As you may have noticed, this is a socially liberal, pro-capitalist, pro-free-trade, secularist, anti-unprovoked-war weblog. It’s hosted on the domain name stalinism.com.

Now, if you think the domain name is a reprehensible celebration of terrible crimes against humanity or an indication of my political leanings, then you’re a dolt, and I recommend you don’t read any further, any satire, or indeed anything other than The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Assuming that you can deal with that, I recommend you take things you read here with somewhere between a pinch and a pillar of salt. I believe strongly in the rule of law, human rights, and liberal values, and would always apply these to any actions or serious calls for actions.

To apply this to a real-world example, the fact that I’d throw a party if that bastard Bush were dead [*] doesn’t alter the fact that – even if it weren’t counterproductive – killing him would be utterly terrible and wrong. If he wins in November, he’ll be the duly elected leader of the world’s second-largest democracy. That isn’t someone who should be getting assassinated, even if he is the worst leader that that country has had in 150 years.

Nonetheless, sometimes the actions of the man, his appointees and his supporters send me into the kind of crucifixion-based reverie that I mentioned yesterday. And if – like the people who objected to Charlie Brooker’s article – you can’t tell the difference, then I pity you.

[*] To forestall any ‘you support the terrorists’ concerns, I’d also throw a party if Saddam, Osama, Mugabe or Kim Jong Il were dead. And I’m much more open to moral arguments in favour of killing any of those four.