American military male homophobes incessantly whine that to allow gays into my foxhole means I could be seduced or raped and so I couldn’t concentrate on killing the enemy because those fags wouldn’t be there to protect my ass, but to attack it. Lesbians aren’t technically allowed in the foxhole, yet if allowed to have sex, they are equally a threat to battlefield success. Those claims are not the reasons why homophobes have so successfully maintained gross discrimination in a military that has become a fair playing field for all other minorities. Their shouted reasoning is so absurd it’s hard to believe how homophobes have retained their power almost one year into Obama’s presidency.

Religious Homophobes claim some man a long time ago in a culture far different from America today wrote that God demands that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. So even though there is no proof that the bible author prophet talked to a God whose proof of existence hasn’t been proved and ancient cultures are far different than modern American Christian culture which has changed in so many ways since then, these fanatics insist everyone must hold to the ancient idea of what constitutes a marriage. This utter nonsense has still carried the day in recent elections. As with military homophobes, the professed religious arguments used in elections is not the real reason why this outright discrimination has caused so much needless hardships and suffering.

The RWCAs (the C is for Cowardly) have made one ridiculous argument after another about Barack Obama before and after the election. Movie/TV comedian John Cleese believes the right of the Republican party are crazy. In a recent interview published in Vanity Fair magazine, Cleese said, the right of the Republican Party is a group of people who are very prejudiced, and are very emotional about their prejudices, without by and large having many powers of analysis or introspection. When Obama was elected to office, he just caused them to feel crazier and crazier, because he’s clearly so much saner than they are. The response of most people to feeling crazy is not, “Oh I must be crazy, so therefore I should try to become saner.” It’s actually to become even more crazy.”

Despite the debt, home foreclosures, suffering and death that America’s health system causes, 30-40% of Americans make outrageous claims for the status quo and fight hard against their best interests.

What fear could possibly cause this illogical, cruel thinking? The fear of having the most basic beliefs about life challenged with facts and logic. Regardless of political or religious beliefs or economic standing, it is frightening for anyone to have to face the reality that a basic tenet used to live their life could be wrong.

Magnifying the fear is the fact that fear has been the primary motivator used to teach these illogical base beliefs. Fear of abnormal sex (is there such a thing?), mortal sin, a forever life in hell, government taking away your freedom, etc. are used to hold the believer steadfast and beholden to those spreading the fear.

The fearmongering regarding sex has throughout human history for the vast majority of cultures made the naked human body dirty and something that must be covered up. That’s crazy. Animals can lead happy lives without clothes. Clothes should be used for protection or decoration, not to inhibit sexual desire. In Japan both genders can take public baths together without sexual desire rearing its head because both genders can compartmentalize physical and mental cleansing from sexual desire. It does no harm later to sexual desire in the bedroom.

Leaders of any gender or gender variation who use fear to teach illogical beliefs, usually for economic gain or power which results in economic superiority, are doing grave harm. Playing on someone’s inner fear is far worse than most of the reasons we imprison people. If some male wants to screw a sheep, how is that a crime? How did American culture make sodomy a crime for so long? How is it so hard to prove that crying fire in a theater is a very serious crime. Do we have to have Obama assassinated before the Becks of our culture are held to account?

There is no easy solution to bring sanity to those Americans trapped by inner fears instilled by selfish leaders until the inner fears are dealt with. The best solution I know of rests with public education. Not by teaching against the base beliefs because most schools could never find enough agreement to develop a curriculum. It would involve showing students the value of making all decisions for themselves and keeping an open mind while doing that. To learn that self-introspection and skepticism are invaluable life tools. That compassion and giving to others makes a more cohesive, real problem solving community. That working together means sacrifice and compromise.

Life is a series of never ending problem solving. When children are taught to do what the adults tell them and not make each decision for themselves, these students when adults easily fall prey to vulture leaders. We should give far more emphasis early in the public education process to emotional and life skills and not take the easy rode of making education purely academic. Concentration on just the academic results in testing and “capitalistic” grading on who is better and who is worse. There are at least eight types of intelligence and our current public education system says that if you are weak in academic intelligence and strong in others, you are not as good as your fellow students. That is silly beyond belief.

Finland has a better education system than we do in America because they do teach these fundamentals along with the academic. They score highest in world testing not because they are better at academics but because they consider teaching the highest form of employment and education elementary to any success in life. They know how to instill the love of learning and skepticism. Americans simply don’t. Our current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to give even more emphasis to teaching to the test so our students can be even more insecure and lag further behind Finland and other wiser countries. And political debate will grow even more ridiculous if that is possible.