An old friend of mine is currently living in the Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  While keeping up with the goings-on in her life over there, I’ve gotten a clear sense that she’s growing progressively more frustrated with how things are done in a country run by a fundamentalist religion.  I genuinely feel for her in that predicament.

Moral pantywaist apologists notwithstanding, I would hope most clear-headed people are aware of how culturally backwards things are in any country which allows itself to be governed by something as nebulous as faith, and ruled by something as archaic as a monarch.

But my contempt for that situation leads me down a path of thought that intersects with something else that I hold in great contempt; the fact that many (most?) people have a deep-seated need to subject themselves to some form of peonage, be it governmental, ideological, religious, or all three.

I get it, life is already hard enough as it is, and it’s extremely convenient to buy a pre-packaged set of morals, laws, or beliefs.  It’s even more convenient when they’re either free, or in some cases, you’d have to literally fight not to accept them.

I’m also not putting myself above this either; I consider myself a patriot, a Skeptic, and a futurist, all labels that provide others  a certain set of expectations as to my values and actions.  However, when I do label myself, for the sake of convenience, I also make an effort to “hang a lamp” on the fact that it’s precisely the convenience factor that compels me to do so.  Few people would actually care to know anyone’s entire set of values and convictions in casual conversation.  So the act of labeling oneself is useful to allow others to get a sense of who you are at the ten-thousand-foot level.

But just because you stick a label on your forehead that reads “Libertarian”, that doesn’t require you to cast a straight-party ballot, any more than wearing Joe Snuffy’s name tag makes you Joe Snuffy.  Too many people, however, do make this mistake and confuse their self-stuck labels with their core identity, instead of using them as tools for communication.  And when this happens, you start down the road towards the dangerous kind of group-think that destroys individuality, an ultimately, individual sovereignty.

A label isn’t a brand;  you should never be so attached to your convictions that you make them permanent, inescapable, and requiring vigilant devotion. By doing so you fail to allow yourself the opportunity to examine new evidence, consider new points of view, or ultimate, even think for yourself.  You also put yourself in a position where you are obligated to defend views in the face of evidence that refutes them.

The reason this issue concerns me is because of a trend I think I see emerging.  As religious faith in the western world is on the decline, it seems to be being replaced with a religious-like attachment to another ideology.  This is most noticeable in the Skeptics movement, of which as I’ve referenced, I consider myself a part.

If you follow a lot of  ”Skeptics” online discussions, you often get a sense of a “party line” to be followed, which is counter to the fundamental nature of “Skepticism” in the first place.   And when you do run into this counter-intuitive phenomenon, it can be extremely frustration.

(For the record, I’m making this criticism as more of a “heads-up”, than an assault on the Skeptics movement, lest some of the conspiracy theorists, paranomalists, or garden-variety looneys try to reference this in an attempt at validating their nonsense.)

I think I owe anyone who reads this, examples of this happening.  Unfortunately I’m pressed for time a bit on what should have been a short jotting of things bouncing around in my head at the moment.  I’ll try to revisit that later, and include my observations about the subjects on which self-labeled Skeptics likely to suspend their critical thinking as well as the types of individuals who seem prone to doing so.

But the most important thing to take away from this is that, you are not your name tag, your labels, your government, or your religion.  You are you, and when you chose to stop being you in exchange for falling in-line with a label, you renounce your individuality.   A human being is not a hive insect; cultural, spiritual, and moral laziness should never be allowed to devolve him into one.

Like many people inextricably plugged-in to the Internet, I’ve been following the (hopefully) historic events in Iran over the past several days with a combination of horror and hope. Will we get to see the birth of a new, true democracy in the Middle East, or will tyranny slam its fist down upon the people?

But if you haven’t been keeping as much of an eye on the situation, here are a few key things that bear pointing out:

Mousavi, the candidate who lost the “election”, is also the former president of Iran. Under his watch in the 80’s, Iran began its nuclear weapons program. He has, smartly, positioned himself as the defacto head of the uprising, but is nowhere near as liberal as the majority of the people that comprise this movement.

There is an apparent power struggle going on between the Mullahs who appoint candidates for election, and it’s possible that Mousavi only seeks to shift the balance of power within the current system as opposed to what many of the protesters want, which is truly free elections and representative democracy as seen in the west.

The Basij are an extra-government branch of thugs chartered to keep order in support of the hard-line elements in the regime. Ahmadinejad, or “Dinner Jacket” as he’s been not-so-lovingly referred to in many tweets/facebook posts, was once a member of this group.

“Dinner Jacket” apparently was coined by our own former president, in reference to the man’s choice of wardrobe.

60% of Iran’s population is under the age of 30, and highly tech/internet savvy.

Anonymous has offered its support in the cause of free speech and open communication, for what that’s worth.

Fox News, for the most part, has been doing a surprisingly good job of coverage while CNN appears to be toeing the line with the Iranian regime to keep their access to the country. MSNBC has taken off for the weekend and is showing prisonsploitation documentaries. The BBC has apparently been kicked out of Iran (according to the latest news).

Twitter seems to be the primary outlet for most information despite the Basij smashing computers in universities and internet cafes, and the general internet crackdown across the country.