Mental Brita -- develop your inner band-pass filter

By Luke Hamilton

In the world of audio engineering, there exists a wonderful tool called the band-pass filter. When a sound is generated, waves of energy transmit from the source to a receptacle which collects and interprets them, i.e. an eardrum. Sound waves function at a wide range of frequencies and a band-pass filter functions as a funnel for these waves. The audio engineer sets a low-frequency limit and a high-frequency limit for his filter and runs the audio sample through the filter. This funnel effectively removes any frequency operating above or below the proscribed filter levels but allows the rest to pass through. In this manner, audio engineers isolate valuable audio previously buried under high- or low-frequency garbage.

Dear Reader, Americans need a band-pass filter. The average American remains minimally-informed, despite the unimaginable amount of information available to him. Anyone with an e-reader, an Amazon account, and $10 can purchase a CD containing 15,000 of the greatest books in the history of literature, 6,000 of which can then be transferred to a device that fits into a breast-pocket and weighs less than a sandwich.

To put this in context, the Grand Vizier of Persia, Saheb Ibn Abad, used to travel with all of his 117,000 books, even to war. He carried them on 400 camels, which were trained to walk in a specific order so that his books would remain alphabetized, allowing him to locate a specific volume at will. Today, thanks to some money-grubbing capitalists, the owner of a Kindle Fire can tote around what would have taken Saheb Ibn Abad 51 camels to carry, without the tedium of dromedary-alphabetization.

So the citizens of this nation are not minimally-informed because the knowledge is unavailable or inaccessible. This was the case in times past, when knowledge was hoarded by an anointed few, but today such knowledge is available at the tips of our fingers, literally. Today the problem lies at the opposite end of the spectrum. Americans need a band-pass filter because there is too much information available and truth is obscured. The sheer amount of information available is just as much an impediment as the sequestration of information was in previous periods, especially given the manner in which our public schools have neglected to teach critical thinking.

Humanity was created with an innate band-pass filter: Reason. Our Creator designed existence to correspond to this band-pass filter; this being readily apparent when we examine how closely the laws which govern existence adhere to a logical framework. Of course logic and reason are no longer kosher because we have elevated emotion over truth, but they remain the best tools we have for finding truth in an increasingly facetious world. The Tolerance Police bray that maintaining an open mind is the best policy an enlightened mind can hold, yet the words of Chesterton ring with more verisimilitude.

"Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."

Instead of allowing your mind to become an intellectual landfill, where every half-baked, lame-brained, weak-sister idea is allowed to obscure pearls of truth, filter. Measure the words of everyone with the tuning-fork of truth, measure the words of so-called experts twice, and jettison that which exists outside the frequencies of fidelity. When politicians predict that the United States will "default on our debt," parse the truth from the noise to glean the kernel of truth; with today's caliber of politician the truth/tripe ratio is dismayingly small. The kernel of truth is this: the 14th Amendment to our Constitution forbids the U.S. Government to default on our debts and what these politicians are proposing is a threat, not a prognostication.

Logically, the only way we could "default on our debt" is by disregarding the Constitution. This is not an impossibility, given the disdain our President holds for the principles of constitutional republicanism, but it is impossible in the context which is being asserted. The defaulters would have to directly violate the laws of this nation and the accused party shows no indication of planning to do so. It is an accusation which is neither logical nor likely and should be filtered from the national conversation, yet it is allowed to echo unchallenged by virtually anyone.

As ever, what needs to be done will never be done by those in a position to do so with ease. We cannot depend on those who control the purse strings to restrain themselves to live within our collective means. And so we must bring them, kicking and screaming, to the forced-retirement party and hold their faces in the right direction until their blubbering puts out the candles on their cake, which reads "Sinonara, suckers!" If our elected representatives will not hold the line against fiscal insanity, we will find some who will. But first we must hone the effectiveness of our band-pass filter, to deal with the inordinate amount of bullroar in the air these days. Stop swallowing talking points, simply because the pundit appears frequently on Fox News Channel or has an (R) after their name. Weigh the words you ingest and learn to filter without remorse, because the days are short and the lies are many.

© Luke Hamilton