Morality Play

The Morality Play is (usually) a religious melodrama. Some plays of this genre have been performed by the same community theater groups for centuries, the Passion Plays of Oberammergau, Bavaria, Germany, come to mind.

We have put some emotion into our own Passion Plays here in this, our supposedly-secular society (yes, Bill O'Reilly fans, I know that the forefathers were all devout men, Christians almost invariably). That Passion translates into laws and quasi-legal proceedings. Why else would we say, for example, that a fetus (human zygote not viable outside of the womb) may not be removed from a woman's body, even when medical tests show that it would, if carried to term, be born profoundly brain-damaged and have no possibility of a normal life? Why would we define such a fetus removal as the crime of Murder, when the death of a kitten at the hands of a sadistic teenager is not so defined? Doesn't all life have the Blessing of God? Why is human life so sacred that we must severely punish a doctor for conducting an operation to terminate a pregnancy, and let a now-recalcitrant teenager off for killing a litter of kittens because he wears a suit to Court and has found God?

OK, that's the Passion Play of the Abortion Debate, in a nutshell, accent on the NUT in nutshell.

How about another example of misguided zeal in what passes for our sense of Morality these days?

(Sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable, you can always just hit the little "X-in-the-red box" at the top right of the page. I'm NOT holding you here against your will.)

My next example shows that our morality has a Dark Side, a powerful side, and we OUGHT to give a rip about using the Force of the Dark side, but we don't.

I'm talking about kiddie diddlers (cop term for the family of crimes involving sexual abuse of juveniles). A wise, old friend asks me why we pursue these miscreants down through time with the fervor with which we do. The stock answer, I suppose, (he's also a retired cop, and should know this) is that they are crimes of heinous moral terpitude. That's a mouthful, "heinous moral terpitude". Our acceptance of that term/concept as a Commandment handed down by God makes it okay for us to spend huge resources to investigate, prosecute, and incarcerate persons involved in these crimes of rape. Heinous moral terpitude also explains why most states consider the age difference in rape, and relate it directly to the severity of the crime, as well as the length of the sentence a judge may pass on those convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.

Okay then, we have morality/religion in our laws. Bill O'Reilly exhults, I suppose, every time he looks in the mirror and smiles as his lips move to form the words "heinous moral terpitude", and you KNOW he has practiced using those words.

Here's another view of the Dark Side of Morality: Why is it NOT a WORSE crime to steal a vote and/or rig an election? MY sense of Morality is highly offended every time I hear that thousands of dead people, felons, and non-citizens vote in elections, just those in Cook County, Illinois, alone. Why has no Daley ever been convicted of a crime of Heinous Moral Terpitude for rigging a Cook County election, and those rigged elections are there for all to see? Remind yourself that the Daleys led Cook County, Illinois for years. Why can't we reach down through time and jug a Daley like we do a kiddy-diddling schoolteacher?

A rigged election smashes the democratic hopes of those who voted in it as if it were to be a fair process. Why is dashing the hopes of an entire population NOT a more severe crime than diddling a kid? Is Hope that cheap? It isn't supposed to be. We've been sold an incompetent President on the promise of Hope (more than once in our history, not just the current example), so it must be a valuable commodity, priced high in the currency of Morality. Why then, doesn't Hope count as the major force of Good that it is, and the theft of it count as the major removal of Good that IT is, and therefore be a crime of heinous moral terpitude?

Why is the theft of innocence from a child any worse of a crime than the theft of Hope from the citizens of a large City, or, from an entire, powerful (supposedly) Democratic Nation?

HA! made you think.

Excellent!

Comments

[Patriot Padre]

AMEN... Dog! Time to draw a line in the sand.... either you love this country called the U.S. of A.... or you don't! To quote an old and worthy saying... "Love it, or Leave it"! If you find a better place, move there! If not, support the principles and freedoms that made us great!!!! It's pretty simple.... you're either a patriot or guilty of treason! And there lies the problem... people who don't understand the difference!

[Rivrdog]

...Roger that, Patriot Padre, and if the poll worker gravely intoning, "Mr. (Rivrdog) has voted" as you put your ballot in the ballot box didn't get to you, you had no soul.

[Patriot Padre]

I second Gerry N's comments!!! I say... DUMP vote by mail (unless a hardship is proven) and get back to the voting booth, show your photo ID, close the curtain and vote in secret. It's time for America to get off their lazy duff and stop whining about the inconvenience and show some pride in the things that make this country great. I always looked forward to and was PROUD to walk into my precinct, show my ID, take that precious and sacred document called a "ballot" in hand and walk into the booth. It was an event that emotionally connected me to a process... a people and a country that MANY died for. People... stop taking your freedoms so lightly and for granted... you may soon loose them due to your complacency and indifference!

[Gerry Nygaard]

Some folks hereabouts seem to conflate anonymity with secret ballot. Identifying yourself and being handed a ballot should not upset anyone but a Stalin. The secret ballot on the other hand should be sacred. If I had my way anyone voting fraudulently would, upon conviction, be prohibeted any and all government benefits, to include Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, Labor and Industries injury benefits, Government employment, anything that had Government funding involved. Teh same penalties would accrue to anyone assisting in vote fraud. Let's recriminalize vote fraud. Actually the best thing would be to make Vote Fraud a Capital Offense.

Gerry N.

[Windy Wilson]

I tend to agree with you about anonymity. I think there is not an exception, but a hole in the concept where lack of anonymity permits harassment and crime, but that implicates the difficulty in timely deterrence and prosecution of the modern age.
Where I disagree is if you extend the lack of anonymity to voting. I would not want to have to vote publically in front of my Leftist brothers and their Stalinist wives.
But again, I want campaign contributions to be as transparent as possible, and that is the next thing to revealing how one votes.

[Rivrdog]

BTW, I have never objected to being identified when conducting valuable or important business. Those who would secure our vital processes have a right to know if the processes are being used legitimately.

My conservative bretheren and sisteren get all over me for this, but I will repeat it: there is no Constitutional Right to be anonymous.

[Rivrdog]

This link tells you how it's done, and what was proposed to stop it: https://usjf.net/2012/03/unlawfulness-in-cook-county-elections-the-facts/

This Wiki is very informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud
However, it repeats the rubric that only 86 people were prosecuted for voter fraud out of the past 300 million votes cast. That is a bullshit stat, of course, the government which just gained power has NO interest in prosecuting voter fraud which might weaken it's "legitimacy".

Some fraud listed here: http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/22/cook-county-voting-fraud-could-pose-threat-in-illinois-senate-race/

Two million dead people still registered to vote, says Politico: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/02/14/nearly_two_million_dead_people_registered_to_vote_in_america

In New Hampshire, dead democrats vote: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/01/11/in_new_hampshire_dead_democrats_get_to_vote

In Vermont, same: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/03/13/dead_people_and_clones_voting_in_vermont

In Harris County (Houston) TX, motormouth (D) US Rep Sheila Jackson Lee's district seems to have a huge number of addresses, almost 20,000, where six or more "voters" live. That's six times as many as the highest such GOP district, and about 15 times the number in the average GOP district: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/elisabethmeinecke/2012/03/12/outbreak_of_potential_voter_fraud_lights_up_rep_sheila_jackson_lees_district

Anyway, this was just a quick search using the search terms "cook county voter fraud", and reading about 8 of the articles mentioned, one of which went into a goldmine of national voter fraud activity.

This blogger and this blog will NEVER condone the theft of even ONE vote. Liberal commenters will say that "we don't have much voter fraud, and what we do have is okay, because we have to make sure more people vote and no voter gets left behind in the process, so we must make it even easier to vote." Bullshit. THERE.IS.NOTHING.MORE.IMPORTANT.THAN.THE.VOTE.OF.AN.HONEST.CITIZEN...full stop

[Rivrsis]

THIS is a rigged election: Requiring hundreds of thousands of legitimate citizens to obtain absurdly expensive documents (if they even can - some elderly can't - born at home) IS A POLL TAX and that's the dark side. Worse yet, there is such a tiny minority of voter fraud cases that it cannot possibly justify this extreme "remedy" meant to reduce the appearance at the polls of a particular political party. Bro, please document the actual number of "thousands" of felons, dead people and noncitizens voting in Cook County, IL and I'll mull your point over more closely.