I agree with what one post said about the internet acting as a feedback loop to help us get to the truth about what morality actually is and is not. I read somewhere that the one thing that will cause people to change or at least question their behavior is transparency. Everything out in the open. No more secrets. With the internet we see a sort of collective consensus form around what's important and what's not. I'm not saying that this is at all pretty. Many times it's a sprawling mess that needs time to sort out. But more times than not, it seems that we come to the conclusion that the truth may be ugly, but at least it's real.

And perhaps morality is less about who you're sleeping with and under what circumstances and more about what we as a nation are focused on and what our priorities are. Are we fixated on sex in this society? Of course. But only because our Puritan ethic makes it hard to admit that we have sex, let alone lustful thoughts about people we are told we shouldn't have lustful thoughts about. The media goes on about this Audrina and her topless photos for Maxim and Stuff magazines. Tsk, tsk. But the fact is most of us men thought she was a hot piece of ass and wouldn't mind being stranded on an island with her. Beyond that, what's the story here? Does that make "The Hills" any less vapid and meaningless? The real issue is not how hot Audrina is or how hot Heidi Montag is, but possibly how shallow are we who watch this and continue to give substance to people who have none.

On the other side of the issue, how many more times was Barack Obama's excellent meditation on race in this country downloaded than his former pastor's incendiary comments? I think that the internet serves us as a mirror showing our collective consciousness to us in real time in unfiltered and unalloyed fashion with all the good, bad, ugly, silly, banal, utter stupidity and utter greatness that we are. Rather than eroding morality, we seem to be actually thinking about it and expanding what it could mean and entertaining out loud the notion that it may be bigger than some restrictive code based in a theory that the human body (and human nature) is inherently evil and its impulses must be subdued by superhuman force of will. This would seem to be the basis of Puritanism that seems to be falling out of favor and what we see in the mirror that is the internet.

I have only one thing to state here.

Like or dislike Hillary, but that kind of talk is just not called for. My only gripe with Hillary (and Bill for that matter) is that she seems so caught up with her own ambition that she's lost sight of what she's trying to achieve. The Clintons want to use political power to actually achieve good things in the country and in the world. The problem, in my perception, is that they seem to think that the end justifies the means. Hillary's campaign has done and said things that are ugly, mean-spirited and quite frankly, beneath her, like attempting to re-ignite that whole nonsense over Barack Obama's former pastor after saying that they would stay away from it. She seems desperate to win and it's costing her. I think that's obvious. I'm not sure she should step aside. I don't know what to think, quite frankly. But I am not sure that crying "sexism" is the whole answer. Part of the problem lies with her refusal to let her warmth and humanity show. She's afraid that it would be misperceived. I disagree. By contrast, her husband's campaigns and Obama's contained and contain an accessible core that people respond to. For my part, it's the vote on the war that's made me less sanguine about her. It's the attempt to have it both ways as Bill did, and the attempt to sort of mollify conservatives (read: radicals!) by not taking a truly principled stand. I would LOVE having a woman be president and I think that it's about damned time. If I had to pick a woman to be President it might be Hillary Clinton sooner than some of the other names thrown out there, but the thing that I can't abide is that she won't just be who she really is and say what she really thinks. There's a technical prowess to her campaign but no beating heart. Now some here can disagree and that's all right. But I think that a campaign is seriously off the rails when you have bloated, Porky Pig-looking, oxycontin popping, gasbag RUSH LIMBAUGH agreeing with Joan Walsh. What the bloody hell would he know about sexism? Or any damned thing else? And that comment about Americans don't want to look at an old woman is vomit served up for the STUPID PEOPLE who would never vote for a woman or a black man at any time for any reason.

Jesus.

These are the same dummies that would moan if Heidi Montag decided to run for the White House. Sorry, Joan. I'm not with you on this one. Rush Limbaugh's endorsement is one I would distance myself from.

Ah, but these people aren't really thinking about history, are they? I will only add my 2 cents here with this: beware when the devil agrees. I echo the sentiment here spoken that when John Ashcroft looks like a paragon of morality, something's seriously bad wrong. Anyone care to comment on the ACTUAL moral and spiritual decay going on in this country? Hint: the kind social conservatives ignore because they're so fixated on who everyone is sleeping with!