I was quite gratified to read this article. Sometimes if you listen to the MSM and even alternative outlets (like this one), you get the idea that things are really, really bad for people of a liberal stripe. You have the right bashing us for our so-called "anything goes" values, which is a total misstatement, or you have us liberals whining about how it's all going to hell in a handbag because of those goddamned conservatives and their (ironically!) "anything goes" values, and their Savior, George W. Bush. But as I've been saying, thankfully, in some regards anyway, the culture has moved on from such ridiculous things as carping about interracial relations. By some measures the country was obsessed about this a mere 40 years ago. Now...not so much. Or at least, not quite as much. Now before someone hands me my head over this, I am NOT suggesting that racism is dead. IT'S NOT. The Jena Six incident is proof. Katrina is proof. But more people see the unfairness of the system as it currently stands and are seeking change. This is why the Republican Party is dead in the water, with no new ideas, and nothing but the old standby, intolerance (of race and ethnicity and sexual orientation) to rely on, and rally around. They have nothing to rally around but that hyper-macho swagger while some of them furtively look for same-sex gratification in airport bathrooms. Or tempt teen-age male pages. The GOP has the stench of rot and death on it. The rest of us are fleeing the wreckage. The game has shifted. Mr. Krugman is correct. The country is LESS racist, LESS homophobic, and maybe even LESS sexist. We're not nearly in the clear yet, but this clearly is progress.

As I have said, there is no floor, no level to which these rabid dogs won't sink. Yet they call themselves "Christians" and defenders of virtue and righteousness. A family making $50K a year is not going to be able to afford the kind of care these children need without help from somewhere. Just don't ask Michelle Malkin or Rush Limbaugh who make outsized incomes for help. While castigating children with their bile about government "handouts", they live in mansions, drive luxury cars and have private attendants to do everything but wipe their privileged behinds. These are the Pharisees that Jesus held in contempt in his time. And they know their time is short and they're running out of ammunition. The GOP is now the HOP. The Hateful Old Party or the Hollowed Out Party. It's a shame.

Jesus wept.

Jesus is weeping right now.

Bravo, and well said, sir.

It's always puzzled me that the 21st Century incarnation of Christianity has this rather odd practice of clamoring for their "right" to be as hateful, vicious, spiteful, and mean-spirited as they want to be, and yet they exercise no tolerance towards anyone who isn't like them. How unlike what Jesus taught and the irony is that this group of rabid ideologues doesn't even see it.

Let me also add that in my judgement, next to Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani is the most odious choice in the Republican field, leave alone his "positions". He's unacceptable for a whole host of reasons not the least of which is that he's completely insane. He's like the GOP's Bizarro Al Sharpton. That Focus on the Family finds him unpalatable is another amusing bit of irony. That James Dobson would launch a third-party revolt is cause for out-loud laughter. There is actually a candidate who is more radical than Mayor G? That would be more acceptable to the Religious Right? Ye Gods! I say let the revolt come. Let them march down into Armageddon and destroy each other and the Republican Party entirely. Leave the rest of us in peace.

Point taken.

Also, your citing of the murders is another telling example of the xenophobic paranoia you'll find if you question Mormons too closely about their "faith". They offer up scripted arguments that are meant to throw you off but in fact don't answer the question. As to your college experience: it sounds as if you were in a classroom full of Borg drones. The miracle is that you survived with your sanity and capacity for reason intact. It seems, despite mattcable's assertions to the contrary, the factual and experiential evidence for Mormonism seems to point the other way for a lot of people. Mormons find it amazing that their belief system could actually be harmful and possibly even destructive in practice, but for a great many people, it is exactly that. Thankfully, because of their desire to fit in, they don't do the kinds of really destructive, violent, bodaciously bad things they used to do to dissenters in their heyday. Now they just "ex-communicate" you in one of their so-called "courts" which have no legal authority or standing to do anything but say you can't be one of them anymore. Why anyone would attend the "trial" is beyond me.