Thinkage [updated]

"‘The country has lost its moral compass’ is a dog whistle. "Here in the United States when you pull the thread on ‘the country has lost its moral compass’ what follows, clanking and banging like a string of tin cans tied to a dog's tail, is thinly disguised racism, misogyny, homophobia, hate, fear, bigotry, and nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ when people who looked and thought just like you owned everything.

"Every conversation that begins with ‘The country has lost its moral compass’ always and inevitably ends with the only solution being the commenter’s religion. Always. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

"And every single time you protest and tell me I'm wrong, as soon as you attempt to explain how ‘the country has lost its moral compass’ you always plow through thinly disguised racism, misogyny, homophobia, hate, fear, bigotry, and the good old days on the way to your religion. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

"Folks, today is no better or worse, morally, than any other day.

"We haven’t lost our moral compass as a nation. We never had one to begin with.

"And that’s a good thing.

"We face problems as a nation, as a civilization, just as we always have.

"The world is always going to hell, just ask anybody.

"Attempting to impose your morality on the rest of us isn’t the solution.

"It’s the whole damned problem." -- Jim Wright, Stonekettle Station: "The Myth of the Moral Compass"