If everyone bullies except us -
if everyone caves to peer pressure except us -
if everyone is wrong except us -
then -
*
If everyone silences except us -
if everyone surrenders to populous mobs except us -
if everyone is biased except us -
then -
*
doubt everyone? doubt everything? until -
what's fiction and what's lie is everyone and everything except what's real and what's true is us and ours?
Loopholes Here for Us
If I want to make you believe me -
do I have to tell you the truth?
After all, no one hears what they don't want to hear, so why make you not hear me by telling you what you won't believe? As if belief believing has anything to do with truth truthing.
If I promise to be honest -
do I have to be, well, honest?
After all, "I do what I want and I say what I want and I'm terrifically-not-to-blame when shit-goes-terribly-sideways," is not a twenty-four karat hallmark-of-trustworthiness, is it? As if "I-promise" has anything to do with "because-integrity."
*
I do what I want.
What do you care who or what I'm bullying or silencing? What do you care if I'm caving to peer pressure or surrendering to populous mobs? What do you care if I'm wrong or biased?
Are you the boss of me? The lord of all? The saint of saints? To judge me? By what you believe I am that I do?
*
Don't you do the same?
As if your consumed flags planted and posted, neither bully nor silence "because identity is liberty" you say. Likewise your ideas echoic of paid opinions affirmed and amplified, neither cave nor surrender to mobs of your peers and their influence "because loyalty is freedom" you say.
*
You also say -
you care about everyone but you.
I say -
who and what do you really care about? and why?
Hint:
it's not me
and it's not good.
*
You care about you. When you say you care about everyone but you - that's what you say to be heard and that's what you say to be believed.
So long as neither your words nor you - "have to be honest or true" - to be heard or to be believed -
then believing-one-thing-and-espousing-another hand-in-glove-with saying-one-thing-and-exercising-another is you.
Until doubt is the only certainty, right?
*
That's the loophole of loopholes.
When nothing means nothing -
then -
what's real and what's true?
Doubt and belief. You.
As if the big stick is fair because the big stick says so; and the fair weather vane is right because the fair weather vane says so; and the partisan is just because the partisan says so.
What then -
am I?
The "everyone." Who merit distrust and defamation. Because you.
*
But -
if everyone stands with you - then aren't you one of everyone?
That's the loophole of loopholes, too.
To be one of everyone and exceptional, at once; to be liar and honest, in the same breath; to be only human and consequential, en masse.
Because the loophole of loopholes is here not to waste -
here for us.
*
Moreover -
if everything exists for you - then nothing exists that impede what-you-will. Except demons of your own invention. If what's real and what's true is what you believe - then there exists neither reason nor evidence to disbelieve what you yourself make believe. Whether you're right or wrong.
Not only is that too, the loophole of loopholes -
that is your stand.
*
To stand for good -
is to stand alone as the eye of a hurricane, as stillness with endless and circular and reiterative grievance and outrage and misrule.
Which is to say -
loopholes, endless and circular and reiterative, for which you stand and eye, for which I stand are as night and day as -
you and I.
Note I
The loophole is the way we get away with it.
Like so:
We're not bullying. We're exercising our right to believe what we want to believe is real and true. Moreover, our right to believe what we want to believe is enforced through our silencing of dissent. Even when what we want to believe is racist and sexist and nationalist and of course, religionist.
Since our right to believe what we want to believe is our practice of religion, our practice of religion is righteous. Even when our canon and dogma avow and sanctify racism and sexism and nationalism and religionism. Therefore, our wrongs and our biases are neither wrong nor biased.
Or like so:
Our lived experiences, shared and dramatized, are real and true. Moreover, our voice cannot be diminished; derived from our identity and legitimately possessed, our power cannot be denied. As for those who would dispossess us from our identity and disempower us from our voice, their time is not now and their time is up.
We're not mobs who demand capitulation. What's real and what's true is what we believe. Fullstop. Even when what we believe monolithizes everyone by color and wealth and ideology and industry. Because identity so empowered is fair and right and just - so long as such identity so empowered is not theirs.
The loophole is the way we get away with it.
Like so:
Who's wrong is not us. We stand alone, therefore we're not sheep flocking to the bidding of globalists. Neither are we. We stand alone, therefore we're not afraid of armed corruption and we're not backing down. Nor are we. We stand alone, therefore we're leaning into fictional stories that need to be cast. Nor are we. We stand alone, therefore we're rising up against the monied and the established.
Because what's ours is what's ours. Not only are we not wrong and not only are we not biased - our solutions are not wrong and our solutions are not biased. Because our facts are our facts.
Or like so:
You're against us - therefore you are them. Believers in fictions and lies. Believers in what's not real and what's not true. You're everyone - except us.
The loophole is -
(i) what we believe manifests and defines "what's real for us" and "what's true for us" - (ii) therefore ignoring and opposing everyone except ourselves and our own - is "really" and "truly" - the practice of what we ourselves believe - (iii) never mind believing-one-thing-and-espousing-another hand-in-glove-with saying-one-thing-and-exercising-another - (iv) such that the "practicing of beliefs" is the getting away with loopholes - (v) whether said beliefs are ours or theirs or meaningless altogether.
*
Note II
Though reason and evidence abound -
that neither race, color, sex, wealth, nation, ideology, religion, nor industry are "who we are" and that neither race, color, sex, wealth, nation, ideology, religion, nor industry are "who they are" -
we say:
this is not only categorically "where we come from" - this is categorically "where they come from."
This is the fixed persistence of the "indelible virtue of monolithizing."
This is the loophole that affirms -
"in the right hands" and "for just purposes"
monolithizing is neither wrong nor harmful.
That every hand affirms itself "right" and that every purpose affirms itself "just" - is
the loophole too.
Because every hand and every purpose is everyone and everything - and
the exception
for whom the loophole is here not to waste.
*
Note III
Loopholes are words by which actions are permitted - not by explicit approval - but rather by absence of explicit prohibition.
Never mind consequences.
As if "I do what I want and I say what I want" is consequenceless. To wit, so many labor so vigilantly to effect the "freedom" to exercise loopholes because there is no price too great for such "right" to wrong.
*
Note IV
Loopholes conjure "tax loopholes" and "contract loopholes" and "getting away with something that should not be gotten away with if only such loopholes were closed" and so on and so forth;
but loopholes are far more than "ad hoc" or "bad apple" evasions and avoidance of meritorious consequence.
They are -
availing oneself of advantages and exploits - while aware that such advantages and exploits are neither explicitly nor affirmatively "right" - while saying to one's audience of one to everyone :
only a fool would not scorn the rein of integrity and only a fool would not use what exists to be abused.
This "culture" of parasitic disdain of explicitly and affirmatively fair and just conduct isn't limited to taxes and contracts; this "culture" is everywhere as
the "freedom" to exercise loopholes is the "right" to wreck the ship and take everything and everyone with it - and
only a fool would not.
*
Note V
Loopholes as "praiseworthy," as "identities," as "free will because free," ad infinitum exist because we manifest and define "what's real" and "what's true;" it's unlikely that loopholes or loopholers will ever not exist. Therefore the choice before us is not if or how or why or even to "close" loopholes; the choice before us is to loophole or not.
Thereupon, the choice before us is to disbelieve loopholers' praiseworthiness; to ignore loopholers' identities; to oppose loopholers' acts; or not.
Needless to say, while I'm not holding my breath, I know:
the possible is possible.
M
