Oct. 13, 2019,
Hubris spent much of this morning trying to get me to understand that there is a good possibility that the great majority of our electorate doesn’t seem to understand what the word ‘morality’ even means, much less how its’ ‘lack’ would have anything to do with the outcome of a presidential election. I’m not sure this blog series is the right place for a dissertation on an element of significant philosophical and ethical importance but I beg your indulgence and ask you to accept a simple explanation of ‘morality’ as: “The term given to what elements of ‘life conduct’ our society has (over its’ long history) determined are ‘good’ (moral) versus what are considered ‘evil’ (immoral). Simple examples are; saving a life is morally good and taking a life (as in murder) is evil or immoral, working and honestly earning money or giving money to help the poor is morally good and stealing is morally evil, telling the truth is considered morally good and telling lies is considered morally evil. The sum of moral life activity forms the basis for the ‘ethics’ of our society. The morality or ethics of a society are developed over thousands of years of accumulated wisdom as to what that society considers good (moral) conduct or evil (immoral) behavior. Neither religions nor governments determine, although both often try, what is considered good (moral) or evil (immoral). And so, I could find no other reason why our electorate had chosen Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as Presidential candidates of our two major political parties in the 2016 election, other than the fact that our society had lost its’ ‘moral compass’, i.e., its’ ability to see the difference between good and evil since, it seemed obvious to me, that both candidates were equally and easily identified as totally evil, i.e., immoral, persons.
Perhaps ‘what seemed obvious to me’ didn’t seem as obvious to 99% of our electorate who voted for them? But, that would mean the 99% can’t or don’t read books, newspapers or news magazines, don’t watch television, or listen to radio news. I do realize that our electorate is fixated on watching sporting events, visiting casinos and theme parks and looking at free porn sites but I would like to think that, sooner or later, sometime before voting in a presidential election, they would do, at least, a little bit of ‘due diligence’ as to the character of the main candidates. Ire-regardless, and in fairness to the 99%, I want to take a look at some of the ‘Other Excuses’, or reasons the members of our electorate offer for voting for Hillary or Donald. My favorite ‘excuse’ is that the voter immediately says, “I couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for_______________. (enter either Clinton or Trump). If you add up each name the total would be about 50% Trump and 49% Clinton—in politics, almost a ‘dead heat’! The next frequent reason was, “I always vote _____________ (enter either Democrat or Republican). If you add those names up it would be another dead heat at about 49% each. Now, ‘other reasons’ turned more to gender or platform position based choices. They ranged from, “it’s time we had a woman as President” to “I’m sick of ‘politics as usual’ and Trump is the essence of a non-politician.” That last one is called, ‘being wrong for the wrong reason’. The reason I ‘liked (joke)’ best was, “Trump will clean up the swamp and give working people some help!” That one seemed reasonable for, at the most, 30 days after he was elected. I’d hate to be a person who thought that way. That would be worse than being told—at the age of five—“The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus don’t really exist, they were only figments of my imagination!” But, the funniest one of all was, “I couldn’t trust _________. Again, enter either name and they will come out to almost equal totals. That one, in my opinion, came the closest to the truth—neither Clinton nor Trump were—and still are —unworthy of any trust. Now, as Uncle Joe is wavering under a cloud of Ukrainian induced suspicion, I hear talk of the DNC considering bringing Hillary out of its’ closet to face Trump in the 2020 election. God forbid! If that happens, I would be certain that the last nail has been driven in the coffin of morality.
Being only slightly perverse and, as if I truly believed that ‘morality’ was a dead issue, I just had a glimpse of the future, and by ‘the future’ I mean the 2020 election. Let’s imagine that Trump is missed by the impeachment bullet and the Republican congress persons maintain their present level of indifference to the evil Trump is doing to our society. And, let’s also imagine the DNC continues its’ brainless quest for another Obama, dumps Uncle Joe Biden as their favorite son, and resurrects Hillary as their official nominee: Donald Trump, being the evil genius he is, picks Rudy Giuliani as his VP running mate and Hillary digs deep and picks her partner-in-crime-husband, Bill (Clinton) as her VP running mate. Wow! We would finally have an election in which the candidates would compete with each other on the basis of our new motto. The electorate would get to choose which team has the most Lust— not only power and privilege— but for real sex, as well as the two other basic drivers of our modern society, Avarice and Greed! Just imagine the campaign rhetoric!
Porn sites would post platform positions and Casinos would be the voting stations. CNN, NBC, FOX and other ‘news’ stations would be obsolete and we would get our election contest up-dates through the sports book operators. It would truly be an ‘All-American’ election! Campaign donations by registered voters (not corporations, funds or trusts) would be granted a 1% of total contributions value in national lottery tickets and total campaign contributions divided by one-million dollars to determine the number of winners, and the drawing for the million dollar winners would take place the evening of the election. Every serious-money-donating American citizen would have a chance to get rich quick, the great American dream! As a fitting conclusion to this new style of the election process, the taking of the oath of office would be moved from its’ present January date to the date of the Super Bowl game and would take place just after the award of the Super Bowl trophy in the stadium where the game is played. Instead of the oath being taken by the winner placing his hand on a bible, the bible would be replaced by a first edition copy of Stormy Daniel’s new book, “The Joy of Sex, Money and Power!” That would guarantee a world class audience for democracy at work—and play!
Hubris said, laughingly, “That’s a really perverted picture of our future!” And then he said, rather angrily, “Lou, get your mind out of the gutter and let’s go for a ride!” So, putting my fantasy brain aside, I saddled Hubris up and, without thinking, pulled the cinch up a bit tight. Before I could shout Hi Ho Hubris, Aawaay!, I found myself thrown into a muddy ditch and up to my neck in cottontails. Hubris just stood at the edge of the ditch looking at me for a few seconds then said, “Lou, just thank God our part of New Mexico doesn’t have alligators in its’ ditches, yet!
Lou
Copyright, October 13, 2019, Louis J. Christen