The War On Bullshit.

Christopher Hitchens once said that the war on terror is in fact part of a larger war on religion.

Well, I dunno about that exactly, as I've disagreed with a lot of how the war on terror has been fought, but the overall point is taken, and I'll go him one better.

I think the war on religion is part of a larger war on bullshit.

IMO, we won't properly have a 21st century until we mop up all the fucking bullshit.

It's all gotta go, folks, or we won't have a fucking world to live in.

And, I think I go after religion hardest, because it gets itself everywhere.
It plugs into all the other forms of bullshit, so going after religion puts you everywhere it goes.
Which is well, everywhere.

But really, all the other stuff I've ranted about so far are facets of the war on bullshit.

And sadly, I think the first half of the 21st century is going to be a mop-up operation on the 20th.
Cuz man, that was a BIG one for bullshit.

The most infuriating part of it for me, and what this particular rant will focus on, is it's bad enough that there's SO fucking much bullshit to mop up, but it's made all the harder that there are forces actively working to keep their bullshit around.

And not just all the big forces with "big", in front of their name (y'know, big oil, big religion, big farming, big banking, big anything) but all the average little shmucks out there walking around with the bullshit drilled into their heads protecting their corporate and religious masters with their jabbering jaws like little rabid poodles.

And all the justification for the bullshit they've had drilled into them boils down to this one solitary idea.
This is the idea that fucked up the 20th century (and a shitload of centuries before it btw) and threatens to fuck up this one royally.
The idea is this.

"We NEED bullshit!".

Bullshit!!

When the system runs well (or seems to), you can almost buy that idea.
I think I fell for it awhile in my 20's.
There was this little window of like 3 years after 9/11.

But, look at the wars, look at the financial crisis, look at a our stupid media culture.

It's broken.
It's all broken.
And rotting.

The lie is exposed, the world of bullshit FAILED, the philosophy of bullshit FAILED.

Yet I still have to fucking hear from these fucking people as they circle the drain, screaming all the way down, that "we NEED bullshit".

Fuck you.

Get down that drain already.
You can't gurgle your last gasp of bullshit fast enough.

Motherfuckers.

Well, let's get to the nuts and bolts of the bullshit of bullshit, shall we?

In my investigations, I have found a name for my pain, and it is Leo Strauss.

Link.

A very nasty customer who I oppose on pretty much every level philosophically.

He pretty much advocated "noble lie", theory, and if you're wondering what a "noble lie", is, well, it's bullshit.
It's openly and nakedly bullshit with perhaps a couple wafts of perfume sprayed on.

Noble lies, deadly truths.

And, his defense of noble lies is in the following link, and is an argument style I've butted up against with certain conservatives on message boards.

Link.

It basically boils down to the stubborn un-evidenced assertion that if you tell the truth too much, and give people too much freedom, then it leads to anarchy or Nazism.

Which is more or less the same shit I hear from Christians like David Robertson over at the Rd.net forum.

And I've even heard it from atheists who have "faith in faith", which to me, is an even nastier piece of business.
Because then, you know religion is bullshit, but you think people need to be herded like sheep.
Pretty vile stance.

And it's was pretty much Strauss's stance.

Oh, and here's this lovely bit on Leo openly being a rotten little authoritarian fascist scumbag.

Link.

Strauss wrote that "just because Germany has turned to the right and has expelled us (Jews), it simply does not follow that the principles of the right are therefore to be rejected. To the contrary, only on the basis of principles of the right – fascist, authoritarian, imperial – is it possible in a dignified manner, without the ridiculous and pitiful appeal to ‘the inalienable rights of man’ to protest against the mean nonentity (Nazism)."[21] [Emphasis in original, parentheticals added for context and meaning]

Nice, huh?

So, there you have it, it's not accidentally stumbled apon, this is the philosophical strain out there in our fucking politics that's working against people like me who despise bullshit.

We've got a long row to hoe.
It's formidable, but I'm not overwhelmed or intimidated.

I'm going to destroy as many "noble lies", as I can get my typing/clicking fingers on.

I no longer make any bones about that I think the enlightenment was a good thing, it led to the American revolution, and the founding of this country, anti-enlightement thinkers therefore spit on the U.S. constitution, and everything we aspire to, and yes, I think the truth is for everybody.
The whole damned truth.
All of it.
The truth is only dangerous to tyrants.
Fuck 'em.

Fuck self elected "philosopher kings", fuck the whole neo-con deal, fuck Leo Strauss, and fuck noble lies.

It's all bullshit.

A big steaming pile of bullshit.

And I've declared war on it in these pages.

Enough already.
Let's bury these awful obsolete ideas, and have a fucking future for humanity, what say?
Alrighty then.