“I will always err on the side of life.”
Rick Perry, signed off on 234 executions

Dearest Web Log,
This virtual space has, so far, been dedicated to my slapstick encounter with the American police state. But with the execution of Troy Davis, a few false charges and a potential year in jail seems like such a white thing to complain about. Like my socks and sandals don't match my cargo shorts or something.

Davis's murder (may read differently depending on your politics) brings to light a profoundly darker comedy called American Morality. It's funny in the way that absurd non sequiturs can be, like monkey pajamas, or Fox News.

As a nation, we don't have a real good handle on the whole morality thing.

For instance, and this is not a joke, some people profess to know with absolute certainty that our moral code was dictated by an all-powerful space ghost, who sculpted us out of magic clay, and transcribed on stone by a mountain-climbing desert-hobo who looked a great deal like Charlton Heston.

The people who believe these things are called idiots. Maybe you've seen them infesting our politics and poisoning our culture...at last week's Fox News #googledebate.

Bachmann and Perry are both – to varying degrees – Dominionists, which means they're trying to conquer the “seven mountains” of cultural power by conducting “strategic level spiritual warfare” against the “higher level demons” who currently control eastern religions, witchcraft, Freemasonry, and the heathen souls of all non Christians around the globe, like PZ Myers.

Romney and Hunstman are Mormons, which means they ostensibly believe that God lives on the planet Kolob and, if they're extra good Mormons, they'll become Gods themselves in the afterlife. And don't get me started on the Golden Tablets or the Jewish Native Americans.

Even Newt Gingrich has to pretend to be a good, God-fearing non-sack of walking excrement.

Ron Paul says he believes that life starts at conception, and that evolution is just a theory, but he only genuinely worships at the deregulated altar of Ayn Rand.

Herman Caine is a Baptist minister. And his 999 deal means that he's is definitely not the pizza-slinging Antichrist.

And Rick Santorum is so religious he's an obvious homosexual.

Troy Davis didn't come up at the debate, which, in this blogger's opinion, was a huge missed opportunity for the candidates to connect with the base by singing another patriotic rendition of “Let him die!” The crowd did boo a gay soldier, so there was that rare moment of Republican honesty – and when Mitt Romney said, “There are a lot of reasons not to vote for me.”

And that's what morality ultimately boils down to: honesty. Intellectual honesty about what makes what moral and why. (Or about global warming, vaccines, etc.) It's no longer good enough to say it's in the Bible. In Psalms, God bestows his blessing on those who smash babies against rocks. We all know it's wrong to do that, so the religious minded are forced to cherry-pick the Bible, for passages that justify their inherent ethical character – whether it's giving to the poor or dreaming of stoning homosexuals to death while they masturbate.

It's a real grab bag, across America's political-religious spectrum, but the Republican field is on record as being firmly against giving to the poor.

Our economic morality, or intense lack thereof, is a nice example of religious thinking based on intellectual dishonesty. This is Ron Paul's altar of Rand – not the Aqua Buddha guy.

All we ever hear about, and are impoverished by, is supply-side bunk. I mean, when's the last time you heard something about demand-side economics? You shouldn't have to because that phrase is redundant. The sad thing is that people don't know that...word.

(Just a side note: I bought a $5 pizza the other day using Groupon. It was so cheap because enough people signed on to the deal, and lowered the price by buying in bulk. Apply this capitalist principle to government-negotiated prescription costs or single-payer health care, however, and God will punish the U.S. for being evil, atheist socialists. Probably with a hurricane. OK?)

Continue reading »