Taking Time to Catch Our Breath

Let's take a break from politics and talk about terms we use to describe ourselves.  I call myself a Deist for instance.  A deist is a person who believes in God but not a personal god whom you can pray to.  I am a Deist and not a Theist.  As such I could still be called an Atheist.  You follow that?  I also call myself an economic nationalist.  Apparently racists have taken to use that term now, just as they have taken to use the term "Objectivist".   It struck me that Objectivist is a polar opposite of things that are themselves polar opposites.  I an not an empericist.  Or let me put it this way.  The scientific method is a very valuable way of learning information but not the ONLY way of learning new information.  I also state there is information out there that is just as True as anything else, as true as any other known Fact, and yet there are things we may never know the Truth of.  In this way you might say I am suggesting a Being or God out there.  There doesn't necessarily have to be a Being out there but to say there is some standard or Truth or body of knowledge that isn't known to use but known by - - somebody, would be suggestive of some sort of Deity.  But if you look at it another way, an empericist and a subjectivist have in common one thing.  Both would make the statement of "Whatever my eyes see and my senses record - this is Truth".  I do not necessarily believe that.  Even that Heisenberg fellow with his uncertainty principle would state that there is a lot of illusion out there where ether waves and light is concerned.  I would say that I am an empericist as long as my empericism serves Truth.  And the minute empericism no longer serves Truth is the time I get off the train and look for some other method of acquiring knowledge, or at least "knowing what I don't know".  The subjectivist believes the world revolves around Him.  He says "Whatever I see, that's what IS".  The empericist says the same thing though his aim is a little different.  People who are subjectivists believe there is no Absolute truth.  There is only Your Truth and My Truth and nobody is entitled to say one's oppinion is worth more than another's oppinion.  The empericist on the other hand would say "There is an absolute truth and I am on the road to fining it and we're getting closer all the time".  I too would say "We're getting closer to Truth, but like the rainbow at the end of the road, I don't believe it's a goal we will never achieve.  Psychologist would say that yes there are are varying standards of what is right and moral.  And they would attach certain words to these "disagreements" or conflicts among humans.  For instance there is a thing called Projection where you project your faults on to others like a movie projector.  It's no longer you but then.  It's FROM you but you don't want to own it.  You've heard the adage "If you want to figure out what's wrong with everybody else why don't you look in a mirror".   This brings us to politics.  Some would say "well if you believe in subjectivism or lack of any absolutes then you believe that Conservatives and Liberals are equally morally justified.  Conservatives try this approach.  They have this thing called "false equivelency" meaning it doesn't matter whether they insult themselves in the process they're sticking it to You and that's the important thing.  Shawn uses this approach all the time.  But as Ghandi once said "If you have the blind leading the blind then both men fall into the ditch".  (Selah)  We liberals are better than that.  At least if you're an objectivist as I am.  But you see the labels they use on each other and it would be easy to begin wondering about it.  Thom Hartman today was reading from Mein Kamph  about the "Jewish press" and they have their cancerous sores and leshions exposed in the light of Truth or something.  But Thom Points out that all you have to do is substitute a few words and you could be talking about today.  So when you see the word "Jew" just substitute "liberal" and when you see the term "Germany" just substitute "America".  It's eye opening reading.  On top of this there is a current book out now on the liberal press that reads like a Donald Trump speech or something saying that the press can't be trusted.  Projection can be explained by the following generalizations.  If you assume that everyone is a liar than maybe you yourself are the liar.  If you assume everyone is a crook, it could be you yourself are a crook.  If you believe everyone thinks about sex 24 hours a day in every situation, than maybe you yourself are the one with the obsession.  When Thom was seven a classmate of his accused Thom of stealing his pencil box and the teacher asked Thom about it and made a really big thing about it.  Thom hadn't done it and later the other boy found the missing pencil box in his own things.  When Thom got home he asked his father about it and the father in non psychological terms explained to his son just what projection was.  The bottom line is that we liberals need to be sure of our high moral ground.  I believe in order to have high moral ground you have to believe that there is some absolute higher standard to strive for.  At times I think Thom makes too many sweeping generalizations both about human nature and economic theory along the lines of Karl Marx.  He makes certain conclusions and I''m "not ready to go there" at least yet, but I'm nibbling around the edges making one emperical conclusion at a time.  If you're at all curious I myself did not start off hating Donald Trump.  I was open minded.  Indeed many of his early ideas I actually liked.  My profound distaste for Trump now was definitely an acquired one.  I still tend to assume people are saying the Truth unless confronted by strong evidence otherwise.  This is in contrast to a Shawn Hannity aid named Linda, who constantly assumes the worst about people untill she's forced to think otherwise.  In other words I'm an optimist while it makes sense to Be an optimist.  After all the word comes from "optimal" or "best performance".   I am a believer in "optimizing" one's life.

This is Tuesday after dinner on February 7, 2017.   Donald Trump’s foreign Islamic visa policy is on trial tonight as the Ninth Circuit Court here on the left coast heard the case tonight.  Right now there is a temporary stay on the executive Visa action of the Trump administration.  This court will set about to making it permanent.  But also it will be appealed to the Supreme Court and at that time it’s believed Trump’s executive order will be upheld.  There is a whole history of executive orders.  An early one was the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln feeing the slaves in the south.  The WPA under FDR,  the Works Progress Administration, was an executive order that the Courts struck down as unconstitutional in 1935.  The order of setting up Japanese internment camps in 1942 was the result of an executive order.  Also the order integrating the Military branches by Harry Truman in 1947 was an executive order.  Also seizure of the Steel Plants in 1952 was an executive order.  I didn’t know that one was ever upheld and it sounds a tad too communistic for my taste.  Eisenhower’s order federalizing the National Guard in 1957 was an executive order that integrated Little Rock.  Also the Peace Corpse was set up in 1961 with an executive order of John Kennedy.  So far President Trump has issues over twenty executive orders.  That’s running way ahead of normal, just as we in California are running way ahead of normal in our snow pack and rain tally figures.  How many executive orders will this Trump administration end up issuing.  And are worse ones yet to come?  These are the pressing questions that keep liberals up at night.  Now we hear that women are more affected by the stress of politics than men are.  I guess this is understandable because they have a lot more to lose with abortion rights and equal pay and all of that.

The Drake Institute is one of these drug free organizations that treats hyperactivity attention deficit disorder.  I wish I had a drug free doctor.  The doctor I got as a kid was a regular pill popper or expected me to be, experimenting with first this drug than that.  But they use things like brain mapping to determine what portions of your child’s brain are being properly stimulated.  Also they do things like neuro feedback.  It’s been stated that kids don’t outgrow hyperactivity disorder.  Indeed Thom Hartman is almost proud of his ADHD.

Rhapsody in Black did songs from February of 1966.  A couple of the songs were three months late.  I think a lot of the songs were early.  Here are the songs they played.  “Do the Duck”, “This Old Heart of Mine”, “The Cheater”, “Crying Time”, “634-5789”, “Shake Me; Break Me” (or maybe it’s “wake”), “Scratch My Back”, “Hard Day’s Night” by Ramsey Lewis, “Uptight, Out of Sight”, “Get out of my Life, Woman”, “My World Is Empty Without You”, and “Going to a Go Go”, “Don’t Mess With Bill”.   “Feel So Fine” I remember vaguely.  Glenda remembered “Let’s Talk it Over” or whatever when she came to use the phone.  I went out for cigarettes at 25 minutes to four and got John Black gold.  I almost tripped over a small bike wheel.  When I returned Bill Gardener was playing a few really old songs including one from 1953 and maybe an older one than that.   Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, and Marvyn Gaye checked in with songs I didn’t recognize.