I was at a sales meeting recently, with my boss and his boss, and other sales people, and trainers who were there to train us.
Before we got down to business, we were asked, one by one, to tell the group our names, what store we worked at, and something that the group did not know about us, but might find interesting. One guy had a hobby of building model rockets, and launching them, for example.
After about a month of mixing it up with you, my fellow Kossacks, I feel it is time to tell you more about myself, like I did at that meeting, so you know where I am coming from. That way, if any of you start to verbally attack me, which is like swiftboating me, I can refer you to my diary page, where you can read this.
I was born in 1955.
I have been married 29 years.
The elephant in the room, the thing about me that, outwardly, is the most unusual, is that my wife is disabled. She was born with defective muscle fiber that is weak and not very coordinated.
In many ways, our marriage is very normal, or typical.
In other ways, I am like a fireman, repeatedly rescuing my wife from various burning buildings. To the rest of the world, I may seem like a jerk. But to my wife, I am a hero. I am her hero.
Before you start thinking this is not the place for this, I refer you to a recent diary by exmearden about her discussion with her daughter about abortion, and about her own abortion. That was great. Maybe this is okay, at least.
You may ask what insight I have into political issues.
I have a low income. I am trying to support a disabled wife. I do not buy alcohol. I do not buy tobacco. I do not buy illegal drugs. I filed for bankruptcy just before the new law took effect. I still have one collection agency writing checks to themselves, $25 every two weeks, because I failed to put their address on the bankrupcy forms. I do not know their address. Maybe some of you could help me....I feel stupid, because I just realized I never thought to Google them. It is Locate Services, LLC. I suppose I should stop writing this and do it myself, but maybe some of you are better at doing searches than myself.
Anyway, my wife is in the process of filing bankruptcy under the new law. So far, it does not seem so different. It is costing us a little more, because the small typing service I used was not able to handle the new law, so we had to go to a bigger document preparation company.
So, if you have two incomes in your home, or one income twice what mine is, you can sit and gripe about the new bankruptcy law, but do you know from experience, from filing before and after?
I feel like I went on a tangent there. But I am pointing out that I am a blue collar worker who is doing the sensible thing, and voting for Democrats, and blogging at DailyKos. I keep hearing that across the USA, and certainly here in Kansas, the blue collar workers, except union workers, are voting for Republicans.
But I am the left wing liberal that the right warns each other about and complains about. Except for one thing. They think I have money and power. I do not. The people who have money and power are nearly all moderate Republicans.
I am an atheist.
I am a scientific materialist.
I am a secular humanist.
I accept evolution as fact, and I agree with the Christian right if and when they say that accepting evolution as fact tends to cause a person to become an atheist. That is what happened to me. I was a Roman Catholic for about twenty years, and the Roman Catholic church, after the fiasco with Galileo, tells the flock that evolution is true. Anything the scientists say about science is true. The Church is not in the science business.
What they fail to realize is, as I just said, evolution leads to atheism.
Also, besides Darwin, we have Pavlov. If I understand correctly, Pavlov told us that all behavior is reflex behavior. So, Darwin says we are animals, and Pavlov says all animal behavior is reflex behavior. That means that free will is an illusion.
That is my biggest point I have to make to the world.
I spent over two years writng a book, called "Embracing the New Renaissance." I was just considering putting it out on the internet when I found Daily Kos.
Now, I realize that blogging with you Kossacks is wiser than publishing a book. If I got my book published, then decided I changed my mind about something I wrote, that would be hard to get my correction out to the world.
This way, by blogging, I am trying to get my ideas noticed, and they do get some audience, but if I change my mind, the earlier rants will fade away better than a book would.
So, before you think I am an idiot, consider that I have written a book about how to fix the world. Consider that at least some college professors agree with me that we not only are animals, but as such we do not have free will. The inner person does not exist.
By the way, this is the one area, philosophy, that needs the most work. If everyone would accept the correct philosophy, which is scientific materialism, then each person, when feeling angry, would realize that the anger is an animal reflex, directed at another animal. And the behavior that the angry person hates is reflex behavior. So, when the angry person uses a little of Spock's Vulcan logic, using that logic to everride the anger, then actions will be less violent.
As I was thinking about getting my book published, I started thinking about a name I could use for the public, in the same way that Jesse Ventura put out an assumed name for the public to learn. I settled on 'Big Jack Kelly, the Smartest Guy in the World.'
The reason I take on that name is mainly because most people simply think the correct philosophy, scientific materialism, is absurd. The simple fact that the inner person does not exist, they feel is insane. The irrefutable fact that there is nothing in the universe resembling free will, most people argue intensely cannot be true. So, since I sometimes feel as if I am the only person in the world who understands the simple information that will, someday, reduce violence amongst humans dramatically, that makes me feel like the smartest guy in the world. The only sensible person in the world. I know that is not true. But that is how it feels.
That is why I put that name and label out as my signature line. Obviously, that is the basis of my username.
I am not what they call gifted. My IQ is not high enough to get me into Mensa.
But I sometimes wonder if the math side of my brain is retarded, and the language side of my brain is a genius.
I do not have a college degree. I took two classes, I got an A and a B.
I graduated from auto mechanic school with an A. But I chickened out on actually tackling a career as an auto mechanic. I am a wimp. Mechanics are redneck macho studs.
I audited, informally, more college classes. And I have a lot of old books and old encyclopedias. I do not, however read all that much. When I read, I read slowly, because I want to really get the good stuff out of what I am reading.
So, keep up the good work. Keep writing those diaries full of fascinating information, with links to sites with more and more fascinating information. I love it. I feel as if you are educating me. I feel as if I have enrolled in DKos University. But all of us are professors and students, both.
Thanks again.