On Sunday, 10 April 2016 20:48:28 UTC+2, lal_truckee wrote:

You hope to engage The Snell in a battle of bonne mot? a clash of wit?
an exchange of humour?

Bon Chance.

It was only a tentative suggestion. You can take an ass to water... ;-)

Holding up a non-distorting mirror ought to be the greatest kindness one can possibly bestow on a person.. And the one free favour no despot will ever accept. Has there ever been a single despot throughout history which did not surround itself with Yes Men? The Yes Men are the despot's worst enemy. For they have no respect for their leader and will often guide their leader astray. Simply through fear of making a catastrophic error which reflects badly on themselves. Embrace the bold, outspoken critic but run in terror from the armies of timid sycophants who shower you in flattery!

Many extremists surround themselves with like minds for exactly the same reasons: Amplification of their psychological distortions through positive feedback. Extreme group isolation and the exile, or punishment, of doubters or non-believers is the usual paranoid scenario. Each new voice piles on the lunacy as they each bathes in the false, self-flattery of agreement with the primal message. This holds whether it be racing downhill in shopping trolleys or blowing up innocents.

Young men are particularly prone to it as they each compete to be more extreme than the last. All it takes now is one charismatic leader to lead them by the nose into battle with the entire world! The threat of exclusion is always the master key to absolute obedience. Fear of showing disloyalty the unbreachable wall against leaving or ever arguing the toss.

Not that Snelfish comes across as young. More a bitter old man with very fixed and narrow ideas and obsolete, habitual thinking. A day when you can no longer change your mind about anything [at all] is the day you might as well pull your own coffin lid closed. The lights have already gone out. Why prolong the misery?

It doesn't have to be like this! Embrace the sunshine, breathe in the fresh air and determine to change your mind about something completely trivial. Your first step on the long road to recovery. Deliberately seek out dissenters and free thinkers. That way you avoid the mind trap of swallowing the Party propaganda hook, line and sinker. Above all, avoid the cloying, perpetually closed circle of absolute group loyalty. History is made by small people with fresh, new, constructive ideas. Nobody ever remembers the countless extras on the stage of life.