Ethics and other kinds of thics...

I know this feeling. Several months before I began writing With Eyes to See, a horror novel about multi-dimensional physics, I bugged Vicky for a whole weekend with brainstorms on dimensional perspectives. It's like my brain starts working on things long before I need them.

Of course, there is the flip side. I have a notebook filled with conjectural analysis on a variety of Christian myths... yet have done nothing with it.

That said, you never know. Either way, it's bugging me.

What is?

It's this thought that has been poking at the side of my head.

Here's how it began: Many serial murderers and scriptwriters have claimed that murder is justifiable based on the fact that nations in the last century have become so adept at mass-murder. As the same time, however, is it justifiable to prop yourself up just because you never murdered anyone? (... providing you haven't...)

That wasn't quite it. Anyway, murder is no longer a crime. The conditions under which murder can be committed have just been redefined. You can murder Iraqis if you're over there. You can murder criminals if you get that job. You can murder your spouse if you're rich enough. Exceptions! Exceptions! Exceptions!

Anyway, that wasn't it.

In fact, I don't even know if I've gotten to "it". But I have gotten closer.

If you go broke and can't pay your bills, it would be impossible for you to engage in "deficit spending". Yet, that's what our government (praise be to the Republicans who are not "tax and spend" politicians... they just spend) does every day. On the other hand, if I boast about how my brother has fallen under hard times and how I can support myself just fine - in fact, I just bought a boat! - that's wrong, somehow.

I don't know what this means but I think it's about Empathy, about Perspective. I think it deals with a collapse of the connection we have with each other. We allow out government to commit horrible crimes in our name, things most of us would never imagine doing. Can we consider ourselves "ethical" while supporting a government ignorant of ethics?

I don't know.

I've been dying to get back to writing some dick-and-fart joke comedy... but I think my brain has something else in mind... dammit. We'll see.