We are ruled by sociopaths and here is all the proof you need tightly encapsulated in one New York Times editorial:

264 Days and Counting

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/opinion/22thu2.html?ref=opinion

This one editorial lays bare for the world to see the criminally insane collective mindset of American political, media, and corporate elites.

Today is the 264th day that three American "hikers" were arrested by Iranian border guards after wandering over the border from Iraq . . . and the New York Times is outraged at Iran over this and chose today to take them to task:

Nine months. Two-hundred-sixty-four days. However you total it up, it is too long for three Americans to be cruelly, and unfairly, held in an Iranian jail.

Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd should have been released long ago. It now seems that Iran’s mullah-led government has made them pawns in the political chess game with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program. That’s unconscionable.

Really? That's "unconscionable?" Really? Never mind that the US government held 5 Iranian diplomats for 2 1/2 years with no charges of any sort with even the Iraqi and Kurdish regional governments demanding their release. The Times thinks that Iran, surrounded by US armies and armadas and threatened on a near daily basis with attack "options" which include the nuclear option, is acting irrationally here in holding three American "Hikers" for going on 9 months now? And let's not forget that the US is a country whose major politicians speak routinely of funding covert ops in Iran to destabilize its government. Nope- Iran is being a bad freedom hating country here in holding these poor Americans for no logical or rational reason! But that doesn't even begin to fathom the bottom of the hypocrisy barrel in this editorial.

Iran using Americans as pawns in a political "chess game"? Why don't I think the Iranians see their predicament with the US to be a "game"? Oh right- cause unlike the Time's editorial writers and virtually all Americans- a war with the US will be fought on their soil and it won't be a "game" for them. Unlike our political elite- war has consequences for Iran's leaders. It isn't a sick pastime for them like it is for our leaders. It is life and death for millions of their citizens.

And of course the US doesn't use people as political pawns at all! Tell that to the children and elderly who will be killed by US sanctions in Iran. That's not using people as pawns though! That would be in addition to the scores of Iranians killed in plane crashes every year as a direct result of US sanctions on airplane parts for civilian crafts.

Each line of this editorial actually gets more deranged and unhinged from reality:

Since then, the Iranians have permitted only two consular visits — in September and October — by Swiss diplomats representing American interests in Tehran. The hikers had to wait seven agonizing months, until early March, for one phone call apiece to their families back home.

Bwah? Certainly the writers of this editorial are aware that the US held hundreds, if not thousands of men, for years- not months, but years with zero contact with their families, representatives from their governments, or any outside contact with anyone at all- with most if not all being brutally tortured as well? Surely the Times is aware of the over 100 deaths of "detainees" due to torture at the hands of the US government?

So is this how our elites are going to roll from now on? Just pretending that their massive assassination, kidnapping, rendition, torture, and murder regime under the last President didn't happen? Going to pretend that the current President has not all but kept all of these programs going and made them worse?

Still, it gets even worse:

Iranian officials should comply with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and allow regular access to the three Americans. They should stop manipulating the families and grant visas so the mothers can visit their children. The mothers filed applications in January that are still not approved.

The US runs a friggin world wide secret gulag that contains God knows how many people who get no visits from anyone, no phone calls . . . and the writer's of the New York Times editorial board know this! And yet they feel completely at ease taking Iran to task over its far lessor civil rights violations here? These people are out of their minds. Nuts. This editorial is emblematic of criminally insane sociopaths who show absolutely no awareness of their own crimes while constantly working themselves into foaming lathers at the far lessor faults of those around them. This editorial is, in a word, bonkers.

But still, it gets even worse . . .

The fact that Iranian officials cannot agree on charges against the hikers, or back them up, is a sure sign that something fishy is going on.

Yes. I agree. Indeed. That is fishy. When government can't even charge anyone with a crime while holding them? Yep- that is fishy! Know what else is kinda fishy? How about holding a dozen men for being the 9/11 masterminds for going on a decade now with no trial? How about holding a dozen men for that crime for years in total isolation while they were repeatedly tortured using "techniques" specifically designed to elicit false confessions? How about creating entirely new courts for these "masterminds" with rules of evidence that would make Stalin blush? Is that "fishy" New York Times editorial writers? Oh right- of course not. Now when "we" do it.

The scariest thing about this editorial is that foreigners will read this- foreign intelligence political analysts will read this editorial and pretty much conclude the same thing I have here- we are ruled by an elite that is utterly incapable of introspection of any serious sort and that somehow actually thinks it still has the moral high ground to lecture other countries on human rights and due process.

Being out of touch with reality is one thing. Many people are. But being out of touch with reality while brandishing the biggest arsenal the world has ever seen while simultaneously thinking you are inherently good and noble and everyone else around you is evil . . . well, watch out.