We are a world in which we humans are in a process of transition and transformation.

One thing we have to change is our belief in things that are not true, some of which we accept almost automatically.

We often believe what famous public documents, regulations, phrases or statements say (or said), regardless of their accuracy. 

Let’s start with a simple example.

“Whole wheat” flour and goods have all the wheat grain in them, right? Wrong.

In Canada a regulation was introduced in 1964, under pressure from the industrial bread industry, to allow 5 per cent of the whole grain to be removed – simply to extend shelf life. This allows removal of almost all the nutritious wheat germ, which contains fat and therefore goes rancid. With it gone, bread can be shipped farther and lasts longer on the shelf. If you want true whole wheat, you have to look for “whole grain whole wheat” on the label. Almost nobody does that, because they trust that whole wheat is, well, whole.

Too bad.

Now let’s examine a more consequential illusion.

In the U.S., most Americans (and many others) believe that the “right to bear arms” means anyone can own and/or carry a gun. But that’s not what the Second

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution actually says. It says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It was designed to protect the breakaway United States from retaliation by colonialist England.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), formerly a gun use training organization, in the 1970s ignored the militia part, and became solely a defender of unfettered individual gun ownership and use. Only nine out of the 205 nations in the world give their citizens the right to bear arms, and most, unlike the U.S., have significant restrictions on who and why. That’s why the gun murder rate is 16 times lower in Canada, 40 times lower in Australia, and 100 times

lower in the United Kingdom.

Finally, let’s look at the famous (infamous?) “Balfour Declaration,” a brief letter written in 1917 from the British government to the Zionist movement endorsing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It said much more.

Following the endorsement, it said “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Those words have vanished from the consciousness of the government and most citizens of Israel and, until recently, been obliterated from the awareness of every nation interacting with the Israeli government. The result has been a calculated, coordinated and systemically endorsed campaign of destruction of Palestinians human rights.

Truth matters, and all the truth is critically more important than partial truth.

If our descendants are to survive, we must face the truth underlying every law, regulation, institution, and conventional belief, and change them and conduct ourselves in compliance with justice, honesty and the laws of creation.

Warren Bell is a long-time family physician in Salmon Arm with a consuming interest and involvement in community and global affairs.