I’ll be honest with you – I am profoundly discouraged. A significant portion of America is either stupid, morally bankrupt or both. Truth no longer matters, doing the right thing no longer matters, the ability to analyze an argument seems to be beyond at least a plurality of Americans, and it seems that any behavior is justified if it brings me more power and allows me to get the outcome I want. That’s true in politics, it’s true in social media, it’s true in casual conversation, it’s true in our churches (especially Evangelical and fundamentalist ones), it’s true in the judiciary – quite simply, it’s true more places than it isn’t true.

I have been thinking about this problem for a very long time. Realistically, we probably don’t have a higher percentage of idiots than we always have – though one could argue that the systematic disassembly of education by Republicans in this country has left us with more under educated people that ever before. What is different today is that we seem to have lost anything even remotely resembling a moral compass. That’s a situation that began with the political right crawled into bed with the religious right and power became the idolatrous god of both.

I have heard many people say that we will have to come together as a nation, that the left and the right and everyone in between will have to find a way to get along. I’m not so sure. When I see people in all walks of life advocating policies and practices which hurt other people so they can get ahead, when I see people supporting a President who is profoundly mentally ill and quite possibly devoid of a conscience, what I see is evil. I am not inclined to make nice with evil. Sorry, Charlie.

For a more in depth look at the issue of evil, check my other blog (www.theinterspiritualtraveler.org) tomorrow.