[A Preface]
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
--Joseph Goebbels
A fiat truth is similar to the Big Lie idea popularized by the Nazi propagandist, Joesph Goebbels, to whom I feel is owed some credit for saying the quiet part out loud--nowadays, it is just bad for business to do so.
The word 'fiat,' from the Latin 'let it be done,' was used at the beginning of medieval Latin proclamations and demands. As such, a fiat truth is something that, by common understanding is considered to be true, not by logical reasoning, but instead by the suave and cunning sorcery of the hegemons.
This post will serve as the first in a series where I will discuss the fiat truths I've come to know by my own experience.
#Fiat Truth #1: the lesser of two evils
The adage, "to choose the lesser of two evils" rears its ugly head in decision making more often that one might suppose. It is like the proverbial Kool-Aid that everyone drinks at some point or other. It paints the world in two shades of black. It is the bastard son of duality and relegates the decision-maker to a moral dolt.
How absurd would the world be if this were really the case, that decisions of real import could be chalked up to having to decide between the lesser of two evils?
Unfortunate, but I think this mode of reasoning occurs more often than the average person is willing to admit. What with the presidential elections approaching, one cannot help thinking about the two-clown--ahem--party-system. How many times must we hear the refrain, "vote for me to keep so-and-so out of office," or "our democracy depends on so-and-so not winning"? It's not that people do not realize there are other 'third-party' candidates. The truth is, it would be imprudent to 'throw away' their vote, only to help the less desirable party win. There are, for all intents and purposes, only two parties.
But does it have to be so?
For me, the conundrum is only a fiat truth. It is only true as long as the majority is made to believe it so. This, I think, is where the personal work comes into play. If everyone plugged their noses and put aside the preconception that there are only two choices, one of them bad and the other one *really * bad, then I think we would live in a much different reality. Fear, however, fueled by state propaganda, prevents this.
Therefore, I will try to produce something of a net good by writing this series discussing those fear-fueled fiat truths that I have come to experience in my own life. Perhaps, I can play a small part in combatting the propaganda. Doing so on Stacker News, and cross-posting on Nostr, is a choice I've made because I think this is where my ideas will receive the most import. For anyone who has taken the Orange Pill, the first and perhaps most difficult mental hurdle in unpacking the fabrications of hegemony--that our money is broken--has already been surmounted. Bitcoiners understand that most problems are but a corollary of the fiat problem.
Here are but a few more examples I have seen:
- Click "I Agree" to continue: or in other words, volunteer your personal data, or get lost. This is a condition for using almost every communications platform (Save for Nostr, which is not a platform but a protocol).
- Pay your taxes and be complicit in your governments mass-murder military campaign or go to jail
- Take this or that medication/vaccine or else you don't get medical treatment
- Take this vaccine or else you can't go to work
- Pay this bank or that bank (same cartel) to secure your funds, receive your salary payments, take out a mortgage, car loan, or else forgo security, social position, shelter or transportation.
- Pay for this education (indoctrination) program or fall into social ruin
These fiat truths, all have their roots in mankind's abuse, fueled by greed, of fiat currency and the systems it propagates. As such, fiat-currency is like a fruit growing on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the object of the original sin. It is part of the cross we bear, our inner jihad. It is the 9th, 'not-so-noble' truth about our inner suffering. Opting out of fiat-systems, like opting out of a US-petrol-dollar system, is intentionally made to be difficult. Bitcoin is the first step. But the real work comes in our day-to-day choices, in opting not for the lesser of two evils, but by opting for what we know to be true and just. Knowing what that is requires a communal effort and individual strength to seek self-discovery and understand things for how they really are.