A Vote for Eros

What's up with politics anyway? Has anyone else found the current discourse to be so far below even a modest measure of enlightenment, or even just a simple level of adult maturity, that you feel like the inmates are running the asylum?
Listening to the pseudo-populist offensive of the radical Republican right, represented by Mike Huckabee and "Walker, Texas Ranger," trying to convince us that the 6,000 year-old world is indeed flat after all, makes me wonder if anyone is really paying attention. But Huck and Chuck's brand of lunacy is not going to cease as long as it is not confronted directly. Part of the problem is that by referring to the philosophical divide in our society as a ''culture war,'' pundits inadvertently give equal weight to ideas that are not deserving of such elevation. "Social Conservatism" sounds so intelligent and thoughful as a position, but in fact, the attacks on evolution, stem cell research, women's reproductive rights, modern education, racial equality and homosexuality are not rooted in rational thinking, objective observation or even intuitive understanding. The positions of these "righteous" radicals are based in superstition, primitive beliefs and fears of the Other, no different from the attitudes that once led ''God fearing'' people to burn women to death for supposedly being witches. Democrats and Moderate Republicans could stop empowering the far-out far right by no longer treating its arguments as just another part of ''American political traditions,'' but as part of a repressive, retrogressive movement that is ultimately doomed to obscurity. Will they? Ha!
Onto a related matter - I'm going to say this as a psychotherapist, as someone who has scrupulously observed the mental health of people for 30 years, Okay? Here it is: Mike Huckabee is crazy. Certifiable. So is Rudy Giuliani. Okay?! Look at their eyes the next time you see them on TV. Just check it out. The others on the right? Well, Romney's just your garden-variety psychopathic ad-man type, the kind of guy we all know and love to hate. He has no real philosophy, other than "Vote for me because I want to win and you know I'm handsome." And John McCain, though he borders on being the only adult among the Republican pack of whackos, is living in a bad B action movie, with himself starring as the real-life Chuck Norris.
So, why haven't the Democrats been able to secure the reigns of power for their party for so long? (Remember that even during the Clinton years, Congress was controlled by the Republicans.) Because if there's one thing even worse than craziness in a leader, it's insincerity, and for most people not trained in the mental health profession, insincerity is easier to read than madness. Bill "Slick Willy" Clinton made disingenuousness an art form during his run for the presidency, and his putative wife is attempting to follow in that tradition, even though so many people have come to hate "Clintonian" politics. (Unfortunately for them, when the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry tried the mealy-mouthed approach, they couldn't pull off the waffling and pandering without looking ludicrous.) John Edwards and Barack Obama started out fairly high on the sincerity meter, but every time Slick Hillary with the Crocodile Tears wins another primary, watch and see if they slide into prevaricating Clintonian blather.
How to choose who to vote for this year? For me and my wife, it's going to be easy, ultimately, because we have one foolproof method for assessing the best potential candidate to lead this nation. We're voting for the one who looks like they're having the healthiest sex life! Yep. We watch every debate, and a lot of news programs, and if you look carefully, you can see who is experiencing Eros on a regular basis, and I can assure you, that person will not precipitously get us into a war, or belligerently alienate the rest of the world or allow vast portions of our citizenry to live in poverty or without a decent, living wage or home environment or a meaningful education. Think about it. No one who has ever had a mind-blowing, soul-quenching orgasm with someone they're in love with has ever followed that up with an impulse to invade a country or steal someone's pension fund or dump some toxic waste in a nearby river. Right? Freud said it a century ago, and many enlightened spiritual teachers said it before him, and some have said it since - the greatest cause of most social ills in the world is sexual repression.
Think about it.