Truth Seekers and Why They are Rare

People wonder why there aren’t more truth-seekers out there. You know, the ones who won’t succumb to the clamors of the crowd, the ones who aren’t bothered by the status quo. The ones who, no matter how much they are mocked, ridiculed, ostracized, or marginalized, they continue to expose popular myths as fallacious and put forth unpopular realizations that no one wants to face. Most don’t have to walk in the shoes of the truth-seeker, so they never know the path they travel. It’s so much easier for people to believe the lie, or the myth.

The truth is dangerous. It uproots ideas people take for granted. It disturbs a comfortable nest people have made for themselves that they call reality. For if one thing they have believed all their lives is false, what other things might be false? This puts them in an uncomfortable predicament. They must now reevaluate all they believe to be true. They might have to awaken, but sleep is so much more preferable. This being so, most will fight and resist the truth to protect the lie. The battle to preserve the lie is a much shorter battle and easier to accept. Should they acknowledge the truth –the comfort nest will be destroyed.

We must also not forget those who profit from the lie. When an establishment settles, a power structure is formed. Those in the power structure will protect that power and squash all who try to expose or remove said power. So the battle for truth is two-fold, with no reward –other than doing what is right. You must fight the proles (the willfully ignorant), and the power structure.

Ultimately the truth wins, but not before the true patriots have been abused and litter the intellectual battlefield. And with that, I’ll link a tragic story of one such truth-seeker, and some quotes about truth –those who seek it, and those who distort it.

Why Journalist Gary Webb Died
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/120909.html

George Orwell said:
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

John Kennedy said:
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

Mark Twain said:
“In times of change, the Patriot is a scarce man; brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot.”

Mahatma Gandhi said:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Adolf Hitler said:
“The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies."

Joseph Goebbels said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

I will sum up with a quote by Edward R. Murrow:
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”

Travis