Election sickness

I can't take too much more election crap. The ads are abysmally. I saw the miscegenation ad against Harold Ford in Tennessee. Sad. And the only newsclip I saw of him responding he said "I like girls." More sad. Piling on homophobia. I mean what does it say for the qualifications of our elected officials that they must to the last man like penis-in-vagina intercourse. Of course they can't like it too much, and better not cross racial lines. If we were using the actual biological definition of race, maybe that would make sense. Of course, we're not.

There is an ad closer to home where one candidate insists that the Democrat wants to give amnesty and social security to illegal immigrants (read: dirty Mexicans) by taking away our (read: White Americans) tax breaks. Um, the tax breaks were only on the wealthy, friend. I don't recall a tax break for White Americans, but I'd surely be interested in hearing about it, if it exists.

And then John Kerry. Here's an idea. Don't botch that joke. Unfortunately, perception has become reality on this one, and everyone is perceiving that he was insulting the intelligence of the troops. No Republican really believes that, but they perceive it to be true. Unfortunately, it appears that most people don't concern themselves too much about it other than to lash out at the Democrats. What poor options we have.

And in the mix, I'm reading "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris. It's an interesting book that argues for the end of religious tolerance by non-believers. I haven't yet come across an explanation of how we are to get to a society of non-believers, but I'm real interested to see how he thinks that's going to happen. The only plausible course for that would be the destruction of all religious groups in a holy war, which is something he does discuss. And every year it seems like we are headed down that road a little further. I don't care for that option though. And yet he correctly argues that it is another litmus test for our politicians.

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Remember the Sunnis and the Shiites were going to come together in a spirit of harmony and welcome our invading Christian forces as liberators. That is exactly how it happened during the crusades, as I remember.

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It is funny to read some of the comments on the internet about Harris' book. A lot of ire by people who said, "we tried no religion before - it was called communism and it didn't work." Again, communism is an economic system. It means centrally planned control of an economy. We have a little bit of communism in the US. The no religion thing is totalitarianism. Admittedly, Communism and totalitarianism frequently go hand in hand. Totalitarianism is almost always a bad thing - centralized control by an autocratic authority - except I guess when god is the autocrat.

And to top it all off, this administration has basically eviscerated habeas corpus. Now we live free at the pleasure of the president. George, do you want to take another look at that Second Amendment friend?