Conventional wisdom has always assumed Religion = Morality. Without religion, we have no morality, and without morality, we have no basis for ethical conduct in society. Over the last 30 years, every time the pollsters have asked about Americans' "Faith Profile", the number of people self-identifying as Atheist goes up a little. It's now believed to be anywhere from 5% (when respondents are asked directly) to a high of maybe 25-30% (in a study where the methodology was more subtle). One thing I find pretty interesting is the possible confluence of a shifting Religious Profile and the changes in crime rates. (ie: a falling crime rate is coincidental with the rise in atheism) We're told that religious people must be good people because they're religious, which invites the inference that atheists must be bad people because they don't have that religion thing to keep them in line. But while a full-blown 70-80% of Americans in the general population are either affiliated with a specific religion, or at least self-identify as "religious / believers", 99.93% of the people in prison here in USAmerica Inc self-identify as "religious / believers".
Flip side: 5-30% of Americans at large are non-bleievers, while 0.07% of our prison population are non-believers. This does not prove anything - gotta be careful with the whole Correlation thing. Not everybody lying down with their eyes closed is dead. But, as we start this next silly season of electioneering and clownery, we need to leave all of the Purity Tests out of it - including the one where we try to measure a candidate's worth by their willingness to abdicate part of their responsibilities to an imaginary friend.
.@BarackObama says being a man isn't about 'eight-pound chains' or 'women around you twerkin',' it's about being a good human.pic.twitter.com/89ufZyifUN
So here we are at the beginning of another election cycle. Not crazy about Warren? Cool. Think Beto just don't cut? Fine. Sick to death of all the Biden memes? OK. Bernie's 2 years past his freshness date? Awesome. I'm not asking you to keep it all under your hat. I'm not telling you to sit down and shut up. You should stand up and you should speak up. But don't lose your shit just because I like somebody who you're convinced is a DINO, and the new Darling Of The Wall Street Crowd, and nothing more or less than the embodiment of the Evil Duopoly and blah blah blah. Get the fuck over yourself. Everybody running for the Dem nomination is a better choice than the Flaming Racist Daddy State Asshole currently steering the entire world directly into the sun. EVERY FUCKING ONE OF 'EM
WaPo ran a story yesterday about a USCG officer being arrested for planning to launch violent attacks on the people he thought needed to die - politicians journalists judges etc. “The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country”
"Rarely seen". The world in general (and this country in particular) is a pretty fucked up place when a guy who - ...called for “focused violence” to “establish a white homeland” and said, “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth.” - has to be characterized as "rare" and not "completely un-fucking-heard of". And of course we can lay this shit at the feet of Cult45, and of course they'll deny it with their screaming silence.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
