Infallability May Be Setting the Bar Too HIgh

I turned on the Jesus Christ show.  The first question Neil made a complete ass of himself.  This lady was calling her Pastor, “Father” and she didn’t make it clear whether it was in any Catholic setting.   However Neil took his response completely out of context and made stuff up.  I’ve been in a number of church settings where the teacher just makes stuff up and proclaims it as fact.  In this case Neil said “Well Jesus wasn’t talking about literally calling people “father” because we obviously all have parents.  But rather this was against the doctrine of infallibility that “I” wanted to guard against.  This is the whole meaning of “Father”.  Just substitute “infallibility”.   The whole problem is that at no time is there the slightest claim that the Jewish priests were infallible, and the whole concept is contrary to Judaism.  But more importantly, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility did not arise till the year 1870.   But then this guy comes on and asks about pornography and masturbation.  In refutation of Neil’s advice to him - - you can’t escape ever seeing a scantily clad sexy young female in today’s society unless you move to Switzerland or something.   Neil spoke of “My professor always told me if you’re not supposed to be in Santa Monica, then don’t come to California”.   The absurdity of this is obvious.  If you’re a kid and your mother tells you to never go into a Liquor store- - she doesn’t mean ‘Don’t even walk down the same street with any liquor store on it”.   But a more fundamental problem exists with Neil’s whole concept of sin.  It’s the “If Only” sindrone.    “If it just weren’t for this one sin, you’d be perfect and I could accept you, but now I can’t”.  And then there are unforeseen consequences.  If I gave away all my meager possessions- - to the poor- - first of all I would be poor myself, which the Bible ALSO says it’s not a good thing to be.  But next it would make me dependent.  I might even be dependent on the teacher who advised me to make myself poor.  But what if, for me, being dependent is a more besetting sin than was being addicted to possessions?   It was about five to seven when I went to the store and got a dollar small cup of coffee from that lady at the store and drank it back here.

I watched Meet the Press, and a little of Face thje Nation, and that show was talking about former water-boarding in the CIA and did it produce any good and useful results?  There is apparently a report on the subject that Republicans in congress don’t want released to the general public, because our enemies might make some sort of illicit use of the material.   In subsequent news during the day, this rhetoric became almost alarmist about “When this report on Torture comes out it will put lives at risk around the world”.   It’s almost as if it’s a controversial decision for our own people to be made aware of what our government was doing ten years ago.  I guess there was some sexual shaming going on.   Maybe we’ll even find out something we didn’t know.  Since we, like Israel have about a hundred to one kill ratio- - we should be saying “Go on - - make my day.   Kill four of our guys and we will kill thousands of your people”.   And I’d add “You know we’ve got a nice little arrangement.   We like killing, and you Moslems like dying.”  (Selah) “Meet the Press” talked too much about police matters.  There was this new leader of the California State Senate, and some rivelry between him and this College Regent guy who used to disparage and belittle him when they were in the State Legislature.  This guy claims our college tuition has gone up percentage wise more than almost any other state.  He also said something strange.  He says the reason why the tax revenue fluctuates so wildly is because California relies way too much on the income of rich people, and they apparently suffer more from economic down-turns when we have those.  I decided I needed to listen to this guy for one ten minute segment because there were things I didn’t know.

Breakfast with the Beatles was at nine and the last song I listened to before lunch was “Well, Well, Well”.   It was an all John Lennon Sunday in honor of the 34^th anniversary of his death, which is tomorrow, also on a Monday.  I had actually forgotten about that anniversary.   In a new low in stupidity- - now in addition to those "Don't let your loved ones serve time for being drunk" attorney ads, we have gun attorneys advertising on KEIB telling you eighteen ways you can shoot your neighbor and get away with it.  I can see their next slogan now "If isn't a free shot if your neighbor's kid pays for it with his life".   Now Sean Hannity is taking up the chant first led by Rush Limbaugh in January of 2009 saying "Obama being elected President won't help race relations one bit".  Now from the other side Sean Hannity is saying in retrospect "Where is all this talk on racial harmony we were told about?"  But it's more akin to giving yourself a Hi Five for a job well done, just like with the poor economy you do a hi five to your congressman and say "Good job, well done" as you see the economy languish.  By the way everyone in my social circle has heard the song 'Merry Christmas" by the Waitresses.   Also I thought 'Lady's night" at bars was legalized long ago since it's such a transcendent part of society now.  I guess I figured that men were not a "minority" and therefore couldn't sue.  [edit]  We had grapes for desert.  But we also had an encore of the crackers and cheese we had last night.   To paraphrase the Ruttles song "I have always thought in the back of my mind- - Cheese and Crackers - - I have always thought that the world was sublime- - Cheese and Crackers.   You know there was one element of truth with that whole early fall rapture date with the Federation.  It was almost like a "heads up" because- - - contact with earth people like me- - has become much more limited- - as far as the Federation is concerned.  There is almost like a "wall of separation" now between me and Mal Evans.  The last time I saw John Lennon - - Mal Evans said "Don't talk to John about politics", which made me a little paranoid.

If Mitt Romney had been elected president he'd have a lot to be bragging about now with the 320,000 new jobs last month and the stock market closing in on 18,000 and our higher energy production and lower gasoline prices.  But Stephanie and friends wonder "Does the media not mention these, like on any of the Sunday news shows, because of that N word in the White House?"   Is that "illigitimization" of this President still going on?   Of course in our blame the victim mentality "Well that guy who was choked to death made the decision when he gained all that weight and let himself go- - " about his own death.  It's really his own fault for being out of shape.   New York apparently is paying fantastic ammounts of money out in Civil Law suits against the NYPD.   I guess it was Chris Le Boy who said "That NYPD police chief sounds a little thuggish to me".   Meanwhile in Louisiana Mary Landreau lost out to the Republican in the final piece of the US Senate composition puzzle.  Now the Republicans have a net gain of nine US Senators.  And the race was lost because of Mary's speech on race that one day saying Louisiana has had a lot of racial problems and inequities in the past.  This statement could not go unchallenged in the halls of FOX news.  So the dog whistle speech here is "If you want to Send A Message you don't think our fair state is racist, then vote for me- - and not that N-word lover, Mary Landreau".  

Let’s talk about this book TV joker intellectual that was on C-Span.   Not all card carrying right wingers are raving maniacs.  Sometimes they are gentile older intellectual types, but you have to listen to their words.  First he says “A fanatic gets his political power because he never questions his own political beliefs, and you don’t question it in hearing him”.  And he also says “This type of person usually has high self esteem because he lives in a world without any internal conflicts”.    Then the strange statements started.  He said that our gountry was forty percent socialized and that forty percent of every dollar you make goes for some sort of government program.  He also said that old government programs never shut down that there is a rachet type system of government where once a new program “locks in” it can never be taken back.  He also said “The Republicans try to get rid of programs- like privatize social security- but the system prevents them from doing it”.   If you listened to this guy you’d never know medical benefits were cut drastically a few years ago in California - - and maybe a few got restored just recently.  Some weren’t.  I still haven’t gotten the renters rebate since 2007, which was the last year.   This guy says that old people are spoiled with medicare and social security- - and that people are overcompensated for inflation.  This is a flat out LIE because as I have repeatedly told you- - the real inflation rate for the needs of older people is WAY above their paultry 1.3% increase or whatever it is.   He then said that “Anybody who speaks of the inequity of income in the United States, should not be trusted because we don’t want to penalize people for doing well”.   Dr Levy has done a lot of this clap trap rhetoric saying that the tax rate for rich in European Countries is around sixty percent.  The top marginal rate- - is 45%.   You say “Then the person at the top marginal rate pays 45%?”.    No.  Let’s say the top marginal rate is $400,000 dollars.  That means that if you earn DOUBLE the top marginal rate- - then HALF of what you make is taxed at 45%.  The other half is taxed at a lower rate.   People open their mouths and spread their ignorance.  Then there is the line of “The trouble with socialism is that pretty soon you run out of other people’s money”.    In truth the Federal Reserve gives the richest of Wall Street bankers FREE MONEY to the tune of three Trillion dollars- - and rising, with the idea that they are to lend it out- - which they DON’T do.   If that money had been lent out- - just think how much better the US economy would be today.   But I would say to this intellectual guy- - -   “If you can look at the inequity of income in this country and not think something is very wrong- - there is something wrong with you”.    However,  I can remark that too many Black women are having children out of wedlock.  But would you infer from that simple statement that I’m for mass sterilization of Black women of child bearing age?  Of course not.  And if I say to you ‘You know your liver isn’t very healthy and if you fixed your liver problems you’d feel a lot better”.  It would be paranoid for such a person to respond “OH I know- - you just don’t TRUST ME around alcohol - - you’re trying to stick an alcoholism rap on me- - and I resent that.”    Do you see my point?  Just because I’m saying it’s the sign of an unhealthy society for the rich to have such a disproportionate part of the pie- - it’s wrong to infer that I’m some kind of a socialist in the tradition of Vladimir Lenin or something.   I would add as a final note that in a world of great abundance- inequity assumes less importance.  But in a world of extreme scarcity- - like poor children fighting over food- - the idea of equally dividing that resource carefully - - - assumes a greater importance than it would have otherwise.