Can I make decode(errors="ignore") the default for all strings in a Python 2.7 program?

I have a Python 2.7 program that writes out data from various external applications. I continually get bitten by exceptions when I write to a file until I add .decode(errors="ignore") to the string being written out. (FWIW, opening the file as mode="wb" doesn't fix this.)

Is there a way to say "ignore encoding errors on all strings in this scope"?