Under a dictatorship, it's easy to blame the dictator for all the pain and trouble in the society under his rule.

In a democratic republic, you have to blame the people who vote for the reprehensible leaders.

Let me explain. In poll after poll, a clear majority of Americans believe the following:

When Obama assumed the Presidency, he promised "change." For the most part, he gave us more -- a lot more -- of the same socialism and deficit spending we got under the Bush Administration.

One area in which Obama has delivered change is the way that we treat enemy combatants and prisoners captured in war. Unlike the Bush Administration, the Obama Justice Department treats captured terrorists as nothing more than common criminals. This means that even though their explicit goal is to destroy the American people and their Constitution, they are still welcome to enjoy the benefits of that very system and its laws. The same government these terrorists seek to destroy, by any violent means necessary, bends over backwards to defend their rights and even set them free. Imagine if America had done this with Nazis in World War II? There would be no America today for terrorists to attack.

Q: You wrote that guilt and shame are not good motivators. But aren't they useful if you have, in fact, done something wrong?

A: If somebody did something deliberately to harm you, then what kind of person do you think this is? Is this someone who is really all that capable of feeling guilt? I wouldn't think so. It's fine to say this person SHOULD be motivated by guilt. Well, that's obvious. Guilt would have been a useful motivator to not do something wrong if one had a conscience, and an explicit, rational definition of right and wrong from the get-go. But the fact is: People who deliberately do bad things don't have the conscience, and don't have that objective definition of right and wrong.

The people who end up subjected to guilt and shame are those who haven't necessarily done anything wrong. "Stop being so selfish!" is the usual call to arms for encouraging shame in another. The evil doing person will hear that and simply laugh. Too many good people hear this and think, "Oh my -- selfish. That's the worst thing in the world. Could I be guilty of that?" They entertain their own guilt without even expecting the accuser to offer any evidence.

By the way, it's not bad to be self-interested. It's possible to be self-interested and not harm anyone else. The world is full of people acting in their self-interest who are not lying, cheating, or acting with physical violence towards another. If caring about your own wants and needs, and taking rational action to bring them into reality, is wrong in principle, then anyone trying to survive and be happy is immoral, by that crazy definition. It's usually the people trying to advance this crazy definition of morality who use shame and guilt as tools. They tell you not to be selfish. They tell you this -- why, exactly? So that they can get something from you. For what purpose? To serve their own ends, of course. The person who tells you not to be selfish is self-refuting. “Don’t be selfish. Don’t spend that money on yourself; spend it on me. Or spend it on someone I consider more important.” In the process of being selfless, you're doing what HE or SHE wants. The person who tells you not to be selfish gets to be selfish him- or herself. How fair or moral is that?