Is America going mad? Discuss!

It is accepted by all commentators that we in the UK are becoming more Americanised every day. Indeed our political class appear to be in thrall to everything American and, following the complete Americanisation of our economics, we are now being converted to American style politics. That is one of the reasons for the growing Scottish move towards independence from Westminster as American politics and economics are rightly seen as quite odious and unwelcome.

It is also normally accepted that Americans are sensible, liberal people and that America is a sane and rational country. Readers of this blog will know that I consider America to be a terrorist state and the biggest threat to world peace and that we should stop acting as what Harold Pinter described as America's bleating little lamb. Just this week, the American state of Utah passed a law introducing the death penalty by firing squad if they run out of the drugs used for death by lethal injection. At this time of writing, 32 states have the death penalty and others are considering following Utah in introducing firing squads. Utah claims that they are never short of volunteers for the firing squad. This is the country that parades its Christianity and its belief in God before the whole world. It confirms my beliefs in Christians. Yesterday a Republican Congressman, Ted Cruz announced that he is running for the Republican Presidential nomination. Mr Cruz has been a Congressman for two years, which apparently makes him eminently qualified to run the largest economy on earth and be in charge of the American military machine that has been engaged in some form of conflict every year since 1939. I listened to his speech in which he claimed to represent liberty, the sanctity of life, the family and the God given right of every American to bear and carry arms. I have read the Bible several times but have never come across any reference to America, nor the right of Americans to carry guns. However, I have to accept that perhaps Mr Cruz has a special mobile connection to God who has indeed informed him that He/She does endorse that right. ( I await the inevitable terrible rebuke from Mr Cruz for daring to suggest that God may be female). Another thing that I may be missing in my naivity, indeed stupidity, is that I would have thought that endorsing the sanctity of life and then endorsing the right to bear and carry lethal weapons was a contradiction. Another of Mr Cruz's policies is to abolish the American Inland Revenue, thereby depriving the American state and government any form of income from taxation. Now, how this will provide Mr Cruz's salary as a Congressman or even as a future President and how the American government can function without taxes is missing from this cunning plan. In addition, Mr Cruz claims that the American federal tax authority the IRS, employs 110,000 agents in its organisation when in fact the entire organisation employs 82,000 people of whom only one quarter are agents. So in common with most Westminster MPs his arithmetic leaves something to be desired. I say that because I would never dream of calling someone so eminent as he a liar. It genuinely beggars belief that a creature like this could be taken seriously by any section of population anywhere in the world, but my point is that he is being taken very seriously by many people in the USA.

However, if we want to talk about loony's we must consider the case of a California lawyer. The US state of California has an initiative whereby any citizen can call for a public ballot on any measure they propose by filing the proposal with the state attorney general’s office for a fee of $200. After a public review of 30 days, the attorney general must publish a summary of the measure, and the sponsor can then begin gathering signatures in order to put the initiative before voters in the next election. To get on the ballot, the initiative must have valid signatures from state residents equal to 5 percent of the people who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election. At this time of writing that comes to 366,000 signatures. A Californian lawyer called Matthew McLaughlin has filed a ballot initiative calling for the state of California to enact what he calls The Sodomite Suppression Act. This Act, if it ever managed to get passed,  would mandate execution by “bullets to the head or any other convenient method” for “any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification.” McLaughlin’s rationale, as explained in the proposition, is that it is better for “sodomites” to die “rather than that all of us should be killed by God’s just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating wickedness in our midst.” In addition, McLaughlin’s measure says that anyone who distributes “sodomistic propaganda” to a minor should “be fined $1 million per occurrence, and/or imprisoned up to 10 years, and/or expelled from the boundaries of the state of California for up to life.” He defines “sodomistic propaganda” as “anything aimed at creating an interest in or an acceptance of human sexual relations other than between a man and a woman.”

Is America going mad? Discuss! I have no space here to discuss the death penalty so will return to it later. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat