Most folks know the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you.”

Of course, today, the frequency of being fooled by certain people is a whole lot more than just a time or two. Every sweep of the minute hand (the long one on analog clocks, remember those?) is another incident of Americans being fooled. Or at least, likely being fooled.

But Mark Twain makes a very important point:

It was true 150+ years ago when he wrote it, and it is true today.

And with modern communications, it happens more and more often. Even to those of us who are aware of how many different people want to fool us.

Politicians, bureaucrats, business tycoons, shop clerks, teachers, medical personnel… the list goes on and on. We can particularly add the “sky pilots” (clerics), news media leaders and talking heads, and sometimes even the kid next door (or our own).

As Mama Liberty was prone to say (and she wasn’t even in the military!), situational awareness is the only solution to being fooled. Which of course requires knowledge, and practical experience.

And almost never the knowledge that is forced down our throats in schools. Especially not in government-run, tax-funded schools. But even private schools can’t do a good job: it is one reason why homeschooling can be superior. The example lived in front of us is a key part of being educated to avoid being fooled. (Consider, do you want your 9 or 10 year old son or daughter to look up to a 22 or 23 year old young grade school teacher (public or private), who is still wet behind the ears? Or to you as their parent or your own parents, with years more experience?

No, teaching people in general isn’t much easier than convincing them they’ve been fooled after the fact. It is the reason that Nigerian scam artists still send out their letters. It is the reason that we have 80-year-old politicians who have never had a real job in the last 60 years. But we must never give up in helping people to see that they have indeed been scammed, bamboozled, taken for a ride, made fools of, and more. And it is very much a reason to reduce the power of those who make fools of so many: not just the government types, but any person who lives as a parasite on others.