The War On Bullshit

In Utopia, Thomas More argues that governments are a conspiracy of the rich to control the poor:

“Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws…”

Although some argue that Utopia is a satire, I’m not concerned with whether More was serious; I’m concerned with whether he was right. Suppose that governments were a conspiracy of the rich. What would we expect to find?

1. Most government leaders would be rich

The average net worth of President George W. Bush’s cabinet falls between $9.3 and $27.3 million. In, The Audacity of Hope, Barrak Obama points out that most senators are already rich before they go into office.

2. Poor people’s crimes will carry greater punishments than rich people’s crimes

The punishment for theft over $400 is up to a year in prison in the US and in some states repeat offenses can get life imprisonment. In Canada, theft over $5000 gets you up to 10 years. In comparison, the criminal penalties for insider trading, which may involve stealing millions, is a fine of between $10 000 and $100 000. Why is it that if you steal $10 000 000 through insider trading, you have to pay a fine, but if you steal three cars, you can get life in prison?

3. Government would ignore the will of the poor

In response to allegations that most Americans are against the war, Dick Cheney said, “So?” I rest my case.

4. The rich would pay less taxes

It’s pretty bad when Warren Buffett (as in the billionaire) pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, there’s something really wrong.

5. Government will bailout the rich but not the poor.

As pointed out by Stephen Colbert, when rich people lost big money on BearStearns going bankrupt, the Fed stepped in to bail them out. When poor people lost their houses in the recent mortgage disaster, did anyone bail them out? No.

Conclusion

Assuming that government is a conspiracy of the rich allows us to make startling accurate predictions. However, Ptolemy’s model of the solar system can make the same claim, despite being totally ass backwards. None of this is conclusive, but it is thought provoking.

Health and fitness has to be right up there with religion on the stupid-bullshit-ometer. Much of the drivel belched forth by health and fitness magazines, tv shows books and websites these days is not only inaccurate, it’s dangerously misleading. Yesterday I saw a so-called “personal trainer” showing an 8-year-old how to do squats, incorrectly, at my gym. I mean, if you’re going to screw up the boy’s bone development by getting him on weight training when he’s too young, why not fuck up his knees while you’re at it, right?

Tangent aside, here are five fitness myths that are doing serious damage in western society.

5. Walking is the Best Exercise

Best in what sense? Lowest impact? No, that’s swimming. Most enjoyable? No, that’s sex. Can do it anywhere? No, you can’t do it in a car, and almost anywhere you can walk you can also run. So what gives?

Sure, walking is great when you’re 80 years old, and you have to start somewhere if you’re so completely out of shape that a light jog will give you heart attack. However, there’s no reason that most people cannot or ought not to be doing something more intense.

4. Skinny = Healthy

Healthy means you have the stamina to run 10 or 15 kilometers, the strength to lift your body weight, and the flexibility to bend over and put your hands flat on the floor with your knees locked. This has nothing to do with whether your ribs protrude from your skin. Unfortunately, in a society where obesity is so prevalent, people have begun confusing the anorexic physique with the olympic physique.

3. Lifting Weights will Add Bulk

The way the magazines tell it, half an hour in the gym twice a week will turn you into Hercules. This is laughable. The average man is incapable of gaining more than about 5 pounds of muscle in a year without steroids, hormone injections, creatine and colon-stretching amounts of protein. The average woman can expect even more limited results. Making it sound like bulking up is the natural effective of lifting some 10 pound dumbbells is a horrific insult to every diehard trainee out there. You don’t accidentally put on muscle. You have to fucking well work for it.

Besides, you’ll be amazed at what swapping 5 pounds of fat for muscle will do for your looks.

2. Weight Loss Diet Plans

It’s not that any particular diet plan is bullshit, it’s that they’re ALL bullshit. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. The laws of physics make it so. Whether you eat carbs or protein or fat, whether you go over or under your weight watcher’s points, whether you eat Jenny Craig certified food or chili dogs, it’s all fucking irrelevant. All that matters is Calories In - Calories Burned = Calorie Deficit. For every 3500 calorie deficit, you’ll lose at least one pound, not counting water.

This is not to say that all combinations of food are equally healthy, just that if you burn more than you eat, you will lose weight no matter what you eat.

1. That’s Not Food You’re Eating

Much of what’s eaten in the modern, industrialized diet is not food, but synthetic, food-like substances. If it comes in a package and has ingredients you don’t recognize, it’s synthetic. White flour and anything containing it is synthetic. Corn syrup is synthetic. White rice is synthetic. White sugar is synthetic. Most cheese is synthetic. Frozen dinners are definitely synthetic. And you can bet that anything you eat at a fast food restaurant will also be synthetic. So are all sodas and much of the sugar-water that masquerades as fruit juice.

Many of these synthetic non-foods are devoid in nutrition and packed with salt, sugar and fat. If you want to be healthier, try eating real foods! You’ll be amazed at how much better you feel, how much more energy you’ll have and how much easier sleep will come.

Real foods include:
Fruits, vegetables and their juices (with no added sugar or preservatives)
free-range, organic meats, fish and eggs
Milk and natural cheese
Organic, all-natural whole-grain breads and pastas
Pepper, chilies, rosemary, thyme, sage, garlic, marjoram, basil, oregano, cloves, coriander, parsley, cumin, turmeric, mustard, bay leaves, tarragon, fennel, etc.

Flavoring real foods with spices and herbs will produce far healthier, tastier dishes that the fat, sugar and salt infused factory-food that oozes from supermarket shelves.

10. Opening on a Religious Holiday

Why should Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, the non-religious, etc. close their businesses for Christmas and Easter? This goes against separation of church and state, and freedom from religious discrimination.

9. Jaywalking

If there are no cars, who cares what color the light is? If the light says walk, but a car runs the red light, knowing you had the right of way won’t take away the pain from the broken legs you end up with. If you don’t want to get hit by a car, you ought to watch cars, not lights.

8. Legal Age

to vote, drive, drink, gamble, buy cigarettes… take your pick. They’re all equally stupid. Using age as a surrogate for maturity is about as valid as using height as a surrogate for leadership qualities. How is a 13-year-old genius less able to vote than a 30-year-old moron?

7. Possession of Marijuana

Given the absence of evidence that marijuana is dangerous, throwing people in jail for possession is just plain stupid.

6. File Sharing

I have dealt with the stupidity of prosecuting file sharers before. In summary, downloading music or movies is no more stealing from the music/movie industry than building your own rocking chair is stealing from the rocking chair industry.

5. Gay marriage / Polygamy / “anti-sodomy” laws

Who you marry is none of the State’s business. Marriage is not on official designation managed by the government, it is a bond among people. If a man wants to marry another man, or two women want to marry the same man, or two men the same woman, who cares??? Unless you are directly involved, it’s none of your concern, so if you don’t like it, you can piss off. And using “anti-sodomy” laws that are intended to protect children to throw people in jail for consensual acts among adults is bullshit.

4. Freedom of Speech/Assembly/Association in Schools

Students in public and private schools are not entitled to the basic freedoms enjoyed by adults in most civilized countries. If you are in high school and you tell your teacher that s/he is wrong, incompetent and ought to be fired, you will probably get detention. That’s because you do not have freedom of speech. When a teacher gives an entire class detention because a few students cause trouble, this violates freedom of association, and the association isn’t even voluntary! Why is this a big deal, you may ask? Well, the fact that so few people understand the importance and genuine meaning of individual freedom might have something to do with being educated in a dictatorial, collectivist, freedomless system.

3. Public Nudity

If someone decides to wander around the beach, park or streets naked, how is that hurting me? It’s not. It’s not hurting anybody. Just because something is taboo or unusual in a particular society and offends some people, doesn’t mean it should be illegal. If we made everything that offended people illegal we would no longer have anything approaching a free society.

2. Drinking in Public

This one, I have never understood. If someone sits next to me smoking, that bothers me. It smells bad, it makes my clothes smell bad, it’s poisoning me, it’s polluting the environment, yet it’s legal. If someone sits next to me drinking, it does not bother me, there isn’t much smell (most of the time), it doesn’t poison me and doesn’t hurt the environment. So what gives? Why can you smoke in public but not drink? This just doesn’t make any sense.

1. Prostitution

Why is it that paying someone to have sex with you on camera is legal, but paying someone to have sex with you off-camera is illegal? The common response is that pornography is protected under freedom of expression: that it is not about the sexual gratification of the actors. First, this is complete bullshit, as should be obvious from the recent trend toward “reality porn,” where a bunch of jackasses pay some amateur actress (i.e., call girl) to bang someone, or several people, while somebody takes a home movie. The division between porn and prostitution is much less clear-cut than it was years ago. Second, what exactly is wrong with paying someone for sexual gratification? Isn’t this what strip clubs and peep shows are all about? Criminalizing prostitution is yet another symptom of amoral, groundless religious influence in our society.

I simply cannot find any good reason for prostitution to be illegal. People argue that keeping it illegal protects women. This is manifestly false. If prostitution were legal, the prostitutes would be able to seek legal action against pimps and johns who assault them or steal from them, and police would not be able to extort sex from them in return for overlooking their indiscretions. It has Also been suggested that prostitution is inherently demeaning. Bullshit. The idea of prostitution being demeaning is inherent to our misogynistic, sex-demonizing, evangelical culture, not to the act itself. It has further been suggested that prostitution contributes to the modern slave trade. Since the penalties for slave trading ought to be significantly stiffer than the penalties for prostitution, people involved in slave trading should be prosecuted as slavers, not as pimps. Guns contribute to gun violence, but we don’t make those illegal. Corporations contribute to embezzlement, but we haven’t criminalize those yet. It’s a stupid argument. Prostitution is illegal because it offends the religious right. For me, that is not a good enough reason.