove it, let's admit our ignorance, let's openmindedly question our beliefs and look for better answers, and, above all else, let's avoid embracing falsehood, and elevating false beliefs to the level of mainstream social acceptance.