DICKHEAD

by Ross Sharp

Here are some words from an article typed by a dickhead …

“regressive left”
“lofty liberal ideals espoused by such leftists and their sordid output”
“regressive leftist denouncers of “Islamophobia””
“regressive leftists”
“regressive leftists”
“turncoat pseudo-liberals”
“progressive journalists”
“regressive leftists”
“regressive leftist attacks”
“So-called progressives”
“those who mouth liberal shibboleths”

A “theme” emerges.

The article was typed by one Jeffrey Taylor in defence of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a woman who, as Taylor notes, ”suffered genital mutilation, donned the hijab and joined the Muslim Brotherhood, escaped a forced marriage and fled Africa for Holland, mastered Dutch and earned a graduate degree from a prestigious university, abandoned Islam after the 9/11 attacks awakened her intellectually, got herself elected to the Dutch parliament, publicly denounced the abuse suffered by immigrant Muslim women in Holland, wrote the screenplay for a short film about misogyny in Islam (for which its director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered by an Islamist in Amsterdam and for which his killer condemned her to death as well), found herself (following controversy over her asylum status) immigrating, in 2006, to the United States (where she was welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick as a “very courageous and impressive woman”), and established a foundation to protect women from honor killings and aid women’s development globally.”

For someone like Hirsi Ali, having endured, suffered and survived these deprivations, I very much doubt she needs “defending” by some random knobhead for whom the non-word “leftist” appears to be something of a nervous tic.

Whilst I am familiar with her name, I have not read Hirsi Ali’s books, and I have only read one book from a so-called New Atheist, Christopher Hitchens’ “God Is Not Great”, a dreary, tedious dummy-spit from a (by then) ageing irrelevancy who makes his point in the introduction, then proceeds to repeat it for several hundred pages.

I get it.

Shut. Up.

I no more need to read a book instructing me as to why religion of any brand is dangerously destructive and violent nonsense, than I need to read one which tells me it is not.

I drew my own conclusions by my own volition, not through teachings or instruction of any kind from anybody, but from sheer observance, observance of human nature and behaviour, observance from an early age, and these conclusions led me to the decision (as opposed to the “belief” or “non-belief”) that religion, faith, ideology, belief itself, is bollocks.

I do not need to believe in a chair in order to sit on it, nor do I need believe in a footpath in order to walk it. Things are what they are until they are not, and this is mine, not yours, nor a criticism of yours, nor of anybody else, but could you kindly keep it to your fucking selves and fuck off with it.

Please?

The “leftist” thing, this non-word.

It has come to prominence these last several years, used mostly by rightists, conservativists and libertarianists (yes, you saw what I did there), the likes of Taylor, Andrew Fucking Bolt, Gerard Henderson, Rowan Dean, and others of their ilk, chiefly as means of describing those who they do not agree with and who do not agree with them, on all manner of things, whether these things be religious, political or social in nature, a dull and lazy label, used in and with contempt, the easier to dismiss a person or people with, rather than engage with anything those people say or do …

The “Catholic”. Robes. Ceremony. Rape.

The “Jew”. Greed.

The “Muslim”. Terrorist.

The “Feminist”. Castrator.

The “Single Mother”. Whore.

And so on and so forth.

I do not live a “left-wing” life or “right-wing” life, I have no idea what that would entail.

How I like my coffee (flat white, no sugar) is not a political statement. Where I have worked, for whom, and the nature of it these last forty years, no. Where I have lived, no. What I eat (anything mostly, Indian, Italian yes please thanks), no. My race (Caucasian), nationality (Australian), no. My sexuality (heterosexual, not a “lifestyle” choice, no). My taste in music, books, movies, art, no.

If you were to ask me my “religion”, I would answer “None”. If then you were inclined to label me an “atheist” or an “agnostic”, I would say no, do not presume to assign me a label so that you may “process” my existence on this earth or in your presence, no, get fucked. If you were to ask me my politics, I would say, “I don’t know what that means, I have no politics, I’m a fucking person”, no.

I am not a Marxist for agreeing with this, no …

“The final stages of capitalism, Marx wrote, would be marked by developments that are intimately familiar to most of us. Unable to eaxpand and generate profits at past levels, the capitalist system would begin to consume the structures that sustained it … It would, as it has, increasingly relocate jobs, including both manufacturingand professional positions, to countries with cheap pools of laborers. Industries would mechanise their workplaces … Politics would in the last stages of capitalism become subordinate to economics, leading to political parties hollowed out of any real political content and abjectly subservient to the dictates and money of global capitalism”

You can see it, it’s there, yes.

No ideology. Observance. Reason. Logic. Facts.

From Taylor’s article (my emphasis)…

“It’s about power, and Islam is a political movement … the Christian powers have accepted the separation of the worldly and the divine.  We don’t interfere with their religion, and they don’t interfere with the state.  That hasn’t happened in Islam.”

Now that’s just being deliberately fucking thick, yes.

Your religion, your beliefs?

They’re yours. Keep them. Use them for yourself.

I choose, do you understand that, I choose not to share them, to pay them no lip-service, to be no apologist for crimes committed in their name, in the name of faith, a Messiah, a Prophet, this and that, mean nothing to me and never will, so save your fucking time and energy. For yourself.

Leftist. Leftard. Libtard. Bleeding Heart. Liberal (small “l”). Socialism. Marxism, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, this and that.

What do these things even mean, what are they expected to, in the face of a life lived in a world completely oblivious to them, these absurd, ridiculous, artificial constructs of fantasy, nonsense, belief, faith in a symbol, a thing, one person to whom you are so eager to submit, to surrender, and then demand others to do same at the threat of violence, banishment, an eternity of suffering, punishment, exorcism from civilisation, so-called.

To return to and borrow from Taylor’s creative typing “tic”, for those who “mouth” ideological “shibboleths”?

Just fuck off.

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In comments? Don’t even think about it.