After I was totally baffled from pondering those totally inane issues, I took it a bit further, and used my religion major to do the only thing one can do with it -- think. I thought about what this country was based on -- Christian values. So then why did it end up focusing on equality? Christianity does not preach equality. It's an absolute monarchy, with God at the top, and everyone else trying to suck up to him to avoid eternal damnation.

So that's oversimplifying it a bit, granted, but the idea still remains. Why does the most prominent theology in the Western world revolve around a monarchy while our political views keep trying to go towards equality? I certainly don't know the answer, and I doubt anyone else does. However, I can offer you my thoughts on the issue tying together my political science knowledge, and my religious knowledge, to give you a totally biased idea of why I think people are generally hypocrites. I can't promise you'll like it, but I think that getting there will at least amuse you.

Let's take the two main pieces of modern thought on this whole equality issue -- my two good buddies, Locke and Marx. Marx really stems from Locke, and says that the working class needs to form a society based on productivity that is beneficial to all instead of beneficial just to the fat cats at the top. We all know Marx's idea failed in practice because people are greedy bastards. Simple and true enough, I couldn't put it better myself.

So Marx's theories sprang from Locke's society. Locke has this society based on some sort of democracy. Basically, he said that monarchy was the worst form of government because it was worse than the state of nature, which was a state that humans needed to change to be happy (which is why we don't live in it). The state of nature is where everyone is their own judge and jury and executioner. However, you run into problems, and everyone ends up killing each other, since one person is pretty bad at determining who should be punished and how badly.

Now we run into the fun part -- why this is so totally backwards. Locke and the guy he refutes focus on Adam and how it justifies their various systems. The other guy talks about how Adam is the first human, and given dominion over all, and uses that as a monarchy. Locke relates the family of Adam and Eve, and mumbles on about that. Neither bring in the true system under God. What is the true system under God? As I've already mentioned, God is the absolute monarch in the Christian system.

So let's just take this out a step further. Both Protestants and Catholics say the Lord's prayer. In that prayer the statement is made, "thine will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Earth mirrors heaven according to that prayer. That means that heaven, with it's hierarchy of God and angels should be as the earthly systems are. That totally eliminates the whole concept that heaven and earth are separate, and therefore we must look upon Adam for our guide to earthly rule.

This all serves to bring us to our current state. We (in the United States) live in a country which politically seeks equality, economically promotes survival of the fittest (near-anarchy), and theologically promotes monarchy. This leaves us all with mixed messages and morals. We have democrats, the christian coalition, and stock brokers to fill all three voices in the society. Where is the moral compass? Each would have you believe that it's in their world view. They're all wrong.

Hobbes had it right. Absolute monarchy is the best. Then I wouldn't be allowed to think about this and confuse myself with it, we wouldn't have the christian coalition, stock brokers, or democrats. Our society would be simple, life would be short, and people would probably still try to revolt. That's the absolute irony. Sentience brings with it the burden of stupidity. Animals aren't stupid -- they follow the rules and live with it, because they have no choice. As soon as we are given a choice we break the rules.