Evil

"Dark Helmet: So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb. "


I think a lot about stupid stuff. Like, is the Dark Side stronger than the Light?

Are there such things as "sides"?

No.

However, for human convenience only, it's easier to talk about things like "evil" as if they were objective realities, true "things", rather than as subjective descriptors completely dependent on context.

So, for ease of discussion, assume Evil (capital E) is real, and thus so is Good (Capital G).

Evil has many advantages. For example, there's no shame in evil, nor are there any boundary lines. Evil does as evil wants. Good, on the other hand, by definition! Is denied a whole range of behaviors and modes of thought. Hard to describe someone as "Good", after all, when they murder remorselessly, right?

Put this into current American politics: If I was forced to assign a label, I would call the Republican Party "Evil", and the Democratic Party "Good" (I don't actually believe this -- well, yes, Republicans are evil, but so is, for the most part, the Democratic Party). For my fair Republican friends who might blanch at such labels, maybe this shorthand is useful.

Traditionally, selfishness is considered "Evil", and selflessness is considered "Good". Roughly, the (R) is dedicated to selfishness (lower taxes, lower regulations, better bombs) and the (D) is dedicated to selflessness (progressive taxation, welfare, social security, minimum wage, etc). I know, shorthand and not always accurate, but it will suffice.

This leaves you with the following: There is no slander, no attack, no lie beyond the Republican's reach. Their only calculation would be "does it help the candidate get elected, or get future candidates elected". Democrats, on the other hand, are constrained by morality within certain bounds. Thus, the lack of effective Democratic attack ads. The concept is almost inconceivable.

And where does this leave us? As Mike Barnicle told me last night on the Tee Vee: "Attack ads work". And this seems to be true, and thus we have a Republican domination of America, and thus the world, because people vote against their own interests, and for the interests of the American Plutocracy.

So John McCain is launching one after another after another, and the logical side of me says they are so absurd, so false, they cannot possibly work.

And then I remember we elected Bush in 2004. And then I worry....