It's called the American Dream...'cause you have to be asleep to believe it.

- George Carlin

"The Kremlin's got a hell of a sense of humor," Colonel Trautman concluded wryly.

"Please explain," responded Zaysen.

"You talk peace and disarmament to the world, and here you are wiping out a race of people. [...] You expect sympathy? You started this damn war, now you'll have to deal with it," the American officer declared.

"And we will. It is just a matter of time before we achieve a complete victory," Zaysen replied.

"You know there won't be a victory. Every day, your war machines lose ground to a bunch of poorly-armed, poorly-equipped freedom fighters. The fact is that you underestimated your competition.

If you'd studied your history, you'd know that these people have never given up to anyone. They'd rather die than be slaves to an invading army. You can't defeat a people like that. We tried; we already had our Vietnam! Now you're gonna have yours," retorted Trautman.

The preceding comes via 1988's Rambo III - a movie in which Russia is portrayed as villainous for invading Afghanistan. However, in 2001, the United States mounted an even more destructive offensive against the same Middle Eastern nation. During this war - which is ongoing - the U.S. has characterized itself as the good guy. Hence, countless Americans support the same action they found repulsive, when perpetrated by Russia.

You can keep deceiving yourself you're living in a "free" country, unhindered by subterfuge, but it's absurd enough when you lie to others. Lying to yourself is simply insane.

So, what makes a soldier any different than a serial killer? Both annihilate numerous innocent people; both do so under the auspices of a higher compulsion. However, one is sanctified, while the other denigrated. Identical actions, antithetical response.

Doesn't this mean on Veteran's Day we're honoring mass murderers?

Somehow, the English language was replaced by acronyms, and people reverted to illiteracy. Correct communication may seem trivial; however, you'll view things differently, when folks unable to read design the components for the jumbo jet in which you're flying. How about entrusting cooling procedures of a nuclear power plant to someone who can't write?

Why do folks pay extra for car alarms? When was the last time you saw anybody respond to such a feature? Car alarms activate constantly, and nobody - including the vehicle owners - view them as anything but a bother.

People are illogical. We don't even know from whence our species derives, and most of us are doing nothing to find out. The article you're reading is an effort to correct such failings.

Doesn't it behoove us to discover why we're here, and how this Universe works? If so, how come we constantly involve ourselves in topics more senseless than using a GPS to drive 10 feet? The pettiness with which we're concerned is as pointless as asserting Dr. Phil is having a bad hair day.

Just because you've been brainwashed into accepting things as true, doesn't make them real. Could the verisimilitude you've always known be no more authentic than the recent version of Dolly Parton's face?

The above examples chip away at what most of us perceive as reality. Realize, these are a minute percentage of the lapses in logic humanity engages in every day. Documenting each instance of unreason would require volumes. Suffice it to say, the paradigm created around us isn't real.

So, the question arises as to what reality is.

It's when you stop watching television that it begins. Soon, you cancel your cable subscription. Sometime later, you no longer "own" a TV. The vacuous truth there's a show called The Biggest Loser eludes you.

Imperative facts - like the 240 foot wide asteroid that marginally missed Earth in 2002, unknown to humans until three days after it passed - occupy your brain.

You're stupefied Heinz Haber - a Nazi war criminal responsible for hundreds of executions - acted beside Walt Disney on a post-World War II production known as Our Friend the Atom.

You're amazed Tom Cruise firmly believes in Xenu - ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy," who migrated his kind to Earth in a DC-8, positioned them around volcanoes, and destroyed them with hydrogen bombs.

You now reside in a paradigm most choose to believe doesn't exist. It's called reality.

Still, you interact with people who know nothing of it. You've tried to apprise them, but they've only gawked at you as though you had a birthmark resembling Geraldo's face on your forehead. Hence, you remain quiet, while they sermonize about an Ashton Kutcher love triangle, the best temperature for baking flan, or the amount of hair on Mitt Romney's balls.

You observe, as most of humanity drugs itself with placebos - that cause more harm than good - for maladies that don't exist. You know you'd never put something in your body that could induce a heart attack, just to obtain an erection. With escalating revenue of so-called erectile dysfunction drugs, however, you realize there are those who would.

A $500 phone you'll drop, and thus destroy; a $600 pair of sunglasses you'll lose in a week; a blouse you can't wash because of bleeding dyes, but one you're willing to buy for $700, due to its name.

It doesn't make sense to the logical...but the logical don't make sense to those living this confusion. In the paradigm of the insane, the sane will forever be viewed like someone having sexual relations with a Disney dog mascot - fuckin' Goofy!