You Will Die
was born out of my misery stemming from youthful ignorance of taboo topics, and was inspired by
Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
(1996) by Peter McWilliams. That book pointed out the absurdity of victimless crimes. This book explains how taboos have caused McWilliams’ arguments for freedom to falter in our supposedly “free” country.

Although victimless crimes were its impetus,
You Will Die
is not limited to taboos with criminal ramifications. While researching, I was amazed to discover the extent to which even minor taboos cause grief and distort our society’s views about our past, about what is natural, about what is “right,” and about the truth.

The intent of this book is not to advocate all tabooed activities and beliefs, but to present them honestly so that its readers can make their own well-informed decisions
. A value judgment that this book does make is that it is wrong to persecute people who come to different conclusions. To criminalize acts that do not harm others is to deny them the pursuit of happiness that inspired the American Revolution.

You Will Die
covers scads of history. This is important for four reasons:

(1) By learning how taboos developed, one can appreciate just how frail and dishonest their bases are.

(2) Only by seeing their defenders’ policies historically can one appreciate how consistently and thoroughly they have failed; in some cases, for millennia.

(3) By seeing their defenders’ propaganda historically one can recognize how deceptive techniques are recycled and easily spot their present forms.

(4) While researching, I was enchanted by the courageous people who have battled irrational persecution from taboos, such as the magnificent Victoria Woodhull, and was appalled by the deceit and hypocrisy used by those who create
and maintain them, such as the despicable Harry Anslinger. Their stories have been glossed over in textbooks, leaving most Americans ignorant about the true heroes and villains of our past. Their stories deserve to be told so that the populace can better discern the true heroes and villains of today.

Their stories also merit coverage so that current leaders realize history will hold them accountable. As soon as memories fade, textbook historians and the popular media will swathe our figureheads in a patriotic sheen so as to reflect America’s greatness. For example, the sexploits demonstrated in the appendix, “Great Philanderers: American Presidents,” may remain unknown to most Americans, but at least the readers of this book will know just how egregiously hypocritical the American government’s billion-dollar sexual morality campaign is.

This book does not have to be read from cover to cover. Feel free to choose sections that interest you from the contents. Outside of the introduction and the end, the chapters are autonomous and are broken into distinct units: (1) a first-person passage that intimately relates how the taboo has affected one person, (2) a section entitled “What It Is,” describing the tabooed subject, (3) a section, “The Taboo,” describing how the taboo is currently enforced, and self-explanatory sections entitled (4) “Its Origin,” and (5) “Repercussions.”

Thank you for taking the time to read
You Will Die
. Constructive criticism and insights are welcome and can be made at
Suburra.com
. The first-person narratives that begin each chapter are a mixture of fact and fiction.

BOOK: You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos

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