Ameritocracy

There, I have done the unthinkable (but not that I haven't done it before, so perhaps it is only unthinkable to some). A neologism has sprouted. I hereby define 'ameritocracy' as i) a non-merit-based form of power sharing policy, and ii) a kind of American behaviour in which assertions about theology and other such drivers of opinion are leavened with refusal to look at primary sources.

The latter exercises me a great deal. I keep reading stuff about how a Christian nation should behave. Oh, please. America is no more a Christian nation than Jesus was a Roman Catholic. It was founded on humanist principles and fig-leaved with God by a bunch of Freemasons and whatnot, which is why America's religious traditions tend to be oddly crazed (I use this in the sense of 'fractured').

Just this evening I was treated to the awesome contention that the Bible would not condone capital punishment. Well, it does. Unless you do a lot of unedifying stance-shifting and peculiar exegesis. Especially with Romans 13:3-4 on the table, and Paul's blatant acceptance of the right of the state to try him with capital punishment as one possible outcome.

Ah well.