How easily are you convinced to believe a person in what they are saying to be the truth?  Do you check this person out and follow-up to see if he is an honest person?  In my day, we called it “vetting.”  We were always taught, “if something sounds too good to be true,”  it usually is  – and  you really should check it out.  That is what happened two decades ago when a group of 900 followers of Jim Jones, a self-made preacher who had no formal theological training and based his ministry on a combination of religious and socialist philosophies, left California – because the IRS were questioning his legality – and relocated to the jungles of South America.  These people turned all of their belongings over to Preacher Jones, a person they trusted.  Their relatives became concerned and felt their relatives were brain-washed – which they were.  They enlisted the help of a California Congressman, who flew to their compound.  The end result was not good when some of the people felt betrayed by the preacher because what they encountered in the commune was not what they had been told and wanted to return to the U.S.   The preacher’s guards shot the congressman and some of the others who wanted to return.  Due to the events,  the preacher  told his flock that the murder of the congressman made it impossible to continue their commune.  Rather than return to the U.S., he convinced the flock, the only way they could preserve the church is by making the ultimate sacrifice by taking their own lives.  And pray tell me – how would that preserve the church?  They were given a kool-aid concoction of cyanide, sedatives, and tranquilizers.  And it is hard to believe, these people actually stood in line to receive their drink.  Unbelievable!  Then as the story goes forward, the preacher shot himself in the head.  In my own mind, I cannot believe that people can be led down this path of destruction so easily.  What convinces them to believe any person without checking their background?  I am telling this story because this is what has happened in our own country.  Why is it we accepted this Socialist Democratic party without any vetting and just accepted the words of one person?  Is it that people are lazy and do not want to know the truth?  My gut feeling before the election was that something was not right – one person  cannot do what he tells us he will do.  And, the truth always surfaces – sooner or later!  Now, we know what the truth really is and know the rest of the story.  It was all hog wash!

kommonsentsjane