Knowledge

Once we humans stopped attributing events and objects to the whimsical actions of deities, we asked ourselves two very important questions:  What do we know?  And how do we know it?  For those of you who have studied a bit of philosophy the statement I just made should make you think of Rene Descartes and David Hume.  Which gives us the argument of:  “I think therefore I am” and “No, you think therefore thinking is.”  I am sure many of you are now thinking that while such arguments are good intellectual exercises, the question of whether you can prove your own existence has little importance in the real world.  Ah, but what if “I think therefore I am” is just the beginning of an argument for the existence of God?  Those of you who have studied philosophy know that that is what Mr. Descartes and others were arguing and Mr. Hume was refuting.   The point is that Mr. Descartes’ argument, “I think therefore I am,” replaced, “I believe therefore God is,” at least in the mind of Mr. Descartes and his followers.  In other words, the question of whether there is a God was treated by Messrs. Descartes and Hume as an intellectual argument rather than an emotional belief.

It is all right, you can safely un-pucker the sphincters now.  It is not my intention to make an argument for or against the existence of God.  Although it was religion that motivated many philosophers, what is really important about philosophy is the discipline.  First of all the terms used have to be defined and accepted for the sake of argument.  Then a starting point must be established and accepted for the sake of argument.  Without those two conditions no intellectual argument is possible; instead what you have are people shouting their beliefs or opinions at each other, which is something we do far too often.  So define your terms and describe your observations with enough detail and in a manner that will allow me to verify them.  It is after that verification that the argument really begins.

This brings me to the subject of science.  Science is a method rather than a belief.  No one can physically examine a world view based on faith rather than observation, and it is in our understanding of the physical world, gained from observation and experimentation, that we have made so much progress.   If our observations reveal flaws in a prevalent theory, and another theory will allow us to predict the phenomenon with greater accuracy a good scientist will always embrace the newer theory.  I will grant you that this fluidity of thought means there are few certainties, but that does not justify excommunicating Galileo.   Faith is faith and science is science and never the twain shall meet.  You can have both, but you have to keep them in separate compartments or they will abuse each other.  People who cannot achieve that separation invariably wind up rejecting either science or God.  If I had to make the choice I would keep science. There has to be a reason for our big brains - survival, free will, whatever - form your own theory; we will let you change it when there is more evidence.

I think people who reject this world have rejected the big brain as well, but that is their problem.  There is no reason for me to worry about it unless…  Oh shit!  They actually want to excommunicate scientists, and they want to make this world miserable enough so we will also be tempted to reject it!

Bluff And Bluster

Right now, all the GOP is holding is a pair of deuces, and in spite of the right wing histrionics the deuces are not wild.  The GOP wants us to believe that the “Benghazi scandal” will defeat Hillary Clinton.  The problem is that the allegations are so obviously disingenuous and the scandal is so obviously trumped up that even many of the dumb asses are inclined to ignore it.  Ah, but there is still Obama care.  Yes, there is; in spite of the fact that the Republicans shut down the government and threatened the full faith and credit of the United States in an effort to extort a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the act is actually being implemented.   Therein lies the problem for the Grand Old Plutocrats.  No one with an IQ above eighty is going to cut off his own nose to remove a pimple there.  My point being that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act is not a viable option, regardless of its flaws.

What do the Republicans want to do?  Do they want to let the insurance companies use coverage caps and alleged preconditions to deny people the coverage those people thought they were paying to obtain?  Do they want to let the insurance companies charge women more than they charge men for any meaningful coverage?  Do the Republicans want to roll back the clock on who can buy insurance and how long you can keep your child on your policy?  Do the Republicans want to relieve the insurance companies of the requirement to pay for preventative care?  The answer to all of those questions is apparently “Yes, they do.”

Given the fact that the Republicans have shown absolutely no concern about the increasingly great disparity in wealth between the top two percent and everyone else; that they have opposed extending unemployment benefits to the victims of Bush’s recession, that they have opposed raising the minimum wage and have successfully demanded an increase in the payroll tax in order to spite the Democrats for making the rich pay a fairer share of the taxes, it is not unreasonable to believe that the Republicans are tools of the special interests they really represent, and that they do not care about the health or wealth of the middle class.  So let the Republicans run on the phony issues of Benghazi and Obama care; those issues only serve to demonstrate how morally and intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become.