Bizarro world, truly.

Thanks for your thoughtful post.

I think you're correct there are many ready-made
sociopaths entering or in politics. But for those
who start out with at least some conscience,
the choices they start making, as power becomes
more and more satisfying to them, weakens their
connection to conscience. This heightens their
susceptibility to religion and cult-think.

If your conscience says 'do the right thing'
and you do the wrong thing anyway, it's a bit
uncomfortable. The next time, it's easier. Pretty
soon you're telling your conscience to shut the
fuck up and ignoring it altogether. This is the
seed of sociopathy (my opinion).

Conscience is a beautiful thing and I'm sure one
day there will be found a physiological basis and
site in the brain or something along those lines.
Some physiological proof that it's an evolved
feature of the human machine.

There will be some branches of the species in
which the conscience 'organ' will have devolved
into a tiny little purposeless clump of inactive
cells -- but there will still be a trace that it once
existed as a purposeful thing; and that this creature
without a developed conscience had apparently
branched off from the actual human race. I expect
the Cheney line, among others, has done this.

it's a question of Version-of-God vs America.. Version-of-God must come first

and even if people disagree with what Version-of-God
wants from them, they're fearful to end up in Hell,
so that's that.

My theory about why religion is taking over politics:

You can't cheat and deceive, and be at peace with
your own conscience.

So many politicians are anxious, all the time, at a
subterranean level -- because they are ignoring their
own innate conscience, dealing in cheat and deceit,
egomania.

Conscience is built-in for the purpose of guidance in
retaining one's humanity. If a person ignores it
for long enough, there is deep distress at a primal
level.

The only relief for this horror? a belief system in
a Version-of-God Who forgives them everything,
even if they keep right on doing it, and Who agrees
with their politics. (It's a Him, naturally.)

These beliefs are so foreign to the human heart
and conscience, that such people need to keep
ramming it into their own brains, to make it
stick. Like trying to jam a door shut so the
sun can't get in.

Arkansas oil spill -- encourage publicity via facebook or other media