(NaturalNews) I get this question all the time from readers: How can we know whom to believe? Who's really telling the truth? Which person should I support for political office at the next election?

What if I told you there is an incredibly simple way to tell not only who's good and who's bad, but also how to tell who is pushing absolute evil onto our world?

This method is remarkably accurate, and you can use it right now to assess almost anyone.

It all starts with understanding the spectrum of control vs. empowerment.

Imagine a 10-foot string stretched out on the ground. On the far left side of the string, there is a point we'll call "Control." On the far right side of the string, another point is called "Empowerment."

Let's start with the "Empowerment" side first. This point represents people who primarily seek to empower you with knowledge, skills, wisdom and tools. "Empowerment" represents GOOD because it allows wisdom, skills and abundance to multiply from one person to the next. It recognizes the value of the individual and honors consciousness and free will.

On the far left side of the string -- which also represents the political left in America today -- we have "Control." This point represents people who primarily seek to control you: to extract money from you (rob you), to limit your freedoms, to demand your obedience and to use the threat of force to command your compliance. This philosophy dishonors the individual and downplays free will and individual liberty. "Control" is inherently evil because it seeks to diminish the power of a large number of people in order to accumulate power into the hands of a few people.

(The context of this discussion is, of course, entirely in the realm of dealing with adults. Obviously children should be subjected to certain controls for their own development and safety. That's called good parenting. But to treat adults like children and attempt to control them like a parent controlling a child is unjustified and inherently destructive.)

Examples of "control" vs "empowerment"

A person who seeks to teach others how to garden and thereby grow their own food is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to place other people on government food stamps and thereby make them dependent on government for their food is practicing control and is inherently EVIL.

A school that teaches students to think for themselves and engage in critical, skeptical thinking about the world around them is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a school that teaches students blind obedience to institutional authority while denying them the liberty to think for themselves is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.

A person who seeks to help others create their own successful businesses and generate abundant profits for themselves and their employees is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to destroy entrepreneurship, suppress innovation, punish small businesses and burden private sector job creation with onerous taxes and regulation is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.

A person who seeks to teach others how to protect themselves against violent crime through the intelligent, ethical use of weapons for self defense is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to strip away from everyone else their right to self defense, placing them in the position of defenseless victimization, is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.

A city mayor who seeks to teach his constituents the principles of nutrition and food choice so that they might make better decisions about their diet and health is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a city mayor who demands blind obedience to his selective agenda of banning large sodas or other junk food items is practicing control and is therefore EVIL. (Bloomberg, anyone?)

So, getting back to the title of this article, the way to instantly tell whether a person is "good" or "evil" is to examine their actions on the control vs. empowerment spectrum. If they predominantly seek to control others, they are mostly evil. If they predominantly seek to empower others, they are mostly good.

Be careful to examine peoples' actions, not merely their words. Anyone can talk a good game of "empowerment," but very few actually seek to educate and uplift others around them.

The politics of control vs. empowerment

The political left is deeply invested in a philosophy of control. The left believes in centralized control over the economy, societal control of parenting and children, government control over education, centralized bankster control over money, and government control over health care.

The political right is invested in a philosophy of non-interventionism. They classically believe the government should keeps its hands off education, the economy, businesses operations and private lives. (Of course, today's political right is actually just as much pro-big government as the political left.)

Libertarianism, by the way, is a philosophy of allowing -- allowing people to make their own fortunes, or mistakes, or personal decisions as long as their behaviors do not harm others. Classic libertarianism means people are free to do what they wish, including marrying someone of the same sex if that's their choice, as long as their actions do not cause direct harm to others around them. Many people mistakenly think they are libertarians but they are actually closet control freaks because they want everyone else to conform to their own ideas of marriage, religion, recreational drug use, prostitution and so on. A true libertarian must tolerate the free will actions of others even if those actions are obviously self-destructive to the individual.

In terms of ethics, "controlism" is inherently destructive because it denies an individual his or her humanity. "Empowerment" is inherently good (or even blessed) because it invests in the individual the power of determining her or her own life outcomes.

The universe is written in the code of conscious empowerment

From a spiritual perspective, the Creator granted humans free will precisely because free will puts control into the hands of the individual, not a centralized power figure. If we were not meant to be free, we would never have been created with free will.

In this way, "controlism" stands in contradiction to the laws of the universe and the existence of free will and consciousness. Thus, the underlying philosophy of the political left is anti-consciousness, anti-free will and a contradiction of the fundamental laws of the universe.

This is why collectivist mandates feel so alien to a free-thinking human being... because control freakism is a violation of self-evident, universal truth. This is also why the leftist / collectivist political philosophy is doomed to fail: It exists in gross violation of the laws of the universe. No human being inherently wants to live without freedom, functioning merely as an obedient peon under a system of centralized control. It feels wrong because it is universally and spiritually wrong.

That is why it will fail. And that is why all those who defend individual liberty, free will and individual empowerment quite literally have God and the universe on their side.

In summary, then, if you want to determine whether a person is "good" or "evil" -- in effect, whether they are living in congruency with the laws of the universe -- simply place them on the spectrum of "control" versus "empowerment" and your question all but answers itself.