Torture is Torture is Torture

To begin with, torture is morally wrong; no matter what the hypothetical scenerio you may dream up--torture will always remain morally indefensable. "But you're a self-proclaimed nihilist," you shout, "what do you care for morality?!" This is true, however, you are probably not a moral nihilist, or at least do not proclaim yourself to be so, and therefore morality should be of the highest order for you; after all, it is the "salvation of your soul" we're talking about here. Besides, one can be a nihilist and still have respect for human life and suffering. I'm not a sociopath after all. But I digress.

Being a moral nihilist, I will spare you any long lectures on the morality of turtore and skip over to the more pragmatic arguments against torture. Now everybody who has given it even half a thought knows that under extreme pain and the threat of even more to come, anybody will admit to just about anything. Torture a man long enough, he'll tell you who shot JFK--that doesn't make it the least bit true. If, on the other hand, the only thing you are looking for is a confession, and you don't give half a rat's ass about the actual truth, then by all means torture away. You'll get the confession you were looking for, and half your constituancy will probably believe it was true. Just don't call it torture--call it coercion or some other bullshit euphamism. After all, nobody likes to admit that they are the bad guy. If, on top of that, you can convince people that the person you are torturing is evil--well hell, even your opponents will be afraid to criticize you.

If, however, it is true information you are looking for, your best bet is to befriend the man you have in custody. Confidance leads to confidant information.

On top of the utter lack of accurate information given to you by torture--or as we here in the grand ol' US of A like to call it, "coercion"--you really do manage to totally wreck your standing in the world. Fear will force people to follow you, but when it can be helped respect is far better.

My Personal Hero

My older sister is currently going through something that I cannot even begin to comprehend. A few months ago she called me and told me that she was pregnant with her second child. You could actaully hear the joy in her voice at the prospect of having another kid. Last night my mother called me and told me that I needed to call my sister, as she was going through some real trauma. So I called her up today and this is the situation: Now in her second trimester, she had a sonogram done to find out the sex of the child. First the doctor told her it was a girl; all good and fine so far--her first was a boy and now she was having a girl to balance everything out. Then the doctor told her that the child didn't have any thumbs that they could see. Her view: well people have been born with no arms and had good lives, no big deal. Then the doctor proceeded to tell her that the child had no eyes either. How does she respond? Well so what, she'll be handicapped, it'll make life a bit more difficult but it's not anything that can't be dealt with. Then some more bad news. The child has some major brain damage. What, so she'll be mentally retarded--tons of people have down-syndrome and still live perfectly happy lives. But that's not it, that's not it at all. The child is missing her thirteenth chromosme--assuming it lives through delivery, it will be a vegitable for the few months that it is able to survive at all. The only things it will be able to do on its own are breath and piss; no thoughts, no emotions, no actions--just a couple of organs working to no purpose. My sister is then left with a choice: bring into existence something that cannot even be called a life, or terminate the pregnancy. When I asked her today how she was doing, she said that she had cried out all her tears and was now beginning to cope with the situation--my sister is my personal hero.

A Short Story

He finally realized that she was gone and would never come back; and it was only with this realization that he fully realized just how much he loved her. When she was around he had always taken her for granted. She had always been nothing more than a good friend and confidant--some one he could actually open his heart to--and he told himself that he didn't want anything more. Hell, he had even managed to completely convince himself for several years that he didn't want anything more from her. But now...now it just hurt so damned bad not having her around.

His childhood had been a rather loveless one. When anyone did happen to pay any attention to him, it was because they were drunk and looking for something to hit, or they were simply pissed off and wanted to belittle someone. Most of the time, however, he was simply left to fend for himself. Now in retrospect, this had actually strengthend him to a great degree--as a man he was able to stand just about any beating life through at him: He had a brutal job which left him in the hospital about once every two years, he had managed to disillusion himself of all the nonsense most people cling to so desperately, and he had even managed, at the age of sixteen, to move two-thousand miles away from his friends and family to start a new life on his own. The one thing he could not seem to do, was to admit that he loved someone. That, in his mind, would amount to opening himself back up to the ridicule and the beatings of his childhood.

Later in life, he had a few failed relationships. The first of these was actually with the girl he missed so much now. He had tried everything in his power to get her, but in the end it amouted to nothing but rejection. After that, all his relationships ended with the girls he thought he was in love with telling him to go to hell.

Finally, after years apart, he had been reunited with his first love. By now though, she was married to one of his friends. But that was ok, because all he wanted now was someone to talk to. So they stuck up a new friendship. Eventually she divorced his friend, but nothing really changed in his relationship to her. For a few years after that they lived together, neither of them seeing anybody else, but not seeing each other either. After a few years of this, she married another friend of his; this time it was his best friend.

Four years went by. He would go to their house once or twice a week for dinner during this time. His best friend was seldom home during all of this, and when he was he was too drunk to talk, and so he would have long drawn out conversations with her about everything from politics to religion to music. Throughout this time nothing ever became of this, as both of them had complete respect for the sanctaty of her marriage.

At the end of this four year period she had kicked her husband out; it turned out that he had been an abusive piece of shit; getting drunk every night and beating her and her five year old child. One night she came over to his house to talk about what was going on. They ended up getting really drunk. At some point during the night, she kissed him. At this point he could not hold back--he professed his love for her, and that night they made sweet, passionate love. Their love, however, was rather short lived.

The next day he was overcome by guilt. It didn't matter that his friend was a piece of shit--to betray their friendship was more than he could bear. The next day he told her that it had to end there. This was something she could not seem to comply with. The next few weeks were hell for both of them. He lied and said that it meant nothing to him; she refused this answer. It went back and forth: her forcing herself upon him, him forcing himself to believe he wanted nonthing of it, yet winding up in bed with her all the same.

In the end he won out. Though he wasn't exactly sure what it was he won. Did he when his freedom, or was it simply his solitude? All he knew now was that he wanted her back. But it was too damn late.

Christian Terrorism

I highly recommend that the few people who actually read this blog check out the many clips on the new documentary "Jesus Camp" on youtube.com. Anyone who cares to, is welcome to try to explain to me afterwards why christianity is not every bit as prone to terrorism as islam is.

Picking at Another Man's Dinner

Few men would have the gall to pick at another man's dinner when they have their own sumptuous meal before them. Why, then, are we so presumptuous as too pick apart a man's deepest thoughts and emotions, when we have our own sitting before us, begging to be analysed? Where do all these part-time psychologists get off interpreting another man's thoughts and actions when it is quite obvious that they do not even understand their own?

What do I mean by part-time psychologist? I mean a person who, without the least bit of technical training in that feild, feels that they are somehow qualified to tell you exactly what your unconscious motivations are for everything that you do. We all know this type. He is the most common type there is. He is that slightly over-intellectualized friend who does not yet have the wisdom to act as a counter-weight to his thoughts. In other words, he isn't so very clever as he thinks he is. He knows what your problem is, but he doesn't yet know how to keep that bit of information to himself.

If there were but one thing that I could teach to these people, it would be how to shut the fuck up, and quit being so damn presumptuous as to think you know what's going on in another's head.

One Difference

"There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad." --Salvador Dali

The Conscience of God

Man is the conscience of God. Through man's existence, God is able to feel guilt.

Terrible Beauty

Ahh...but sadness and suffering are beautiful. "Why," you ask. Because they are so indicative of life, so true to the nature of reality. Now, certainly I do not discount other forms of beauty; love, joy, bliss and peace within are all quite lovely aspects of being a human being. The problem comes when we posit these aspects of life as a goal, in opposition to the "darker" side of the human condition. To exclude from our existence suffering, boredom, stress, heart-ache, and all the other things that people spend so much of their lives trying to avoid, is to do away with half of what makes life so great. To take suffering out of existence is to take away the challenge to mankind. It is to take away the intensity of life. Life essentialy becomes lifeless.

Life is not a test. It is simply a matter of learning to enjoy the scenery on your journey to nowhere.

God as Artist

If God does in fact exist, then it seems he must be viewed in the form of an artist. The artist concerns himself with every hair on the heads of his creations. He concerns himself with whether or not his creations are happy, sad, angry, depressed, blissful or wretched. Yet his concern is not that of wanting all his creations to feel only joy and love all the time. Many times he will make his creations in a manner which portrays the utmost suffering and torment. It is not that he doesn't care about his creation, but rather he wants to highlight some aspect of himself in that particular creation. He wants to give his creations all the fullness of life that is within himself. One does not look at Picasso's Blue Period and decide that Picasso must not exist, or that if he does he is somehow mean and malevolant for making his people so sad. In fact it is while looking at his saddest works that one is filled with the greatest sense of beauty and awe. It is here that one sees the mastery of his art.

Peter Pan Syndrome

I could very well be wrong (as it seems I often am), but in my own personal opinion Americans today are incapable of maturing past the age of twelve. This seems especially true of the men in our society. They just can't seem to grow beyond their desire for cool toys and the comfort of motherly love. Virtually every man seems incapable of truely making decisions for himself, or of taking on accountability for his actions once those decisions are made.

Television not only plays on this aspect of the modern American character, but even encourages it. Often times I'll see commercials portraying the grown man as nothing more than an overgrown child. Now one might expect this from an advertisement aiming at the wives and mothers of our fair society, but too often we find this even in ads geared towards men. Commercials for things such as trucks, four wheelers, stereo systems, deodorant, etc., try to convince men, not only that they deserve some reward for their day to day struggle, but that they deserve the biggest, baddest toys on the block. Sorry to burst your bubble guys, but you deserve nothing; if you have alot, so be it, if you have little, so be it--either way you don't deserve it. Nobody deserves what they get, good or bad.

Commercials aimed at women are even worse. They tend to portray men as weak, pathetic, little boys who are totally incapable of taking care of themselves. If it wasn't for the motherly touch they would surely die in a week's time. Now I don't know about the rest of the guys around here, but when I was sixteen I moved 1500 miles away from my family and have lived entirely alone most of the time since then (explains quite a bit, doesn't it). I'm still alive and in pretty damned good shape I must say. So...

Advertisers, please quit treating us like imbecillic toddlers. Many of us are just as clever as you and don't apreciate people thinking they need to dumb down the message for us to understand. Men, please quit proving the advertisers right. You do us all a great disservice. If you really are that stupid and childish, then please do the entire world a favor and kill yourself--though if you're too weak to live, you're probably too weak to die.

Even When I'm Wrong--I'm Right

I stand partially corrected. It seems the pope did not call the muslims violent, but rather he said that some of Muhammad's teachings were "vile and inhuman." Tsk tsk, your holiness. You should have known that these words would produce a negative reaction--nobody really likes being called vile or inhuman. But then again, have you ever actually read the Quran? It doesn't exactly exude compassion and understanding to christians and jews. Of course the christians and the jews have been hostile to one antother for thousands of years and both have always been hostile to pagans. Really the pope's mistake consisted in ascribing "vile and inhuman" doctrines only to muslims. A slightly more honest man would tell you that all religious doctrine is "vile and inhuman."

Can You Say Irony?

Generally speaking, I am loathe to step forward and defend any religious leader for any reason. Why? You ask. Because the ones who are not simply lying to gain power over the idiot masses, tend to be fanatical madmen. That said, it seems like somebody should stick up for poor old Pope Benidect. As you all probably know already the pope read from a certain text earlier this week which referred to Islam as a violent religion. "well, now that's the pot calling the kettle black," you guffaw (well that was my initial reaction at least). So how does Islam react to being called a violent religion? Do they practice restraint and and voice their displeasure in a peaceful manner, showing that in fact they are a civilized people capable of acting in an adult manner and that the pope was wrong? No. Instead they prove that the pope was right. They burn effagies, they threaten death to all non-muslims, they shoot nuns in the street. I mean, seriously now, can a single one of them possibly expect the west to take them more seriously now after that little tantrum? If you want people to stop calling you violent, then stop being so violent. It's really a simple rule that most of us had learned before we were eight: either you learn to ignore the name calling, or you fix whatever your problem is and grow the hell up.

Theological Views of a Militant Agnostic

I would like to take a moment and explain in a little more detail my veiws on God and religion. Religion when taken in moderation (much like any poison) can actually be quite healthy. The belief in a all powerful, benevolent being can often be enough to help get many people through points in their lives that might otherwise be too much to bear. But beyond taking religion in moderation, one has to take it in context. The religious scriptures of any religion should be looked at as a means for gaining spiritual insight and clearity; it should never be looked to as a historically accurate textbook on how life and the universe came to be. Adam was not literally made of dust; the entire face of the earth was never actually flooded--wiping out everything that was not on the ark; Jesus was not resurrected three days after dying on the cross. That intelligent men and women throughout history have believed that these events actually occurred is a testement to the power of human stupidity.

Faith makes blessed. Blessedness, however, does not make truth. No matter how intensly you believe in something, or how much it may benefit you to beleive it, there is and can never be any certainty that what you believe is true. This is especialy the case if what you beleive is based on some gut feeling (faith) rather than on emperical evidence. That said, God, if accepted at all, must be accepted on faith. There is a popular argument that God's existence can be proven by the complexity and the appearant design of nature. This argument however has been made obsolete by evolution. Evolution on the other hand proves only that God is not necessary, not that God does not exist. In the end, there is only one honest position concerning the question of God: "I don't know, and you don't either."

Now, with belief in God being based on nothing more than a gut feeling, and what God demands of us being nothing more than a gut feeling about a gut feeling, where does anyone get off trying to force their religion on others. Imposing your views of God on others amounts to religious fanatacism. It doesn't matter if your passing out phamplets about loving your neighbor or blowing up cafes in order to carry out God's commandment of destroying the infedels; trying to make converts (or eradicate those who disagree) is an infringment upon humanity. If you believe in God that is fine, but you have no right to impose that belief on others.

As concerns revelation, my veiws are far simpler than with other aspects of religion. Anybody who tells you they speak to God is either lying or they're schizophrenic.

An Argumnet Against Pure Materialism

Would you try to apply psychology to the field of physics? (If so, then you're about four centuries behind modern science, and should probably be exterminated for the betterment of the human race.) Why then try to apply physics to the field of psychology?

I understand that certain emotions corrolate to certain physical processes and that our thoughts in general are influenced by our emotions (if I haven't eaten all day I get irritated; when irritated my thoughts turn dark). My question is: how do these two entirely seperate ideas mutate into a single idea of every single thought being the direct result of some charge being shot off in the brain? I can understand the influence played, but not the direct law of causality being involved.

Ready the Lions

It seems that every time I happen to have the misfortune of accidently witnessing that atrocity known as Fox News, there is inevitably someone talking about how the atheists and liberals are in cahoots and trying desperately to expell God from America. If you've not yet seen this, just wait till Christmas, as this is one of their favorite times of year to exploit the Martyrdom Complex of the religious zealots. Well I say if they want so bad to feel persecuted, then by all means let's persecute them. Open the Coloseum and ready the lions and by all means let's show them what persecution really is.

All these damned religious fanatics (I'm talking about ALL religious fanatics, not just Christians) should be hung in the streets before a jeering mob for all the suffering they have inflicted on man throughout the ages, and still inflict today. Not just the physical torture and slaughter of millions of people during the crusades, the inquisition, the witch hunts and the jihads; but the so-called "virtues" they set upon us like a plague.

So to all you conservatives out there who are desperately trying to save God, my advice is that you give up. It's a war that you lost long, long ago. We're taking over now and there's not a damned thing you can do about it.

Bright New Sun

The ominous clouds of nihilism
Give way and let show
The bright new sun of existence.

Actuality of Existence

Life is the the ultimate reality. All our ideals and beliefs, however beautiful and sublime, remain secondary to the actuality of existence.

Impatiently Awaiting the Apocolypse

Brotherly love, non-resistance, turning the other cheek? No, no and no. If one wants to understand the mind of the modern American Evangelical Christian, one needs only look to the book of Revelations. It is from this book that all our would-be martyrs develop their sense of justice and retribution. It is here that they find some relevance to our own turbulent times--the morbid imagery portayed in this book is the only imagery that many of us can relate to. But it is not only that. Here we find an ending and a new beginning. Here this world of suffering comes to an end, and we are given in its stead the eternal reward of singing God's hosannas; at least for those who worshipped God in the proper manner. As for the rest of us, we can look forward to an eternity of torment and hell fire for our egregious mistakes.

In all likelihood, however, mankind will simply flicker and fade out of existence, like a flame gasping for air. No monumental destruction, no great climactic ending--just a pathetic little spiecies that has outlived its ability to adapt.

Six Years of Pent-up Aggression

After venting about how much I hate Bush last night, I realized that I actually had quite a great deal to say on this subject. For that reason the next few posts will likely be about the subject of how much I despise this administration. If you happen to be one of the 33% of Americans who still like Bush, then I highly recommend you not read any further.

Tonight's rant: those who Bush surrounds himself with.

Nearly everybody in this administration is an active member of a group called The Project for a New American Century. I intend to give a brief overview of this group's goals, as well as why they are entirely assinine; however, for a more detailed understanding, I suggest looking them up on wikipedia. Hell, just go to thier website, it's not like their in any way secretive about what they intend. The PNAC desires nothing short of world domination, which they state in their manifesto. This is to be gotten through military strength. They see the Middle-East as a territory which must be taken over by America in order to ensure proper oil production, as well as keeping tabs on anybody who has thier own intrests in mind as opposed to ours. These guys have wanted to invade Iraq since 1997; probably longer, but that's when the group wrote its manifesto. If one were to look at all the reasons we invaded Iraq, beginning with the whole WMD's scandal and moving down the list to "promoting democracy," it quickly becomes obvious that they are simply following the game plan they had written up for years. But enough about the PNAC, let us take a look at the individuals who make up the administration.

Dick Cheney: Vice President; PNAC founder--Here is a man so evil that he simply could not resist the temptation to shoot an eighty year old man in the face with a shotgun. Prior to deciding that ol' W. couldn't possibly find a better running mate than himself, Dick was the head of a multi-billion dollar company called Halliburton. How does Halliburton make its millions? Why through oil, of course. Dick has been, single-handedly, the biggest proponent of the war in Iraq. His best arguments for going to war have consisted in either his trademark smirk at whatever his opponents have to say, or simply telling senetors to go fuck themselves. (Yes, he literally told a senator who was asking too many questions about Iraq, prior to the invasion, to go fuck himself.)

Donald Rumsfeld: Secretary of Defence; PNAC founder--This is the callous son of a bitch who decided to send our troops into Iraq with little armor and far too few men. When questioned about why he would do such a thing his response was that you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. Well yes, that's true. My question then would be why the hell did he want to pretty much dismantle the army before sending them to fight on two fronts? Oh yeah, because he wanted to prove that less is more, militarily speaking.

Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove: Deputy Chief of Staff-- How much does it say for a man when even those who depend upon him for their political careers refer to him as Turd Blossom? This man is a real work of art. In order to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War (a seemingly favorite pass-time for all these new-found war-hawks), he joined the University of Utah--but only part-time. It should also be noted that as soon as the threat of being drafted had ended, he promptly dropped out. As the "architect" of Bush's administration he has commited offenses from leaking the name of a covert CIA agent, to using racist inuenndo against political opponets.

The list of shit-heads that Dubbya employs could go on for several pages, however I've neither the time nor the patience for such an undertaking. The list of all the shit-head maneuvers commited by even the few men I have listed, would take several thousand pages.

Tomorrow's post: Domestic Policies Gone Awry.

An Anniversary

Today marks the five year anniversary since the attacks on the World Trade Center. I'm certain, however, that this has slipped no one's attention, being as all the major news organizations have been harping on that subject since you awoke this morning. Well, now it's my turn to harp on it for a bit.

To begin with, my deepest sympathies and condolences go out to all who lost loved one's on that fateful day. That being said, I would like to take a quick look at what we as a nation have done over the last five years in response.

First we went to Afghanistan, where we toppled the Taliban and scattered al-Qaeda. This was done with international support, and a firm sense of justice felt by nearly everyone here in the U.S. If only we could have stayed focused on that task...but alas, our fearless (thoughtless?) leader had other fish that he was looking to fry.

(Just as a side note--am I the only one who heard him tell reporters that he wasn't concerned about Osama just a couple of years ago? And now all the rehtoric has come round full circle and the whole reason we're in Iraq, strangely enough, is because of Osama. Does anybody actually buy this shit? If so, it's probably the same people who buy Toby Keith records.)

Next we began to initiate a number of security measures, most of which destroy the very civil liberties that we are trying to protect--unauthorized wiretapping, secret prisons, the use of torture to secure confessions (can you say Salem witch trials?) and these are just the tactics that have been admitted to. All that's left is to start using chemical weapons on our own people...oh wait, we already installed Mike Leavitt as head of the E.P.A.

(Another quick sidenote: after his short tenure as head of the E.P.A. Leavitt switched over to head of Health and Human Services. To those of you who are not absolutely terrified by the prospect of this, this is the same man who unleashed whirrling disease upon all the lakes and streams in Utah so that his family business could stay going. Let us hope that he doesn't regard humans with the same disdain he has for wildlife.)

After that we proceeded to make the most monumental mistake in the history of America. We invaded Iraq. Not only was this completely pointless, but it was done in such a haphazard way that one would suspect the war plans had been drawn up by a half-retarded three year old. I apologize to all the half-retarded three year olds who may be reading this and taking offense at being compared to Rumsfield.

But alas, I feel I am becoming quite inebriated, and so I must bide my time and wait 'til I can further elucidate upon the particulars of why the Iraq war is so incredibly stupid. Until then...