by Rachel Grusin

Created on: May 05, 2010

There has always been an intriguing sense of cynicism that comes to my mind when I think about the countless efforts exerted by individuals and groups who find it their sole purpose to wage ideological “warfare” against the surrounding bystanders, me and you. There is a subtle war in this country that we are facing everyday, though publicized via different channels such as the “war on drugs” or the “war on illiteracy”, the true war that is ensuing is that of ideological “warfare”.

I will be bold and say that it is my opinion that our ideological “wars” are in fact very cleverly constructed concepts that are in place to push opinions, not ideas. We are besieged by the rhetoric that involves using morals and ethics to justify biased and selfish propaganda, most often by politicians and government regulated institutions.

Ideological warfare is in reality the attempted intellectual subjugation of society, it is founded solely on the idiosyncratic whims of those who are in places of power and is undoubtedly a failing phenomenon.

As long as there have been ideas there has been disagreement, this is undeniable, it is a common characteristic of the personality of human nature. There have been countless disputes amongst great theologians, writers, thinkers and so forth on millions of ideas and opinions and beliefs, again a reality of the human condition.

However, in the most modern of times the evolution of ideas compared to opinions has coalesced somewhat creating a distorted hybrid of the two words and their meanings, which has become an unfortunate detriment to the way we interpret them.

We must realize that many of the ideological “wars” that are present in this country today are actually founded upon and continue to thrive on opinion based motivations.

Over time there has been an increased emphasis on the “war on drugs”, which is essentially a government crack down on users, importers and exporters of illegal substances.

However, this “war on drugs” over time has developed into a cancer that propagates domination and close mindedness, opposed to understanding the true underlying issues through education and problem solving. To begin with the “war on drugs” is completely abstract.

It is impossible to enact war upon an inanimate object, furthermore it is impossible to win a war against an inanimate object. The “war on drugs” fails to realize the

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