Sometimes I come across intelligent stuff on the net that challenges me. This is one such diatrade, well-written and very well thought out, a good read, one you should approach with an open mind.

In my own clouded brain, with the Kerry loss, I feel the world is a more unsafe place to be, and that things will only turn to worse. I had the same feeling after 9/11. The US enemies will be furthering their hated campaigns against the war president "over there."

The truth is often a biased choice. We choose what to believe in. The ultimate ideal of ultimate truth does not actually exist. Even science recognises this, pushing the truisms of theories towards Empirical Truth. But it isn't ultimate truth. It is a pipe dream. Forget about it.

George W. Bush is the frontman for a US government that I find despiccable, make no mistake about that, but lately I've been thinking that the problem isn't in the various political fractions of the US, it is in the dynamics of the US as a culture. It is cowboy country, in a very literal sense; smarter people on horseback herding kattle. The political system of the US, which isn't about to change, has big elements of gambling in it, where big cowboys are playing poker with the kattle at stake. "I'll raise you 400.000 kattle for WMD!", George might say. And each state folds at the 51% mark. Very odd to me, but probably quite good if you're a gambler.

Politics is a game that is taken really serious and is laughable at the same time. The stakes are both high and low; no matter what important political agenda we've got now, history will sweep up any leftovers in its wake. History just goes on, no matter what we do. Some people think democracy works this way too, by slowly molding itself into a better system of governance over time as history passes and disbandon laws and regulation. The only constant is change. People change, political ideas change, agenda change, countries change, wars change. Theocracy yesterday, democracy today, fascism tomorrow, and back again.

So let's talk about the pain that people feel, because that is the true reason I feel sad. People who love Bush's way will be happy, and people who hate it will be sad. And then the polarity turns, but nothing much changes; there will still be pain. It is pain in passing, yet we feel it now. We feel it because the universe around us is not in our agreement. Yet we go on.

What disturbs we most about the Bush way is that it relies on proof by opinion and rethorics. And a lot of people accept rethorics as evidence, as long as it follows their own. Such as the people in the diatrade that challenged me. Such as kattle. Or people at the poker-machines. "Truth" and "lies" are words that we fling emotionally around too easily, words we substitute for balanced centrist views. And the biggest problem in US politics is just that; emotional rethorics win over cold hard facts. Such as that the truth shall set us free. It won't. We are already free, always will be, no matter what. It is our physical space that is restricted by the local king.

The king is dead. Long live the king. As always.