Oooh, nuance!

When I was a tiny tot, my mom and dad taught me about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

In order for you to put the Golden Rule to work, you must have a quality that has fallen out of favor in today's hyper-masculine, over-militarized age: empathy.

I believe that people who lack empathy are capable of accepting almost any outrage without feeling the slightest twinge in their complacent minds. As long as they feel that whatever it is - poverty, hunger, torture, illegal wiretapping, imprisonment, irradiation with depleted uranium, PTSD - is not happening personally to them, they just couldn't care less. In other words, these unfeeling people are the hard core of today's Republic Party. Thus, they are able to support the President no matter what he does.

Remember when Bill Clinton's refrain "I feel your pain" was relentlessly mocked as being somewhat, er, effeminate? Now, Republic candidates like Mitt "Magic Briefs" Romney (h/t Sinfonian) scream that they want to DOUBLE GITMO!!! More torture! More war! I'm so manly, I can only grunt!!! ARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

If you're going to be President of the United States, you are presiding over hundreds of millions of people. Anyone who can't follow the Golden Rule should not, and must not, get the job.