POLITICAL candidates, journalists, advertisers, lobbyists, government intelligence agencies and others often use certain strategies in purveying ideas or products. These tactics are employed all over the Internet. Unless you are armed to spot them and avoid them, you will be open to manipulation and possibly sold a bill of goods.

The Internet is a busy highway with thieves and robbers not just lurking in the shadows, but operating in the open. They want your mind, your money and even your soul.

The strategies they use to sell the false or the meretricious include, but are not limited to, the following:

ASSERTION — Assertion is more important than truth. Assert that the moon is made of blue cheese. Steamroll ahead even though you have been proven wrong again and again. People who are not liars often have a hard time understanding the psychology of liars. They especially find it hard to believe that people would continue to lie after having been exposed. So bold assertion impresses them.

REPETITION — Say the same thing over and over again. People will believe it if they hear it often enough.

CONFIDENCE — Maintain the appearance of confidence even when spouting lies, outrageous exaggerations or distortions. The weak are impressed with strength.

NOVELTY — Embed your assertion in recent developments so that it seems new. Buzz and excitement are more essential than truth.

APPEALS TO EMOTION — Make your audience sad, guilt-ridden, worried, fearful, outraged, wishful, empathetic or intoxicated with hope. They will feel instead of think, allowing you to slip in lies, distortions or the most illogical of assertions.

FLATTERY — Give your audience a taste of their own superiority.

IMAGERY — Any idea, no matter how absurd, can be sold by a beautiful person or an expensive-looking website.

These are just a few tactics, but they are the most successful. They will never grow old and have been used for eons. Even very intelligent people succumb to them when they are used by those who appeal to their intelligence.

These strategies are successful because most people will do almost anything to avoid thinking. Logic is painful, almost a form of torture, especially when it challenges prejudices and might make life more inconvenient or difficult. Power, appearance, money, popularity — these are always more important than logic. Reason is relatively despised.

The good news is that in the long run, truth and logic always win because they are of the very structure of reality. So what you are experiencing when you encounter these strategies is a only a world of vapors and illusions.

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“HOW, then, are we — who, by our very nature, are darkness and misery — to wrestle with these spiritual principalities and powers, who devote all their wisdom and rage to produce darkness, so as to turn the whole earth into a world of darkness? “By our becoming Light,” answers St. John Chrysostom. The light, it is true, is not to shine upon us in its own direct brightness until the great day of the revelation of the sons of God; but meanwhile, we have a divine subsidy which supplements sight; that subsidy is—the Revealed Word. Baptism did not open our eyes so as to see God, but it opened our ears so as to give us to hear Him, when He speaks to us; now He speaks to us by the Scriptures and by His Church; and our Faith gives us, regarding Truth thus Revealed, a certainty as great as though we saw it with the eyes of either body or soul or both. By this child-like docility, the just man walks on in peace, with the simplicity of the Gospel within him. Better than breast-plate or helmet, the shield of faith protects us, and from every sort of injury; it blunts the fiery darts of the world, it repels the fury of our own passions, it makes us far-seeing enough to escape the most artful snares of the the most wicked ones. Is not the word of God good for every emergency? And it is never wanting to us. Satan has a horror of the Christian who, though he may be weak in other respects, is strong in this divine word. He has a greater fear of that man than he has of all your schools of philosophy and all its professors; he knows well that at every encounter he will be crushed beneath his feet, and with a rapidity which is akin to what our Lord tells us he himself witnessed: ‘I saw Satan, like lightning, falling from heaven.’ It was on the great battle day when he was hurled from paradise by that one word MICHAEL; exquisite word, which was given to the triumphant Archangel to be his everlasting noble name! And he himself, by that word of God, and by that victory for God, was made our model and our defender. We have already explained to our readers why it is that these closing weeks of the Church’s Year are so full of the grand Archangel St. Michael.
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“In the Gradual and its Versicle, the Church tells her Lord how He has ever been the refuge of His people: His goodness, like His power, were before all ages, because He is God from all eternity. May He, therefore, now protect His faithful servants who, reduced to a scanty number, as Israel was of old, are preparing the last exodus of the Church, which is leaving this world turned infidel, and is hastening to the true land of promise.” [emphasis added]

— Dom Guéranger, The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

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“REDUCED like Job on the dung-hill to the extremity of wretchedness, the world has nothing to trust to but to God’s mercy. The holy men who are still living in it, imitating in the name of all mankind the sentiment of the just man of Idumea, honor God by a patience and resignation, which do but add power and intensity to their supplications. They begin by making their own the sublime prayer made by Mardochai** for his people, who were doomed to extermination. The world is condemned to a similar ruin.

All things, O Lord, are in Thy power, and no one can resist Thy will: for Thou madest all things, heaven and earth, and all things that are contained within the compass of the heavens: Thou art Lord of all.

“The Church shows us very clearly, in the Collect, that although she is quite ready to go through the roughest times, yet she prefers peace; because that furnishes her with undisturbed freedom for paying to her God the united homage of religion and good works. The closing petition made by Mardochai, in the prayer, whose commencement forms our Introit, was that God would bestow on His people the liberty necessary for that occupation on which the world’s well-being ever depends — we mean, the occupation of giving praise to God. These were Mardochai’s grand words: May we live, and praise Thy name, O Lord! and shut not Thou the mouths of them that sing to Thee!”

— Dom Prosper Guéranger, Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

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THE liturgical calendar brings us today another great heroine of Western civilization, Saint Hedwig of Silesia, now modern Poland.

Married at the age of 12, she bore six children in rapid succession before she and her spouse, Henry, Duke of Silesia, took vows of continence. Henry was wounded in battle and imprisoned. He became ill not long after his release and died despite her devoted care. Her eldest son was also killed in battle.

As Dom Gueranger wrote:

The Mongols were already inundating Silesia, when, in the plains of Liegnitz, they found themselves confronted by an army of thirty thousand warriors, headed by the Duke of Silesia, Heinrich the Pious. The encounter was terrible; the victory remained long undecided, until at length, by the odious treason of some Ruthenian princes, it turned in favor of the barbarians. Duke Heinrich and the flower of the Polish knighthood were left dead upon the battlefield (April 8, 1241). But their defeat was equal to a victory. The Mongols retired exhausted, for they had measured their strength with the soldiers of the Latin Christianity.

It is Poland’s happy lot, that at each decisive epoch in its history a Saint appears to point out the road to the attainment of its glorious destiny. Over the battlefield of Liegnitz shines the gentle figure of St. Hedwig, mother of Duke Heinrich the Pious. She had retired, in her widowhood, into the Cistercian monastery of Trebnitz founded by herself. Three years before the coming of the barbarians, she had had a revelation touching the future fate of her son. She offered her sacrifice in silence; and far from discouraging the young Duke, she was the first to animate him to resistance.

She gave herself, after raising her children, to prayer and caring for the sick and poor.

Among her maxims was this: “The greater one is by birth, the greater one must be in virtue, and the more distinguished we are in station, the more we must distinguish ourselves by our conduct, in order to be a bright example to others.”  Source

By the miracles attributed to her intercession and her inspiring example, St. Hedwig, contrary to the feminist scheme of history and its disdain for spiritual values, was, and is, one of the most powerful women in history.

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“FURTHER, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.”

— Pope St. Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, 1910

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“TAKE all the princes of the people, and hang them up on gibbets against the sun: that my fury may be turned away from Israel.”

— Numbers, 25:4

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“THE king of nothing promises to fill our hands. Thus do certain princes of the Earth, who are not assured of so much as a single day, dare to speak to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. They say: We will give you the power, the glory, the riches, if you recognize our supremacy, if you make us your God; if, falling down at our feet, you will adore us.”

— Pope St. Gregory VII, (ruled from 1073-1085 AD)

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“YOU need make no effort to persuade me that others are more refined than I. I tremble that others do not possess enough of what I have too vigorously … I am too ignorant not to be violent; but they lack red blood, hate for a society in which they live, a society where velvet and lace cover up its sins and its corruption. They do not know what is happening in the street; they have never set their feet therein; but I come from it, I was born in it, and more than that, I still live in it.”

— Louis Veuillot, French journalist, 1813-1883

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“FOR my part, I believe that honor and money nearly always go together, and that he who desires honor never hates money, while he who hates money cares little for honor. Understand this clearly, for I think this concern about honor always implies some slight regard for endowments or money: seldom or never is a poor man honored by the world; however worthy of honor he may be, he is apt rather to be despised by it. With true poverty there goes a different kind of honor to which nobody can take objection. I mean that, if poverty is embraced for God’s sake alone, no one has to be pleased save God. It is certain that a man who has no need of anyone has many friends: in my own experience I have found this to be true.”

— St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection

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FROM “Indifferentism, the Heresy that All Religions are Equal” by Rev. Bertrand L. Conway, C.S.P, 1929:

Is not one religion as good as another? Are not creeds in themselves unimportant, and conduct the one thing essential? Do we not frequently meet men who believe in Christ and all His teachings, and yet day by day do things that would bring a blush to a pagan’s cheek?

One of the most common heresies outside the Catholic Church in our day and country is the heresy of indifferentism. [Ed.: Conway is not speaking here of the Vatican II Church, which is inherently indifferentist and promotes this heresy everyday and everywhere.] The indifferentist will speak patronizingly of religion as a police force to keep the discontented in check, or as an outlet for the emotions of pious sentimentalists. He will praise all religions for the virtuous men they have produced; he will maintain that intelligence and good breeding alike call for a kindly toleration towards all creeds, and churches; he will vehemently denounce the Catholic Church as bigoted, intolerant and autocratic, because she claims obedience under sin as the infallible mouthpiece of a divine revelation. There are many roads, he informs you, leading to the kingdom of heaven, and an honest man may travel any one of them with the conviction that he is pleasing God.

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See Part One of this post here.

FROM Bernard Fay’s Revolution and Freemasonry, 1680-1800 (Little, Brown and Company, 1935):

[Benjamin] Franklin, the Masonic apostle, was not only organizing a Masonic intellectual front in America, but was also building up a Masonic press. He was by far the most outstanding newspaperman in the New World. His Pennsylvania Gazette was the most energetic and forceful newspaper in America. He was also the first owner and director of a chain of newspapers in America; he lent money to his workmen to enable them to start newspapers in other cities: Whitemarsh in Charleston, Parker in New York, and so on. Thus, he established in all the English colonies of America a network of Masonic newspapers animated with the same spirit and working in collaboration. In New York the Journal of Zenger, in New England the Boston Gazette of Eden, constituted the northern strongholds of this Masonic press. They agreed on preaching unity, fraternity, liberty, in defending Protestantism against Catholicism, the Hanoverian kings against the Bourbons, the English Parliament against the French despotism and everything that was Saxon and Whig against everything that was Latin and obsolete. The government could not be dissatisfied; these newspapers were truly patriotic; but this patriotism went so far that it passed beyond the goal — inclined to turn against Britain itself as not being English enough.

This danger became obvious when the first lodges of the Ancients began working in America. At once they showed more activity and boldness than their predecessors. They were outspoken, ready to take a stand against governors, magistrates and churchmen; their influence was evident. Not that the American lodges had forgotten the fundamental rule of the Brotherhood, to avoid entanglements in politics; but they could not, as the English lodges did, exert their influence without playing politics….

…. This Masonic boldness was more noticeable in America, because conditions in the New World differed from those of Europe, where literature was the main outlet for dissatisfaction.

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FROM Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors for Every Day of the Year:

Son of a well-known Catholic physician at Chichester, he was sent to St. Omer’s, and thence entered the Franciscan Order in Spain. He first offered himself for the Mission in the West Indies, but England ^being pointed out as a richer field for his labours, thither he went. On landing at Plymouth he was arrested and imprisoned, and his sufferings then endured affected his health for the remainder of his life. As nothing could be proved against him, he was discharged, and for eleven years laboured in the country. The heroic sufferings of Father Ward enkindled in him, however, a holy envy, and he obtained leave to remove to London. He chose that part of the city where he was most in peril, but his hope for martyrdom was constantly deferred. Pursuivants came to his house, but would not take him, though he declared himself a priest. The next day they returned, and, though his Breviary was on the table, they left without arresting him. Deem ing himself unworthy of the crown, he re doubled his prayers and tears, and was arrested on Sunday, September 11, 1642, at the begin ning of his Mass, and to his great joy was executed at Tyburn, October 12, 1642.

“I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be enkindled ? ” — LUKE xii. 49.

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“WHEN you have committed faults, be sorry for them, but do not distress yourself; and as for the imagination, try quietly to apply a remedy, by diverting it from the subject of its application, and following such advice as experienced persons will give you. This done, disturb yourself no further; and be assured once for all that any effects which proceed from your sins, or from your imagination, and which have ceased to be voluntary in you, are crosses which God wills that you shall bear. Be not depressed, then, by your sufferings because you have brought them on yourself; but take courage and be comforted: God, who did not will the cause, wills the effect. I have already said, and peradventure I shall say it again: Have the pains of Purgatory any other cause but sin? Do like those holy souls who suffer therein: endure in peace, with placidity and tranquillity of soul.”

—- Fr. Henri Marie Boudon, The Holy Ways of the Cross; 1875

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“AMONG these moral virtues, obedience is the most important: it despises a greater good in order to be united with God. And there are three kinds of goods that man can despise for God: the least are external goods; the middle, bodily goods; and the highest goods, those of the soul. Among these, the will is in a certain way the principal one , insofar as it is through the will that man makes use of all the others. Accordingly, properly speaking, the virtue of obedience, which renounces one’s own will for God, is more important than the other moral virtues , which renounce some other goods for God. This is why St. Gregory says, in his Moralia, that obedience is rightly placed before sacrifices: because through sacrifices one sacrifices the flesh of another, while through obedience one immolates one’s own will .”

— St. Thomas Aquinas,  Doctor of the Church, Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Question 104).

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INGENIOUS ways to keep your garlic from spoiling, drying out or sprouting green shoots. (more…)

WHY worship God when you can worship (and show off your supposed virtue) the Most Holy and Immaculate Migrant instead?

“Heterodox Cardinal Blase Cupich told Catholics gathered for a ‘City of Welcome’ event that advocacy for immigrants “belongs to every single disciple of Jesus, and it is, in its truest sense, an act of divine worship,” again collapsing legal and illegal immigration into a single moral claim.

“The October 3 homily at the Archdiocese of Chicago celebration titled ‘Celebrating a City of Welcome, where Catholic Solidarity and the Journey of Migration Meet,’ praised Chicago as a city ‘woven from the courageous journeys’ of earlier immigrants, African American migrants, and more recent Latino and Asian communities.”

Link

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