The Theory of Tools is both a procedural and an ethical theory; it involves holding a particular moral mindset towards both one’s own ideas and the ideas of others, that mindset being one of moral neutrality towards the idea itself, reserving ethical judgments for the uses to which that idea is placed. An idea is nothing more than a tool, neither evil nor good in and of itself in exactly the same way in which a hatchet (the greatest tool evar) is neither good nor evil. Whether the tool in question is a hatchet, a bible, fire or Democracy or a thermonuclear MIRV, the moral and ethical connotations surrounding that tool can only be responsibly applied to the use to which that tool is placed.

A very serious problem I perceive within this society (in particular… it’s really humanity’s problem, but our society seems to display it with greater enthusiasm) is the tendency of people to commit both the slippery slope fallacy – claiming that an idea’s use will lead inevitably to disaster via a long chain of unlikely steps – and the entire (original Broadway) cast of red herring fallacies, my favorite of which is the ad hominem (against the person) fallacy. Most poignant to our discussion (ok, monologue) today is the appeal to consequences – the endorsement or rejection of an idea based solely upon a possible consequence of the idea’s adoption. Most frequently, this fallacy can be seen during pundit squabbling on whichever cable news network you care to name; invariably, should one speaker on an issue resort to this fallacy, the speaker on the other side of the issue must commit the very same fallacy in the opposite direction in an attempt to balance out the one-sidedness exhibited by the first speaker. Cleverly, this tactic by the first speaker enables later ad hominem attacks upon their opponent, maintaining the status quo of “that side is obviously prejudiced, therefore I must be the fair and balanced party (and therefore my ideas are more valid)”. That this attack can also be (and usually is) used by the opponent is simply more evidence that “my opponent is a partisan zealot”. The “winner” in these situations is generally the side occupied by the host, as the host generally has the last word before going to commercial… but since a person likely shares the political slant of a network if they’re watching that network, they’ve probably determined for themselves who the “winner” is even before the discussion begins. That, however, will be a problem for another day. Moving on.

Similar to the appeal to consequences is the cherry picker fallacy – the act of selectively informing the listener of all the positive or negative effects of an idea in order to build or erode (respectively) support for that idea. Also known as “counting the hits and forgetting the misses”, or vice versa for negative endorsements, this approach to reasoned debate further undermines any attempt at logical evaluation by, again, forcing partisanship upon both parties. I see this type of fallacy used most frequently (again, qualified only by my being forced to watch multiple cable news channels at once at my workplace) on the news by “guest experts”, particularly on MSNBC and Fox News. These people are called in to present a single factoid either in support of or opposition to a particular issue, but the vast majority of these experts do so by presenting only one side of their experience. At the end of their mini-presentation, these experts are also asked for their expert opinion as to the moral value of the idea in question… and the moral debate is where the real fun begins. In their defense, this is probably required of them – paycheck contingency can buy a lot of intellectual loyalty. Regardless of motive, the tendency for news organizations to present ideas in a particular light is an indictment of their Fourth Estate status; responsible reporting (and responsible thinking) is determined by the presentation of facts for facts’ sake; moral debate can be a good way to evaluate the possible applications and consequences of an idea, but for the reasoning to be consistent – and this is the really crucial bit – the moral aspect must be separated from the idea itself. To do otherwise poisons the idea with applications that may never be used; but of course, poisoning the idea one way or the other is what is intended by moral presentation of this sort.

Take “fire”, for instance. The idea of fire is completely distinct from the uses of fire, particularly the potential uses of fire. A full and reasoned presentation of the concept of fire (presented to Caveman Congress, if cavemen had appropriations committees back then) should be in two parts: the conceptual picture (what fire actually is and how we can make/control it) and the applications picture (both intended and plausible uses of fire). The two must necessarily be kept separate to avoid poisoning the idea with potential uses; fire in particular has a wide array of uses, both positive and negative. Imagine with me a moment: Caveman Fox News is doing a piece on this new invention, called “fire” by Fox because “chemical combustion reaction” is just way more highbrow than the image they’re trying to present to their audience. The segment is about a half-hour long: three minutes explaining what fire is, ten minutes of professional blogger cavemen coming up with disastrous possible uses for fire (my hair is flammable!), five minutes shouting at a weak-willed Democratic caveman scientist trying to explain how the absorbable calorific value of meat increases when cooked with fire (Hur! Hur! You use, funny word!) (said Sean Hannity Caveman) and a further twenty minutes of more punditry addressing how that Democrat guy hates Caveman America (moderated by Bill O’Reilly). Oh yeah, and two minutes of commercials (You buy Krog’s Square Wheel! 33% more sides than old, stinky Krood’s Triangle Wheel!).

So from a philosophical perspective: integrity of thought demands that a fair divide be placed in one’s thinking between a tool and that tool’s applications. This philosophy allows a person, group or society to develop new tools without the development process (physical or intellectual) being hamstrung by the fear of that tool being used in an undesirable manner. Furthermore: the Theory of Tools dispenses with the concept of not developing a tool due to possible applications; just because fire could one day be used to burn down a puppy orphanage does not mean we shouldn’t explore fire’s other uses. The idea of attaching a moral quality to a tool – calling something “heresy” or “unclean” or “against Nature” – is equally spurious, though moral judgments of the use to which a tool is placed may still hold valid. The Theory of Tools is one of the foundations of the Mature Mindset, which I’ll outline in the next post I get around to writing.  As a quick teaser: the Mature Mindset is one of the few necessary preconditions of a successful modern society; the fact that our society in particular exhibits pride in shunning maturity is just slightly worrying to me.

Omnium Bonum Est

So what did that previous paragraph have to do with the title of this article? Not terribly much, except that my boredom this morning led me to investigate various California political organizations, to include calitics.com, an admittedly progressive (read: Democrat) website that nevertheless seems to be fairly committed to serious and reasonable dialogue within the sphere of California politics. I make a big deal about not supporting either of the major political parties, but there’s some interesting stuff there, to include this story about the Catholic Church’s attempts to dodge somewhere between 3 and 15 million dollars in taxes owed to the city of San Francisco. This kind of thing always registers on my radar, both because I oppose the bureaucratization of spirituality (aka religion) and because I virulently oppose the invasion of government by the glaze-eyed armies of religious dogma.

I’ll try to keep this short as I already posted the gist of my argument on the calitics.com site: the laws of a church (or any organization, for that matter) CANNOT overrule the laws of society. To do so invalidates the entire foundation of society, regardless of the intent of the organization in question. What keeps our society from becoming an Iran-esque Theocracy is the principle of separation of church and state, and I quote: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” I choose to carry that philosophy a step further (because I would likely be an Activist Supreme Court Justice, because this just isn’t 1776 anymore) and make the following statement: any justification for a course of action that affects society in general must be supported by the facts of reality. In other words, debate surrounding any proposed law must be derived from the reality in which all our citizens reside; to attempt to justify a law via belief (ANY belief) is irresponsible, not to mention unfair to people who do NOT support that belief. The trick is distinguishing between opinion supported by fact (valid support) and opinion justified by mere belief, no matter how strongly held (invalid support). For example: a valid argument in favor of using animals as food sources would address the dentition of humans being indicative of an omnivorous diet, the increased calorie concentration required by active brains, the ease of humane treatment of foodstuff creatures and the relative value of human needs as opposed to those of other species; an invalid argument would be invoking either biblical support (God gave Man dominion over all the animals) or doctrinal support (PETA’s stated belief that any pain visited upon an animal is inexcusable).

While the Founders of our country are generally held to have included the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as a reaction to the King of England declaring the Church of England to be the official religion of the Americas, the philosophy itself, as applied to the idea of society, remains valid: the responsible wielding of governance (and of force) over a nation must derive from logical thought and conjecture (the rule of Reason) as opposed to appeals to dogma (the rule of Faith) or force itself (the rule of Fear). The entire purpose of democracy is to establish this rule of Reason, to weigh ideas and laws based upon their merit to society… and I fear this may be an area where our Constitution and way of governance are no longer sufficient to protect our society from either Faith or Fear. There is, rather tragically, no provision in place that requires ANYONE in our society – either citizens or Congresspeople or Justices or the President himself – to actually follow the voice of Reason. Advocates of Christian reasoning for laws (such as laws banning homosexual union and abortion regardless of circumstance) should actually be the most dedicated to this principle of reason; if we were to allow religious justification as a valid form of support for lawmaking, it is not difficult to imagine what shape our country could take should adherents to a different religion become the population majority. I’m pretty sure that Christians (et cetera) would much rather have a secular in charge than an Ayatollah.

Our insistence upon the prevalence of Reason in our government is what protects us from religious authoritarianism, any religion’s authoritarianism. Even those people who would like a bit of their own religion in government should look to Reason as a defense against the religions of others in government. Perhaps the most depressing facet of this issue is that they do: when their religion is challenged, the religious are incredibly quick to enlist the aid of Reason when Reason supports their cause. Any other time, their beliefs are inscrutable and beyond reproach and how dare you even imply that their God could ever be wrong about anything ever. EVER. What was it Martin Sheen said in The West Wing… “When the facts support you, argue the facts; when the law supports you, argue the law; and if you don’t have the facts or the law, then bang your fist upon the table as loud as you can!” I think the reason why the religious try so hard to change the law is because the facts are unhelpful and their fists are tired…

…But then again, pretty much every special interest group in the nation has the same problem. Oddly enough, they use the same tactics, despite having no Bible backing them up. The fact that “Lobbyist” is a legitimate job title lends some credence to this quality of our society. It would appear that religion is not the only culprit in the search for special treatment, for the use of law against the fair interests of society. What really gets to me is that the rule of law is supposed to be an extension of the rule of Reason, but the process is embarrassingly easily corrupted under our current system of government. The biggest reason why I hope to eventually run for some kind of public office is that I long ago reached the point where I cannot trust anyone currently in government to govern responsibly. I have no illusions of affecting any kind of major change on my own; I do hope to gain a large enough audience to inspire some intellectual integrity in society at large. And maybe a harem. Our standards are only as high as our society demands… and I don’t feel that responsibility in governance is too much to ask. Only when we look to reality for our ideals will we once again function effectively as a society.

Comma Bitches.

So I’m bored this evening at work (11PM to 7AM; the Graveyard Shift, so named because if you pull it long enough YOU WILL FUCKING PERISH) and started reading back over some of my old blog posts.  Mostly correcting spelling errors (of which I’m not proud; I prefer all my drafts to be FINAL drafts), but also reassessing my views at the time of writing and reconciling them with the information at my disposal now.  For example, I’m gonna have to write a “Taking Hostages, Part 3″ article pretty soon about how, although I grudgingly supported the original Auto Industry Bailout, I now believe we should NOT give the Big 3 ANOTHER bailout because they claim the first one wasn’t big enough.  If those incompetent assclowns are now asking for an additional $21 billion while simultaneously complaining about the oversight measures that come along with the “Ok, We’ll Save Your Incompetent Clown Asses” funds… look, I’m sorry, I’m just strongly philosophically opposed to the attempt to legislate competition-crushing business acumen.  If you’re refereeing a rugby game and one side is losing big time because they’re having barbecues and doing kegstands and shit instead of playing the damn game, you don’t pause the game, issue Mk 19′s and pillboxes to the entire losing team (“because if we don’t bail them out, they might LOSE!”), and then call “time-in” as if you have a fair game going on now.

I’m actually rather fond of that last metaphor.  It’s not entirely coherent, perhaps I could have gone with something more pertinant to the idea of giving a company enough funds to crowd their successful competitors out of the market… but I really, really like the idea of a rugby team trying to run against a platoon of emplaced machine-gun grenade launchers.  Somehow, I see a solution to our overcrowded-prisons-problem in that metaphor, as well.  Someone oughta make a movie.  Anyways.

IF I ever do make some kind of effort to actually get elected President, integrity is going to be my primary qualification.  I’m not going to have many others of a governmental bent.  The best course might be to go for something more local, like a Senate seat or something, do that gig for a while, and then try for the Presidency with the qualifications of both integrity and having not fucked up while in the Senate, which appears to be extremely difficult and should thus be pretty damn laudable nowadays.  The Bill Janklow one there is my favorite: how, exactly, does one manage to get away with 100 days in jail and three years probation after running a stop sign and fucking killing someone?  Wait, wait, what? Fucking hypoglycemia, are you fucking kidding me?  Are you telling me that if I give myself Type II Diabetes by eating horrible shit food every day for years and then starve myself a bit before I go shoot up a daycare then I, too, can receive a punishment far out of proportion to my crime?  Or do I have to be a FUCKING CONGRESSMAN FIRST?!?

But I digress.  The point here (I THINK I’ve been aiming at one… maybe this is one of my rare “venting” articles) is that a big part of my decisionmaking process with respect to a given issue involves the assimilation and application of new data into my baseline for that issue.  There’s a cool decisionmaking cycle I found in a sniper training manual called OODA, for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act; the cycle derives best possible action from constant reevaluation of baseline.  “Baseline” is a concept that encompasses one’s sum total understanding of a situation; for a sniper, it involves facets of both enemy, ROE, terrain, mission, and what one had for breakfast; for me, all the data/facts surrounding an issue combined with my ethical/philosophical derivation from those data/facts could be said to compose my baseline.  For a person, especially a leader or lawmaker, to adopt a position or platform and then fail to abandon – or at least revise – that position upon receiving information that invalidates that position… such a thing denotes a lack of integrity, and a lack of integrity renders that person unfit to lead.  I am undoubtedly biased in this respect, but I don’t particularly give a shit what career qualifications a person who would lead possesses; I am much more concerned with a person’s ability to attempt to determine the course of action in any given situation that is “best” for the people dependant upon him for leadership.  I realize that the value of “best” is debatable from differeing ethical value systems (thus the constant conflict between (D) and (R) in whatever sphere you care to name); I contend that only value systems derived from reality (and not wishful thinking (the D’s), a lack of intercultural competence (the R’s), or a gross misunderstanding of human nature (both)) are valid benchmarks for determining “best” in any given context; I further contend that only a philosophy that is based in observable data and is in a constant state of reevaluation of its own precepts in the light of new data can be considered “derived from reality”.

My final contention, indeed the postulate of my entire personal philosophy, is that only true, unbiased open-mindedness enables an entity (person, group, government, etc.) sufficient susceptibility to new data to form responsible opinions and courses of action.  Admittedly, that last sentence there is a mouthful, and is likely to be interrupted with spurious cries of “nuh-uh!” (or your local equivalent; I’m paraphrasing here) before it can be successfully posited.  Therefore, I choose to give a name to this philosophy, so that it may be introduced with the maximum of alacrity and a minimum of jackassus interruptus potential:  I choose to call this the Sentient philosophy.

The entire force of moral righteousness (though I cringe a bit to use such a term) of the Sentient philosophy derives from this ridiculously high degree of intellectual integrity.  The reasoning behind the bizarre title of this article (look, I know YOU might not find much funny about Rock beating his wife Scissors and the beaten Scissors going on to take out her rage at society upon fellow convict Paper as they cross the prison yard in April of 2013 (thus completing the traditional Rochambeau cycle and proving forever that you give what you get) but it did give me a chuckle as Paper eventually recovered from her injuries, became a model inmate, left prison on good behavior and went on to become a Congressperson… and we all know those guys defeat Integrity on a regular basis, so there.  Satire!) is that the platforms of the Democrats and Republicans are just that: platforms.  Having a combined set of unshakable beliefs/values gives the members of the respective parties a strong (ok, maybe not “strong”, but at least definite; “We very definitely believe in the stupid shit we believe in, regardless of its utility to society or its grounding in the real world we all theoretically inhabit”) foundation from which to speak… and when challenged with fact, the platform serves as a Rock (rather like faith, amusingly enough) to which the challenged can retreat and stand upon confidently and throw poo at the assailant.  But if, as I think I’ve tentatively established, the Rock of conviction is seated upon sand… upon a set of supporting ideas that cannot be said to be truly derived from the Real, but rather more from expediency and prejudice and blind idealism… then exactly how strong is the Rock of conviction?  It seems, from both an ethical, philosophical, and intellectual point of view, that Integrity (and, by association, the Sentient philosophy) can much more successfully provide what is “best”, or at least what is effective.  Integrity does, indeed, cover Rock.  IF, that is, the American People give a shit about improving their lot.  Such remains to be seen.

…Comma Bitches.

I like the last sentence before the page break to be a bit of an attention grabber… just like a LEGITIMATE news outlet!  It made YOU click on the “Read the rest of this entry>>>” link didn’t it?  Huzzah for manipulating the masses!

First, a bit of a clarification is in order: for the duration of my writing down things of a philosophical nature, contentment is defined by me as a state of being satisfied that one’s needs are being met.  In a biological sense, contentment derives from the fulfillment of basic needs in adequacy; an animal with adequate food, water, shelter and health could be said to biologically content.  Animals with higher orders of intellect also have emotional needs that, while they are not AS important as the biological needs, are vital to the animal’s mental well being (and “happiness”, as we determine it for animals with whom we have yet to converse).  Things like environmental quality (as simple as adequate sunshine and fresh air for some animals), companion animals and stuff to play with (called “enrichments” in the zoo vernacular, I think) all fall into this category.  An animal’s quality of life is a combination of their biological and emotional contentment; this holds true whether the animal in question is a cow, a jellyfish, or a human being… though the needs to be met in order to determine contentment in each case varies a bit between species.  For one thing, jellyfish don’t have spines.  Not even the MANLY jellyfish.

Now then:  for an animal as (relatively) simple as a cow, emotional contentment can be pretty solidly defined: fresh air, sunshine, other cows, a place to get out of the rain and freedom from predators (man excluded) are generally enough to promote cow contentment.  This is in ADDITION to the necessities of biological contentment (green grass, clean water, the absence of disease) that are pretty much a precondition to the cow living long enough to enjoy the whole emotional contentment thing.  For humans the biological necessities are also easily quantified, though they include the additional variables of security and communication for animals as socially dependant as we.  The definition of emotional contentment, however, is EXTREMELY fuzzy as the aspects of emotional contentment (which I’ll refer to as “happiness” from now on for us human folk)  vary greatly between individuals.  As such, while a government can do much to provide for its citizens’ biological needs (and even ours actually does so in times of disaster… eventually) it simply CANNOT furnish us with happiness, as whatever you get in your Emergency Happiness Airdrop (E-HA!) package to bring you joy may be completely worthless (even disgusting) to me.  So any effort to increase our citizens’ happiness and overall welfare (as might be undertaken by a government that gives a fuck about its people) must be aimed at enabling those citizens to pursue their OWN happiness (as per, I don’t know, the goddamned Declaration of Independence, for example) by reducing (or outright eliminating, as I shall later suggest) the biological survival imperative which impedes such pursuits.

One of the extremely basic means by which I believe a mature and responsible government can provide this kind of contentment involves a bit of backstory from my past.  Back in… fuck… like, 2003, I think, I lived with honorable Gelly-san at the old Jimmy Swaggart dormatory building at his ministry in Baton Rouge.  It was ORIGINALLY meant to house the extremely credulous while they attended Bible College, an education which would TRULY come in handy out in the real world.  Anyways, so the place was basically a high-rise college dorm, the units comprised of two smallish studio rooms equipped with a sink, thermostat, some electrical outlets, a phone jack and a shared bathroom.  I stayed in something similar when I attended REAL college back in the day (for all of two semesters… ever wonder why I DON’T list my credentials anywhere on this site?  It’s ’cause they’re NONEXISTANT!  Bwahahahahahahahaha!) so I’m going to make a huge assumption here that there are a great many college dorm rooms set up along the same lines and that staying in one of these (and splitting them with a roommate, in my case) isn’t considered terribly onerous by the general population.  Hell, these things are a goodly step up from Army barracks (where you have mass toilets and showers, a very unsavory memory, let me tell you), so I’m going to proceed like this kind of studio (and half a bathroom) existence is pretty bearable.  While residing in the Jimmy Swaggart dorms I was perfectly happy with my environs.  They were very sparse quarters, and I DID have to run a bit of a religious zealot gauntlet every time I entered or exited the building, but it was a place to live and I was – and here’s the important bit – content to live there.  It sure beat living in my truck, which I consider a bit of a step down on the ol’ quality-of-life scale.

So here’s where my radical (and surprisingly unpopular) idea comes in: how horrible would it be for us (the government) to provide quarters of this (relatively) low quality to whoever in our society requires them?  Stay with me for a second: picture a building of this type, all studio units (with their OWN bathroom, if I had a choice) or two room suites (for families) on the upper levels; a cafeteria, basic clinic/welfare center (health care article to follow), common area and security section on the bottom floor.  Kind of a combination dorm/student union setup is what I’m going for here.  Come to think of it, didn’t our dorm back in Lafayette have a sandwich shop and Chik-fil-a on the bottom floor?  Anyways.  Making such a facility available FOR FREE to any member of our society who requests it would provide complete biological contentment: basic shelter, health and sanitation facilities, food at the 24-hour cafeteria… I’d suggest even providing VoIP phone service in the rooms, as that shit is so absurdly cheap to operate that there’s really no reason NOT to do so.  Besides, some telecommunications tools will contribute greatly to the occupants’ ability to function.

I’ve long had a big moral problem with the way we treat our least fortunate in this society.  All the various government programs designed for the nominal purpose of assisting those people are all of the not-quite variety… welfare checks are not quite enough to pay the rent, educational financial aid is not quite enough to pay for college, and tax breaks do exactly WHAT for people who aren’t even ABLE to earn an income?  This public dormitory idea does, I feel, a pretty good job of providing everything a person needs for survival, which frees up all their faculties to devote towards skill acquisition and other forms of happiness pursual.  Somehow, I think that would be a MUCH better investment of tax monies than simply writing a person a check that won’t ensure their survival (assuming they even put those funds towards survival expenditures at all).  Hell, even the Republicans should be behind this if they think about it for a second: removing completely a person’s survival needs also removes their desire to acquire funds for the payment of said survival needs. For many people of insufficient social skill, turning to crime to support themselves (and their families) becomes a welcome alternative to, say, FUCKING DYING.  So by providing these people with all their necessities we can go a long way towards preventing altogether some of the low grade crimes (and reaping savings in the process) that are most likely to pose a danger to you and your home and your family.  (NOTE: Republicans usually respond best to fear-based arguments!  Try this fun activity with your Republican friends: theorize to them that maybe the reason we haven’t found Osama Bin Laden yet is that he’s hiding in their Grandmother’s basement!  You’ll be talking them down from the nearest bell tower for DAYS!)

Getting to the point here: not only is providing biological necessities for our population the morally responsible thing to do, it should also enable these people to devote the time and energy formerly spent just staying alive towards improving their own value to society, thus making society stronger as a whole.  I would go so far as to suggest replacing our Welfare system ENTIRELY by providing these facilities instead.  I think we might actually come out ahead on that deal, even discounting the benefit of a better educated, happier populace.  And to be perfectly honest… the cow from the weak metaphor earlier in this post is better provided for than our own citizens.  Some will contend that a cow has more value than many lower class members of our society; I contend that a cow given the same disadvantages that made the lower class people lower class in the first place would be a pretty sorry quadruped, destined to be culled at the earliest opportunity.  Thankfully we don’t take THAT particular approach towards our fellow humans… though Capitalism itself is not terribly far off.  Look… it’s just way more cost-effective in the long run to provide these basic biological necessities for our citizens (thus enabling them to make a greater contribution to society… or even make a contribution at all) instead of condemning them to struggle their way through life because they can never build enough resources to improve themselves.  Hell, such an option would have really bailed MY ass out back in the day.  And best of all (from a philosophical perspective), this program would be precisely in line with the Golden Rule: assist the fulfilment of others as you would have them assist your own.

Ok, I stole the title for this post from a totally bitchin’ bumper sticker I spotted on a vechical at my last apartment, but it sums up my feeling on the subject quite nicely. So nicely, in fact, that I’m stealing it for use as the title of this post. There, the circle is closed.

Normally, I’m a pretty observant guy. When I moved to Colorado Springs back in August of Ought Six I had no idea I had entered the den of the beast. I was stumbling through life blissfully unaware that I could, at any moment, be molested into the ground by a swarm of foaming religious zealots. Yet I somehow managed to avoid becoming a salt’ed and holy-water’ed hole in the earth for an entire solar year. Imagine my surprise to learn – from Lisette, of all people – that Colorado Springs was home to the Universe Headquarters of the most rabid Christian missionary movement since Jimmy Swaggart conducted sermons from the men’s room stall at the Pasttime Bar and Grill. (Interesting story: myself and Gerry actually spent close to like six months living as shared-bathroom roomies in the old Jimmy Swaggart ministries dormitory when he went completely fucking broke and had to convert the things to “apartments”. Just shows to go that if a god does exist, He has a really assholey sense of humor.)

Focus On The Family is the moniker for a really, really big building (or maybe complex of buildings, the architectural plans I ordered depicting the location of the Boiler Room haven’t come in yet) in northern Colorado Springs that supposedly supports and directs the whole Convert The World campaign thingy. I have a few friends whose parents work at this place (and they’re all vehement non-Christians… I can’t begin to imagine why). Focus On The Family is where gay pedophile U.S. senators go to get quickie one-week absolutions so they can continue about their business as Perfectly Normal Senators again instead of, oh, I don’t know, going to fucking prison.

Apparently lots of people in the area worry that mere proximity to this place will start to have an insidious effect upon one’s brain waves or something. Apparently the people who frequent the Christian 7-Eleven have a reputation for bringing the slash-and-burn style of missionary mentality into other areas of their lives and interactions with others. Apparently people with a suspicious-to-hostile disposition towards religion in general (like, uh, myself) should be more worried about other people wearing FOTF t-shirts breaking into our homes Rainbow Six style, absconding with our children, and forcing them to, I don’t know, watch Fox News on one 56-inch TV and VeggieTales on another like 24-7. I only have two cats, myself, but I think the idea is that the catnappers (as is applicable in this hypothetical situation) would make them wear tiny kitty nun habits or something. Which would suck, seeing as how both my cats are males and Ptolemy is already leaning a little funny as it is.

But, to be perfectly honest here… I haven’t seen any of this sort of thing. And, being the religiously-vigilant guy I am, I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed. The most pervasive thing I’ve noticed around here (excepting, of course, fawning references to Good Works on the Fellatious Network for Conservatives) are, appropriately enough, FOTF bumper stickers. Religious bumper stickers are perfect for our society. They allow the person to tote around vaguely passive-aggressive missionary slogans with virtually no effort, freeing up their vocative prowess to break out the big guns (biblically speaking) in the event someone takes the bumper sticker seriously. The slogans themselves are depressingly predictable; “Jesus Is Lord”, “What Would Jesus Do?” (sometimes abbreviated WWJD?… you know, to hang with the younger crowd), “A Baby Isn’t A Choice” (as if THAT wasn’t a drastic Saturn V rocket trip away from any attempt at logic conjecture), “In Event Of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned!” (ha ha HA, asshole, Pride’s a SIN, you’ll be slummin’ in HELL, now!), “Have You Torched Your Heretic Today?” (for the truly honest ones), that kind of thing. So what interests me during particularly long red lights (and/or church parking lot tire-slashing expeditions… I believe that an omnipotent god could stop me in my tracks with a well-placed lightning bolt if He really wanted) is which other bumper stickers the religious one is in the company thereof. Mostly these are other religious materials or political campaign stickers for whichever Republican is running (oddly, I never see religion and Democrat side-by-side… or maybe not so oddly; the Dems seem less willing to shove their values on a person… which is not to say they don’t shove other things), but sometimes there’s something truly awesome and, I feel, indicative. Such as: “Jesus Loves Everyone” below a Confederate flag, or “Have You Read Your Bible Today?” right next to “Keep Honking, I’m Reloading My Gun!”, or even “God Bless America” nudging “Save The Whales, Bomb Iraq”. Loads of fun. You normally only get juxtaposition of this level in detective novels and psychopath-style slasher flicks. Or VeggieTales, for that matter… I’m pretty sure a VeggieTales episode where the cucumber reveals he’s been abducting his veggie buddies one by one and making a tossed salad in his basement would be an AWESOME season finale.

Yet the car on which I first spotted the “Focus On Your Own Damn Family” sticker had the most poignant bumper sticker collection I have yet witnessed… and there was only one other sticker to be seen: the stylized “Coexist” sticker. And that, in a vehicle, exactly encompasses my own perspective on religion. Cool Guy Barack Obama (I don’t agree with everything he has to say, but at least he makes an effort to explain the Why behind what he says) was recently criticized for saying that religious reasoning for laws (that force behavior upon the populace in general) should not be used by petitioners because using reasoning/justifications that do not follow from logical conjecture is irresponsible in a society that is founded upon logical conjecture. The Christians (radio, TV, pundits, etc.) jumped right the fuck down his throat for that… it seems they heard what he said as “Christians should not be allowed to participate in government because everyone in the country is not Christian” and they took offense/umbrage to the straw man thus created. (For future reference: straw burns very easily.) The point of the matter is that society is supposed (in huge quotation marks) to be derived from logic, which is generally accepted to be a common postulate point for all belief systems, and thus creates as fair a government (which affects everyone regardless of religion, etc.) for everyone as is humanly possible. IF a law is supported via religious justifications, THEN that law is inherently unfair (and, consequently, WRONG) even IF it gets the 50%+1 needed to become “The Right Thing To Do.” The reason we attempt (or should attempt) to use Reason instead of Religion is because we are a nation of many – often conflicting – religions and philosophies and our laws should reflect that fact. Law, in the original, Founding Fathers Democracy sense, was designed to be a departure from the rule of Kings and Church (read: Fear and Religion, respectively) in favor of the egalitarian rule of Reason.

What I perceive the single-line, unpunctuated bumper sticker “Focus On Your Own Damn Family” is intending to convey (besides flippancy) when placed in conjunction with the “Coexist” bumper sticker is this idea of keeping belief and value systems within the belief/value-system’s community so as not to create conflict by forcing (or attempting to force via law) those beliefs/values upon others. Consider, if you will: our beloved President tried, sometime during his first term, if I remember, to push a constitutional amendment through Congress that would outlaw the marriage of same-sex couples. My thoughts on polygamy aside for a moment… the only justification anyone could come up with that wasn’t dismissed as spurious (see also: bullshit) was that doing so would, and I quote, “Protect The Sanctity Of Marriage”. The prosecution calls your attention to the italicized word in the previous quotation. One cannot begin to characterize this lone piece of evidence as anything but a Religious Justification of the aforediscussed nature without looking like a complete evangelical lickspittle.

This same type of thing (“It should be a law ’cause God said so, a-hyuk”) drives many of the Controversial Issues that for some reason define our political concerns today. It seems to me (there’s that perspective thing again) that a responsible government – and, indeed, any responsible religious person – would address all issues, of practical concern or religious, by considering what would be best for the population as a whole when making laws that affect the whole. When doing so, it is of constitutional and moral imperative that only logical reasoning derived from the actual, real universe decide the most appropriate action. It then descends to the religions to decide how a particular issue is handled within the scope and ability of their own community to shape and enforce a particular portfolio of beliefs and values. To use the Gay Marriage example: the simplest and most responsible action would be to allow marriage between any individuals that wish to bind themselves together for legal purposes and create a clear distinction between a government-derived “legal union” and a religion-derived “marriage”. There, Sally Super and Mindy Hottie went down to the courthouse and signed a piece of paper and now Sally and Mindy Super-Hottie are considered from the government’s point of view to be a legal union, just exactly the same as Sarah and Sean Coincon are a legal union. The term “marriage”, being now exclusively in the domain of Religion, may now be granted (or not, as would seem to be the heavily bigoted case) at the leisure of the Church, who may (as it is perfectly within their purview) do so once the members in question fulfill whatever prerequisites and responsibilities the Church requires. If Sally and Mindy want to have a Catholic wedding (and be in a Catholic “marriage”) it is up to the Church to decide whether or not to grant Sally and Mindy that request. If, however, the Church wants to “Protect The Sanctity Of Marriage” and disallow the marriage of Sally and Mindy, then that also is the Church’s right to do so. Such a thing would/may lower the Super-Hotties’ prestige in the eyes of Catholics, but they would no longer be second-class members of the society in general. This is the path of democratic responsibility.

See how easy that was? All you have to do is create a distinction between Religion and State and… wait, that sounds familiar for some reason… oh yeah, the fucking First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. This technique can work with lots of hot button issues besides marriage. Take abortion. Allow it on a governmental level (although I don’t feel it should go unpunished in cases of open negligence… but that’s definitely a topic for another article. Here’s a hint.), especially when danger to the mother is a factor, but censor it (if so desired by the Church) on a religious level. This way, Pregnita can avoid being forced into a life of poverty (or raising a child in poverty, which is even worse… like chopping off a baby’s hand at birth) and the Church can just smile and excommunicate her ass. This makes things MUCH easier for the person having to make the difficult fucking decision in the first place AND gives Pregnita a whole new, clear perspective on how much the Church gave a damn about her all along.

The point of this article (and more than likely the point of the vast majority of civic-type articles I will write in the future) is that there’s a responsible way to handle these kinds of conflicts that results from adopting a broad and impartial perspective in one’s approach to problem-solving. Especially in matters of differing values and beliefs, the responsible course is to confine those values not derived logically from nature to the community willing to ascribe to those values willingly. Those values that are derived from nature (in particular, the survival and ascension of human beings as a species/social group) become the basis for societal norms (“laws”) and the question becomes one of how and how much. This is the meaning of coexistence: the ability to live side-by-side with peoples of different ways of life and not force your own way of life upon them. So Sayeth The Sean.

P.S. – From an I-plan-on-running-for-President perspective, this is exactly the way I plan on guiding the country. Each problem presented to me becomes a function of gathering as much information as I can (both objective and subjective; if we can’t have a Direct Democracy, a Presidential or Congressional Blog would be the next best thing), purposely disposing of my own preference (For example: I would prefer a nation where firearms are illegal for private ownership and everyone studied martial arts instead, but concentrating all the easy force in the hands of the police and military – and by extension, the government in general – would protect our citizens even while their Democracy was endangered. Remind me to throw down an article on THAT topic, too.), anticipating which solutions are most responsible, and choosing the course that does the most Good. Actually, this is exactly why I’m running for President: because there exists no politician that lacks an agenda, not to mention preferences, for the simple reason that they all have a platform. Their platform is comprised of their agendas/preferences; you can’t be a politician (you especially can’t be a GOP/Dem) without a platform from which to appeal to the masses. All I have is a philosophy… and mine is derived from my perspective of reality. So long as I continue to open myself to and absorb information (yes, to include plain-ol’ potentially-biased opinions) from whatever source I can, myself and those like me have a much better chance of doing a better and fairer job of guiding our nation. At least, that’s my perspective.

If I were a warrior poet, these would be my songs.