“Purple Haze all in my brain” – Jimi Hendrix
I am beyond sick of the battle between Red & Blue in this country.
Of course I think we can put a lot of the blame on the imbecile in the White House, who in the last year or so has finally been seeing his constituency bailing on him, (just in time for the election, by the way. His peeps still loved him last year for some reason). I think some of the blame has to go to all of these talking heads on both sides too. I found myself getting caught up listening to them go at each other. Until I annoyed myself enough, that is. I don’t recall a time in my life seeing this kind of division within our borders. Nor have I seen equal disdain from other countries for us. You tell some people this and they’ll then accuse you of hating America. I’ve had it with this bullshit. I don’t know what I would do without Stewart & Colbert. (Actually, since the writer’s strike, I guess I do know what I’ll do… play through more levels of Champions of Norrath 2. I’m already a 20th level Cleric, you’ll be happy to know).
Speaking of Clerics, I would be thrilled if we could lose the “Christ is on my side” part of the debates as well. First of all,,. there are a lot of Americans who don’t give a shit for religion (including yours truly). Secondly, it is virtually impossible to be able to have a meeting of the minds in creating a government if you have a foundational difference to what life is about. If you believe in God, and believe that your god is THE God, then you’ll want the laws of your government to reflect that god’s wishes. Unfortunately, that means that everyone else’s god (or lack of God more importantly) are following laws that they don’t believe in! It’s a big fuck you to someone else’s god or non-god. And that’s why we need to continue to separate church & state. You need to have a respect for all religions in government if you want to have a free country, but you equally have to have a respect for NON-religious parties as well. You should govern based upon the needs of all the people, and not by any set of rules by any spiritual beliefs. I thought that’s why churches don’t pay taxes! They don’t get penalized for teaching their beliefs and the congregation can enjoy their religious freedom. Meanwhile the government can focus it’s attention to making itself work for it’s people. The system works!
So I get perturbed when these asshole politicians & pundits wave the Jesus flag in the face of other Americans. It seems like the loudest of these are FAR from what Christ taught in the bible. You can’t want to commit genocide of people and be a Christian, I’m sorry to tell you. I don’t recall a chapter in the New Testament where Jesus wanted to pulverize all of the Pharisees. I thought the point was that he COULD have done that, but rather chose to set an example of how his followers should conduct themselves. When you challenge someone with this, they’ll throw out what usually turns out to be an Old Testament verse. The Bible is a wealth of comebacks ready to be tossed at an unexpectant victim. You could say to someone: “That guy is a jerk,” and the Bibler can say: “Jesus said turn the other cheek”. Then you could say: “Jesus said turn the other cheek,” and they could reply: “He also said that he didn’t come to make peace, but with a sword”. Really, it’s a no-win situation. It’s like trying to determine which one of your daily horoscopes is what REALLY is going to happen to you.
Regardless what puddin-head gets into office (they all look bad to me this time around), I REALLY hope that we as Americans can start mending our fences within and without our borders. We’ve always had differences but at least held the common ground that we were together as a country. What’s more formidable than that? (save billions of dollars worth of nukes I guess.. heh heh).But really, it doesn’t matter if your Conservative or Liberal, religious or not, or even if you’re Red or Blue. We need to be Purple again
