Hidden Knowledge

In his book, Mein Kempf, Adolf Hitler states, “If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough, and often enough, the people will believe it.”

Here are two examples demonstrating the accuracy of that statement.

“President Obama was not born in this country,” and “President Obama is not a Christian. He’s a Muslim.”

Frankly, I’m now well past getting weary by all the hyperbole. It bores me, and I’ve seriously started questioning the intensions of the gossip mongers behind the rumors, and the intelligence of their growing number of apparently simple minded followers.

If Barack Obama was not born in this country, isn’t that something that should have been determined before he ran for President? Oh. Excuse me. It was investigated at the time. If he was not born in Hawaii as he claims, there was a truly Machiavellian cover-up involving a number of people, orchestrated by a junior Senator from Illinois, and all before he announced his candidacy. (Perversely, if he’s that good, maybe he should be in office.)

But I want to be fair. For those who allege with confidence that the President was not born in this country, please tell me where he was born, and the proof of your declaration. And please, facts only, no innuendo.

And then there’s the “Is he or isn’t he a Christian” business. Where were the skeptics during the denunciation of his then minister Jeremiah Wright? Remember all that? The then candidate for President went out of his way to separate himself from the church he had attended for years. There are those who would have you believe that – again – a large number of people (The Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago) were willing to hide the fact that Obama was secretly a Muslim. Interestingly, the followers of Islam don’t seem to take kindly to believers who regularly break religious laws. So it would appear that if the President is a closet Muslim, every follower of Allah must be in on it. If this is true, he is deserving of the most awesome respect.

The reason behind this discourse is a concern for the reasons behind these subjective slurs. Obviously attacks on policy aren’t enough. There is an apparent need to demean the character of the man we elected as President. The ancient Greeks had a word that may apply, The word is “Gnostic,” and means “hidden knowledge.” Those who possessed this supposed information considered themselves superior to those who did not.

Maybe they still do.


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