Delicious

I've noticed that the Republicans are finally getting bogged down in the tar pit of their own making, namely, the ridiculous rhetoric of so-called "social conservative" issues.

These issues have never made much sense, and amounted essentially to those with nothing better to do bitching and complaining and ranting about those who are different from themselves and trying mightily to shove these people into second class citizenship.

And of course, they're absolutely obsessed with what other's do in their bedroom.

Add to that the fatal effort to repeal legal abortions, and they were doomed from the start. The country simply isn't that religiously rigid, and most people, regardless of their feelings on these "hot button" issues, simply don't feel the country should be turned into a theocracy as many in power desperately desire.

Witness the recent Republican debate where they came out of the chute making fools of themselves arguing about who hated immigrants the most. It was farcical as Giuliani tried to blast Romney for having hired a lawn care outfit that happened to employ some undocumented immigrants, and Romney stammering and sputtering while trying to blast Giuliani for having refused to boot the children of illegals out of school. It's simply jaw-dropping that this is what the level of discourse has sunk to on the right. It's sure not what made America great.

It's a fool's errand to try to turn back the clock, hold back time, and turn the country back into the fantasy ideal of June and Ward Cleaver. Good luck with that.

When Romney was asked what he'd do to address the ongoing and hugely damaging epidemic of black on black crime which is plaguing our country, he actually said that he'd somehow make sure that kids had a mom and dad.

Think about that.

Black people live with this every day. It's like living in Bagdhad in some cities. Young black boys are being essentially slaughtered, and if they survive the carnage, they're ending up in prison.

What does Ward Cleaver think will solve this difficult problem? Why, somehow forcing parents to get married, and stay married I guess.

Can any reader tell me just how a government is supposed to accomplish this? Seriously.

How can a serious candidate for the presidency stand up there and mouth drivel about kids having both parents to raise them and not get laughed and hooted off the stage?

I'm not saying that stengthening families isn't a tremendous deterant to this problem and many others, don't leap to that false conclusion. But what I am saying is that government simply can NOT legislate that women will not bear children, or that fathers will always be good and committed fathers, or that those who are married will stay married, and on and on. To suggest that as a solution to this problem is absolutely stupid and ridiculous on its face.

But the "social conservatives" eat it up with a spoon. They don't care if it's even remotely possible or practical, nor whether it's the role of the government to even be involved in an issue. As long as it sounds good and sounds like someone will do something about people who aren't able to live as they do, then they eat it up with a spoon.

Does it make a lick of sense? No. But that rarely matters to these voters.

Likewise, there was a plain spooky question from a really spooky guy who repeatedly shoved the Bible into the camera while repeatedly asking if the candidates believed that "every word in this book is true." Even more bizarrly, he prefaced the question by saying that their answers would, "tell us everything we need to know about you."

There were other questions directly designed to test the poor boob's religiousity. Attempts to force them to stand there and out-Christian each other. It was ugly.

Not only was it ugly, but it was wholey and completely unconstitutional, and not one person on the stage thought to mention that religion is a personal matter which doesn't belong in that forum.

They are the ones who insist on wearing their faith on their sleeves, and now they're getting ripped up by finding themselves in the middle of that briar patch themselves. It's a good thing.

Perhaps this bloodbath amongst the Republicans will finally show more people of that persuesion that the social hot button issues are, in the end, losers.

The Republicans this election will likely be sunk by their efforts to placate and pander to the religious right, and if there is a God, it will mark the beginning of the end of this divisive and wrong-headed effort by the religious right to intrude into government in every way they can.

While watching these supposedly sane people spout the most amazingly religiously beligerant views, often intended to show how anxious they are to slaughter those of a different faith, it's impossible to avoid seeing the fact that they are increasingly acting exactly like the mullahs and ayatollahs in the mid-east that they constantly villify.

A large majority of the country has always rejected the antics of these power grubbing religious types, though you'd never know it because they've always weilded far, far more influence and power within the Republican party than their true number would reflect. But this may signal a slow death to their continued strangle-hold over the Republican party, as Republicans wake up to the fact that these divisive and often outright biggoted views will spell their doom if they continue to cling to them.