Socrates Taught Me How to Spot Bullshit
Over Christmas, Christmas eve to be exact. I had a conversation with my aunt. At the punch bowl we discussed politics of the sort, I guess if you want to call it that. Anyways, the conversation leads her to very seriously make this statement. "Pretty soon all of us will have computer chip locators in us."
"That would be terrible." I said.
"I don't think so." She replied sternly. "If my six year old daughter was kidnapped, but she had a locator chip, we would know exactly where the sicko took her."
I could smell the bullshit in this ideology as soon as the air pushed the words through her mouth. Socrates taught me how to spot bullshit.
"The way I see it, that type of system has great potential for massive abuse. Plus it is an infringement on personal freedom. Just another and far too severe, method of control."
My Aunt took a second and then replied with a sigh, "You know, I use to think just like you. Then I had children. And that means that you can't possiably understand until you have children."
But I understand completely. Your fear of bad things is being exploited via your child. I've been around enough families (I have a big one), read enough books, seen enough TV commercials, and been hustled a few times myself (for drugs of course) to know when I'm getting taken advantage of.
"You're letting fear cover up the bullshit." I say sipping some freshly poured punch. "You know a child is 100 times more likely to die playing at a house with a swimming pool, than playing at house with a hand gun (Freakonomics). Yet, I bet, you've never seen any news programs on CNN talking about the dangers of swimming pools.
I paused for a moment to let her counter point.
She began to speak, "Gerard I'm a good Christian women..."
"What does that have anything to do with what we are talking about? You're faith is blind here; without reason. Faith without reason is ignorance. And just because you're a Christian does not mean you can't spot the bullshit, or that you have to ignore it, or even buy into it. Because believe you me there is plenty of bullshit in Christianity and all religions for that matter."
My Aunt nodded and extended her hand to shake mine.
"Well done. You're going to do good things in this world kiddo." We smiled at each other and hugged. Later on that night, on the front stoop, we smoked a fine bowl of the heartiest greenest, green gold of cannabis I have ever seen. And contemplated space, the stars, and sun.