[HCCN] Are You Nuts?

[Yosarian]

Are You Nuts?

"The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the  
man who has lost everything except his reason."
G.K. Chesterton

In these troubled times, it is easy to see others as mentally unfit  
because the crazy things they do. No one in his right mind would do  
those crazy things! Nuts, crazy, insane, mad, bonkers, plum loco, out  
of your mind, mentally ill.. Do they all mean the same thing? Not a  
clinical diagnosis, rather an expression that they would not do those  
things if they were okay. But how objective is a label of crazy?
It is generally accepted that those who are in good mental health  
will respond rationally to situations, and the benchmark for  
rationality is enlightened self interest. If someone is observed  
hitting himself on the head with a hammer, that person must be crazy  
because it is difficult to see how hammer blows to the head are in  
anyone's self interest. The humane thing to do would be to take the  
hammer away because hammer blows to the head are no help. But what if  
they were? It would be crazy to take the hammer away. Okay, that's  
not too likely, but most examples of "crazy" are not so clearly cut.

Before the Renaissance, or "rebirth" of civilization after the Dark  
Ages (when learning was the exclusive province of colored people), it  
was commonly believed in Europe that Earth was flat, and the center  
of the universe. Amazingly complicated models were devised to prove  
how observed cosmological events occurred in a geocentric universe.  
Those who did question the flat Earth theory, despite the findings of  
Greek acedemics two millenia previously, were tortured until they  
confessed, then burned at the stake by God fearing monomaniacal  
religionists. It would be crazy in 1400 CE to say Earth was round!
Today however it is commonly held that Earth is a spheroid, and  
photographic evidence tends to support that theory. The heliocentric  
model of the solar system explains celestial motion much more  
cogently, and simply than the complex and arcane geocentric theory.  
It would be crazy to assert today that Earth is flat, or that Sun  
circles Earth.

The most discussed case of world craziness is Adolph Hitler. Given  
the expansion of democracy and rule of law during the twentieth  
century, it was crazy to simply round up people indiscriminately and  
murder them wholesale. Ipso facto, Hitler was insane. But wait a  
minute.. He was charismatic, brilliant, a serious student of history,  
compelling orator, prolific writer and master planner, worshipped by  
millions, obeyed by sensible, stand up regulars who stood to lose  
everything if they were mistaken. Germans in the Third Reich would be  
crazy to disobey Hitler, because the likelihood they would be  
arrested, tortured and murdered by the Gestapo. Who is so crazy today?
Adolph Hitler was steeped in the European tradition of anti semitism  
which for hundreds of years taught that Jews are evil, the source of  
social unrest, not fully human. Because their low status in Medieval  
society, Jews were relegated to handling money, the "filthy lucre"  
which would soil the hands of the aristocracy, prepositioning certain  
Jews to control global finance with the emergence of the nation/ 
state. It was within that context the paperhanger recognized the hand  
of the "Jewish banking conspiracy" behind slavery and suffering of  
masses of people. From an historical perspective, it is crazy to  
think that Jewishness is enough to make anyone a conspirator. But if,  
as Hitler believed, that WERE true, it would be eminently rational to  
attempt to eliminate all Jews as a precondition for a Thousand Year  
Reich of peace and prosperity under the umbrella of Aryan mastery. It  
is tragic that Hitler could not differentiate between conspirators  
and all Jews, but with what he knew, he was acting in the best  
interests of his people. Is that really crazy?

9/11 changed everything. Horrified New Yorkers and people around the  
world watched transfixed as pathetic victims plummeted and buildings  
crumbled. Though unable to defend America against attack, the W  
administration by the end of the day had identified Arabs as the  
perpetrators while morsels of their remains still smoldered. Aroused  
by outrage, the American public was moved to wreak righteous  
retribution upon the madmen who had murdered thousands, and in the  
persons of their representatives, practically unanimously agreed to  
short circuit the Constitution and hand the pResident unlimited war  
powers, though without taking the time to read through proposed  
legislation, or discuss it at any length. If, as Americans are told,  
Arabs hate American freedom so much they are willing to kill  
themselves to attack the U.S., it is entirely rational to wage war  
against Arabs, including women and children in their homes in Kabul,  
Baghdad, Ramallah, Beirut, and soon Damascus, and Tehran (they aren't  
Arabs? What the hay! Close enough!) in order to extend and perpetuate  
Pax Americana into the future.
But what if it wasn't Arabs? There are so many inconsistencies,  
ambiguities and impossibilities evident in the event, that an  
immediate finding of Arab hijackers as culprits may be premature. Why  
couldn't the greatest military the world has ever known stop the  
jets? Why didn't the secret service scramble the commander in chief  
at Booker Elementary? Why did WTC 7, not struck by aircraft, collapse  
later in the day? are pertinent questions about 9/11 that are  
glaringly unanswered, and remain today largely unaddressed.
What if it was all a theatrical production, with the role of  
perpetrators played by Arabs who thought something else was going on?  
What if there were no Arabs at all (the only proof being accusations  
originating from the White House)? What if the true planners and  
executors of 9/11 were not Arabs, but highly respected top ranking  
officials of the U.S. government forwarding an undisclosed agenda of  
global domination by the corporate elite? In THAT case it would be  
crazy to start attacking Arabs, Islamists, Easterners, dark skinned  
people, foreigners, because if they didn't already hate America, they  
sure do now!

People have always sickened and died. Not everyone is adequately  
endowed with health in a contagious world and tragedy has always  
stalked those who aren't. Toward the end of the twentieth century a  
new plague was identified - AIDS. Though understanding of microbial  
infection was still in its first century historically, it seemed  
probable that a virus was causing the otherwise unexplained wasting  
deaths of homosexuals, Haitiens and drug users. No such virus has  
been isolated and identified, but postulated based upon  
circumstantial evidence, named HIV, and announced to the world as the  
cause of AIDS. Given understanding of infectious disease vectors, and  
the supposition that sexual activity would spread the new plague to  
everyone eventually, it would be crazy not to fund research into  
isolating the virus and developing a cure. Meanwhile, it also would  
be crazy to have sex with anyone who might harbor the virus, or even  
sit in a classroom or shake hands with someone who might be infected.
What if that didn't matter? What if there were no HIV? What if HIV  
were a myth deployed to distract people from mounting evidence that  
toxic lifestyles cause immune system breakdown? In that case it would  
be crazy to continue to use electric devices, cars, cosmetics,  
chemical medicines and a plethora of products intended to make life  
more fun, and incidentally provide shareholders with more wealth. As  
with 9/11, the evidence about AIDS is inconclusive, and the official  
explanation is Byzantine in complexity. Why do many AIDS patients  
test negative for HIV? Why do so many HIV positives lead healthy  
lives until they take "life saving" AIDS drugs? Why are accredited  
researchers who question HIV=AIDS defunded, harassed and threatened  
with so much vehemence? If there is no HIV, and AIDS is the result of  
poisoning, it would be as crazy to spend billions on the red herring  
of viral research as it would be to stop having sex.

Conspiracy theories are the latest craze. Anyone who doesn't like the  
way things are pastes together some cockamamie theory that secret  
forces make bad things happen, to alleviate the depression of being a  
loser. It's a dog eat dog world Bub, but it's all above board. You  
have to sink or swim, but everyone is in the same boat. You don't  
work, you don't eat. Nothing is as certain as death and taxes. You  
have no one but yourself to blame for trouble if you don't follow  
orders. To rulers, order means no running, no shouting, everyone in  
his place doing his job, not disrupting others with urban myths about  
conspiracies that don't exist. The mere mention of suspicion that all  
is not as advertised is enough to ruin anyone's life. People who  
believe wars are based on lies, or elections are preordained, or  
economy is a vast pyramid scheme to centralize wealth through  
slavery, or society is operated by aliens lacking humanity are  
PARANOID. They are marginalized by society, ridiculed, fired,  
ostracized, rendered, and murdered. It would be crazy to believe in  
the CONspiracy!
But what if it were true? What if the "people" who control  
governments, institutions, the world are not people at all, but  
shambling, unspeakable, inhuman things with a taste for blood and no  
concept of compassion? What if "reality" was really an elaborate  
stage show of special effects and everything that is known to history  
was falsified by those who have special interest in the fascist view  
of order? To citizens, order means due process, the Bill of Rights,  
equality under the law, a level playing field upon which they can run  
and shout when they want to. If the CONspiracy is real, it would be  
crazy to pay taxes, vote for candidates, buy plastic products, or  
obey alien orders. Given that context, a SubGenius finding cause  
against the CONspiracy is the epitome of rationality, enlightened  
self interest and robust mental health.

Braise "BoB"!
Reverend Doktor C. Sarian
reverenddoktor.freakwitch.net
Mid Coast Sub Church of Paranoia
Church of the SubGenius

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