Talk Radio - - A Strange Brew

Talk radio has become a strange brew of half cocked conclusions and unsubstantiated roomer. Gabriel Gifford is struggling for life in a hospital room. The doctors are optimistic as to her prognosis. Most people shot in the head don't survive, and many that do are vegetables for life because swelling of the brain, infections, and nerve damage does them in. She was lucky she wasn't shot in the most vital canters of the brain. Her bloody head was wrapped and prevented the loss of too much blood. She's a regular E J Di Mira. People on the right have reacted oddly to this whole incident. Today they just announced that gun sales in Arizona were up, perhaps in anticipation of stricter gun laws. People particularly want to buy the Glock 19, the gun the killer used. In California semiautomics are legal with only ten rounds of ammunition and not thirty like the killer used. That should warm the cockles of Rush Limbaugh's heart, erroniously assuming he had one. You'd think they would first suck in a breath and compose their thoughts before spouting off but the same people who provide "talking points" at other times are providing those same talking points here. According to Rush Limbaugh, the liberals are using this incident to turn an electoral victory into a defeat and that the people will turn against the tea baggers. Liberals don't even think in those terms because they view people as human beings and not events to be manipulated. The conservatives are denying the whole scope of the human tradgity of this incident ans it's implications of what is wrong with the current political culture. Sarah Palin took down her cross hairs gun site symbol but now she's saying "Oh this is a survayors' symbol. That's silly. These gun sites are drawn on all the tightly fought congressional districts and as it happens Gabriel Gifford just got elected in a tightly fought race. Bricks were thrown at her office. She only wanted to do what was best for the people. But all Rush Limbaugh sees is some tit for tat one upsman ship contest. Rush is so utterly devoid of sensitivity now if he'd started out this way twenty years ago he'd be off the radio in a few months, and I think he knows that. But I will say that O Riley talking about Dr. Tiller the baby killer is not in the same league. O Riley didn't engage in "hate speech"; he was just reciting facts. And I'll go further than that. I think Dr. Tiller should have been brought up on charges for the murders of those thousands, apparently, of babies. And hopefully he would be lawfully executed for his crimes. That's just my oppinion. I don't care squat whether he went to church every week. A lot of evil people go to church. I just conclude one thing. Either he is a fake or Jesus Christ is a fake, and frankly, I don't care which it turns out to be. But I don't believe in taking the law into your own hands and that's the difference between me and the right. When Sarah Palin and others say "Don't retreat; reload" and talk about "the necessity of resorting to second amendment remedies" then they have stepped over the line.

Some people have raised the question as to whether "Evil" exists in the abstract or whether evil is just contingent on the situation. I'll go with the latter view. And I'll say this: I believe evil is a product of our own choices. Some may say to me "But you don't believe in free will; how can you believe morality is the product of choices?" There is an answer. You have all these "loose threads" of the "if only"s to pull on. And once you start pulling on these threads of actual reality trying to restage it to your own liking, you pull on another and another, until the faboric is undone. I'll say this: People have the right to make choices. But they don't have free will. A conditioned rat makes a series of "choices" every minute of his life. People with a sex addition who are married but see a prostitute two or three times a week are constantly making choices. They make a choice to get in their car and drive, and to carry money with them and to bring their condoms. They prepare. Some people speak of evil as some kind of a "thing". They speak in terms of "my arthritis" or "my O C T" or whatever as though the ailment is some "thing" they can't get away from. Fred Price has said never to speak of a weakness as "MY - - whatever" as though it belongs to you and you can't escape it. Evil is just the product of decisions that human beings make. It isn't "original sin" or something genetic you are born with. People can rise above it any time they want, if they only have the will.

They are now saying that the United States intends to hang around Afghanistan to control events there even after our troops have completely departed in 2014. To me this is foolishness. We'll never leave. Wikki-leaks now says they aren't going to let current legal problems stop them for releasing another batch of damaging documents. Well, you know what they say. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Jesus Christ said "What you do in the closet in secret will be shouted from the roof tops". (Selah)

On the Randy Rhodes show today I thought I heard the host say that liberals are Objectivists. Which is just what I am. In other words I believe reality rests in the thing being examined and not in your own mind. Therefore I strenuously disagree with those who say "Well we all have distortions. Liberals distort and conservatives distort". I doubt that most of the people who say this even believe it per se but somehow think they're better. It's conservitives who say things like "Well, everybody lies" or "everybody does it" (usually referring to divorce and breaking up of families) No, everyone Doesn't do it. And if a liberal does "do things he shouldn't" he owns up to it and admits it and resolves to do better. He doesn't rationalize it away like Neil Savedra does when he says "Of course churches are hypocritical because we're all hypocrites, so join the club". I reject this line of reasoning. But I would like to pick up on a line Rush Limbaugh used to use that I agree with. He says, "actions have consequences". Bill Clinton has said this in regard to hate speech. In the movie "Talk Radio" there was a line how Barry Champaign (?) put out so many negative vibes into the air it came back on him". I don't know what Mel Gibson would think of the assertion that "The Passion of the Christ" is homo erotic. I haven't seen the whole movie. Just because it contains a flooging scene doesn't make it homo erotic unless there's other stuff in there. Of course there was one gay spoof of Christianity, and the host said "OK people and how we're going to talk about the reserection. - - Are you ready, Rez". (I'll give time for that to sink in) I'd like to get back to objectivism a bit. When I was taking a computer class in the fall of 1968 the teacher had a saying "Garbage In; Garbage Out". A computer program doesn't care if you misspell words as long as they aren't reserved words. Liberals research things before they report on them. A conservative will instead make his own mind as to the conclusion out of some ill founded, pre conceived, and often religious notions. A liberal will study the facts and form tenative conclusions, and these in turn will be modified with further study, like a scientist would do. It's a whole different temperment. Radio Stations used to have to let people go through their files and analyze their program content once every three years or something to see if they were in the public interest. Now they say they send in a postcard- - every eight years- - and renewal is virtually automatic. It's just another case in which modern society has lowered its standards, and that's just my opinion.

Dr. Levy has returned from a three week to India and had very little good to say about the trip. There were no grand spiritual insights or inspiration about the soul of man. What there was was trash in the street - and a stench in the air caused by the stagnate pools of water, and people urinating in rivers feet away where someone else was washing his face. There is no government welfare. The government doesn't seem to care. It would seem that the whole society lives like pigs. They let the cows roam free and graze from the vegetable stands and later people buy the vegetables. But there are no traffic lights. People won't stop for each other, unless you have the fortune of being a cow. Then they'll stop. You can't cant count on resturants having clean utensils, if they even have them. Often bathrooms are a hole in the ground. Businessmen in suits walk over the bodies of people in the sidewalk not even checking to see if they are dead or alive. Apparently the majority of the population is in the fifth "untouchable" class. Disease is of course rampent and no wonder you need shots. I'm surprised the Beatles lasted as long as they did in India. Lots of Hindus worship the statue Ganitia, referred to in Simpson's episodes. Apparently the weather was good. But the friend of his invited him to come back soon and this time to bring his wife. She was smart enough to pass up going on this trip. His dreary report has definitely impacted my decision about perhaps going to India one day. This is one vacation that I'll choose not to take.