Catholic Priests and Little Boys

Be honest. What was the first thing you thought when you read the title?

Sodomy? Buggery? Rape? Sexual repression?

Now ask yourself why you thought that and to what degree you think it understandable.

Did anyone think anything different? What on earth would that be? 

Who would disagree that when a person on the planet hears the term "Catholic Priest" their mind is quickly and easily drawn to the sodomy of young boys?

This product of a mental process is not a statement, so it will be difficult for anyone to argue for or against; it can't be refuted, as it claims nothing. The fact that when we hear about Catholic Priests in the news, we next receive the thought that the issue has to do with a claim by a man that was raped, is not a logical conclusion derived from deductive reasoning. It is not empirically verifiable, because it is not a construct that propounds to say anything about nature. It occurs too quickly to be reasoned.

Therefore, the mental process of identifying Priests with sodomy of boys cannot be a conclusion derived by inductive reasoning: eg. the sun came up every morning until now, therefore it will come up tomorrow. It may appear as a causal relation, but this is not itself a rational conclusion. All you intuitively know is that there is something connecting the two things.

The problem with not being reasonable,is that there is no proposition, no sentence making a claim from which we can proceed to analyse, criticise, propound or refute. It's just an instant, automatic association between two data; but why is it also accompanied by a strong mental feeling about something in the world, so that we would treat it as we would a solid fact?

This status alone, of thinking that Priests and sodomy go together, would provide one with a weak reason to develop the process further into a proper argument, if it wasn't for one thing. It is more than a feeling. It is more than a mental thing, a thought. It comes with a powerful kind of understanding that rivals reasoning. It is supported by our understanding of ourselves, humanity, language and logic.

More than a strong feeling of association or causal relation, this strange kind of non-rational understanding makes sense to us. It makes sense to us because of the tools of reason we already have developed over a life-time, which apply themselves to the feeling as Kant's categories apply themselves to phenomena. Those tools are rational arguments we have developed from watching and learning about human nature, society and also our language and logic use/misuse.

The addition of how we understand humanity strengthens our faith in the feeling that there is a  relation, possibly causal, between Catholic Priests and sodomy or any sexual intereference with little kids. That is because some of us know empirically how repressing sexual urges affects us. Many of us have experienced long periods of compulsory abstinence from sexual relations. We know how it feels, what it does to us, how it stretches our ability to cope and changes our perception of reality and even our morality. For some, it is too much to handle, and any thing with a hole in it will do.

Rape has nothing to do with power. To rape, you need an erection, which is derived by the anticipation, real or imagined, of impending sexual intercourse. Rape is about getting your rocks off. The power is a secondary bonus. It is also a necessary ingredient for rape. It is logically entailed that you be more powerful than your subject to rape them. Your prey must be weaker than you, or else you won't get off with them. Little boys and women are generally weaker than your average rapist: an adult male.

Therefore, Priests don't rape and fiddle with boys because it makes them feel powerful. If so, why don't they pay equal attention to adult clergy and support staff or parishioners? Because these are adults who can't be threatened from going to the police or fighting back.


Priests rape little boys because they need to get off really badly and little boys are easy to threaten and get your way with. They'll keep quiet. Their prey is often very impressionable, vulnerable, isolated, weak, the perfect target.

Now, why do Priests need to get off so badly? That is the real question. Answer that and you are half way to a solution or at least a proper explanation.

Priests need to get off really badly because they are sexually repressed, because the Church forbids them from arguably the most powerful of urges, sexual satisfaction. Priests are forbade to engage in anything sexual: whether sexual relations, self-gratification, marriage, intimacy with others, the whole shabang.

It is as simple as that.

Without reasoning, we all say to ourselves, "That explains the vast numbers of incidents displayed in the media every week". Imagine how many go unreported.

Solution: keep the vulnerable and weak away from the sexually excited or sexually repressed and powerful.

A maternity nurse once told me that my child was crying for just one of five reasons. She said the needs of a baby are simple. They just wan't the basics in life: sustanance, physical comfort, reassurance, warmth and maternal contact (mum's love).

Adult males are the same. Their needs have evolved, but are still few in number and fundamentally simple: sex, power, love, comfort, survival, pleasure. Take any one of these away and you are playing with fire. Take the most powerful one away and you are playing with fire and dowsed in petrol.

There's Politics and there's politics

Who cares about leadership challenges and internal divisions within the Labor Party on the high office of Prime Minister, the re-organisation of the Cabinet?

Who gives a shit about processes and bureaucratic mechanisms?

Who gives a toss about the personalities of Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott?

Who does? The Media does.

In fact what the recent debacle in Canberra has really revealed to us

bystanders (the voting public) is that the Media and Politicians have one thing in common that is at the forefront of their priorities:

politics, not Politics.


 

 Kevin Rudd was stabbed in the back by his own Cabinet team, his own Deputy, and his own political party, and voted out of the Prime Minstership of Australia. His former Deputy, Julia Gillard, then gave him the job of Foreign Minister. 18 months later he resigned from that job (a week ago) and challenged Julia Gillard for the top job of Prime Minister, and lost. However, he was this time supported by almost a third of this own party. Now the Opposition is pointing out to us all the clear division in the Labor Party and what this dissenting third means against Julia.

Now that I know all that, am I better off?

How has this development directly affected you as an Australian citizen?

Both the Media and our democratically elected Politicians have recently had nothing on their minds of more concern than who gets what job, who did what to whom, who's undermining whom, is he/she/it coming back to his old job.

WHO CARES!

Who cares except flacid-minded morons who watch daytime soap operas.

Not a single journalist has ever asked a politician why we have this kind of Government. Why do we have a Prime Minister, a Cabinet of Ministers and Political Parties when none of these are even mentioned in the Australian Constitution (a document that clearly sets out the purpose and composition of the Federal Parliament).

Not a single journalist is asking Politicians how they represent the needs of their electorate when this competes against the priorities of their political party.

No one is talking about how well the act of Government is working in this country. Is the Party system even democratic? Isn't 'representational democracy' an oxymoron? Saddam Hussein claimed to represent his own people. Yes we get to vote them out - but are we getting another one back in?

You could argue there are two dictators ruling Australia in turns: the Labor party and the Liberal-National Coalition.

Let's remember why we're all paying for this shit. Politicians only exist because of us. We vote them in, so that they can represent us, our needs, in Parliament: to consider what we want before they vote on legislation and agree on a policy. Our elected representatives don't actually do that. Instead they represent their own political Party, not us. If an MP's electorate wants a National Curriculum of Education but their Party doesn't, then they vote against it.



Parliament is instead all about representing the Party, then Business, then Lobbyists, and then powerful individuals, and finally, not us.

Does the Media question Politicians on these issues? Do they even discuss the issues amongst themselves? No.

The Media has an agenda, and like a political party, its bottom line is not the same as ours.

Instead of turning the news on and hearing yet another bland boilerplate statement, another string of dead slogans and empty cliches, from Government about how it administrates its boring internal processes, and then the broken record of the Opposition's response "this is just another sign of a failing Government" we should be hearing something completely different.

We should be hearing journalists asking politicians exactly how every single thing they do is only to govern us in order to make our lives better, easier, and safer or whatever the fuck we want them to do and only that. Many of us died for this country, supporting our government to keep our happiness and well-being secure. Politicians should keep this in mind. We don't care which automoton gets into what job. We care about the job being done properly. Just get on and do it.

We should be hearing politicians justify to us why they should stay in Parliament, how they are representing us and no one else.

We should be hearing the Opposition (or preferably any individual opposing voice) not just robotically negating every single thing the Government does, but detailing exactly how they would deal with the issue. Instead of only disagreeing with a policy, offering an alternative. Or explaining why they disagree.

You could argue against me that all this "politics" is exceptionally important, even critical, to good government. My counter-point is that it is not even being discussed.

 

No one is talking about the link between politics and Politics. Not a single freakin' person is talking about the importance to government of "politics". Just like none of the articles in Woman's Day talk about the importance of these articles to Woman's Day readers. It is taken for granted that the articles are strategically good, because people keep buying the damn magazine. But our government doesn't have any such, immediately responsive feedback system. We vote every three years and that's it.

So why the hell do the Media and Politicians report to us with nothing but bland, robotic, vendor machine, soap opera drama, appealing to our ignorance and our childish naivety?

Why?

Because they both think we're all a pack of idiot morons.

Are we?

White Collar Versus Blue Collar Crime

 
The "Occupy X" phenomenon is a long-awaited turn in the tide of how society defines crime.

Society gets much of its knowledge on anything from the Media. And the Media pays far too much attention to Blue Collar Crime, to small-time crooks and the resource disadvantaged, when they should be paying equal or even more attention to White Collar Crime and White Collar Immorality: to persons of supposed upstanding in the community, responsibility and authority who abuse the community's trust and undermine society far more extensively and sustained than shop-lifters, dope smokers and welfare scabs.

Individually, a blue-collar crim will not cause millions of dollars worth of damage or theft. A poor mum stealing some food or clothing for her family should be seen alongside the public servant stealing $16 million to buy sports cars and hookers. But these ill-fated individual decisions are nothing compared to institutional crime, which enjoys a more agreeable fate; it isn't always defined as crime when it appears in court, but described as corporate sector behaviour, or shrewd business practice. These redefined perceptions are not illegal, but account for the vast majority of the unfair distribution of a nation's wealth amongst its citizens.

We used to give our own wealth, our savings and our salaries, to Banks for protection, for security. But now we give our wealth to Banks for convenience and convention: Try living without a bank account. Yet, Banks take a carefully calculated percentage of the combined wealth we've entrusted them with and then spend it quickly before we ask for it back. They spend our money on investments, which reap a financial reward and which they collect and keep. Then, having used our money to make themselves money, they keep every cent and give none back to us. And all this is legal.

Bankers then flash our money in our faces by driving around in luxury cars, building enormous luxury houses and living luxurious lifestyles, all bought and paid for with our money, our earnings. They supplement this wealth by charging us fees for every conceivable and inconceivable banking service. In fact, Banks now make more money from charging us fees than from investing our savings. Furthermore, the credit card was invented as a response to a Bank wanting to find a way to extract more fees.

Governments take our earnings before we've seen them and remove a percentage and call it Tax. Did we give them permission? No. Not directly, anyway. And I find it quite a stretch to admit that since I voted, for or not for, a particular candidate at a recent election that this translates into me giving some unknown people a third of my earnings forever without any discussion or explanation.

Corporate criminals go to extraordinary lengths, resulting in the creation of whole industries of service providers (Marketing, Risk Management, Advertising, Public Relations...) all geared to the same ultimate goal of taking as much money from as many people as quickly as possible in exchange for offering a good or service to people who didn't need it, but now believe they do and then trying their best not to give them that good or service unless it is at the lowest affordable quality and quantity. How on earth can you get someone to pay for something they won't get, I hear you ask? Well, they use the culmination of skill and knowledge available to human beings handed down through 200,000 years of human society: they lie, they cheat, they con, they trick, the decieve, the confuse, they complicate, they hide, they collude, they conspire and when this all fails they run to the Government for help and the Government uses our Taxes to buy them out of their troubles - without our permission. Wow. How proud must their Mummies be?

Judges and legislators make laws, policies and set standards that they will never be subject to themselves. Being privileged and protected from other humans by their wealth and power, their profession is to decide how everybody else should live and within what parameters. How can someone who has always lived the life of an Aristocrat ever command how all the peasants should live?

So who's worse? The starving impoverished, the needy, the vulnerable, the destitute who didn't choose their parents well enough and have to survive within the low socio-economic brackets? Or the middle and upper class yuppies who's parent-funded education and contacts bought them opportunities and skills that were used to deceive and steal, where it's illegal, and charge a premium to the vulnerable, where it's not?

It's easy to target Blue Collar Crime, because they look like criminals. They dress, talk and behave in a manner that is not as sophisticated as those who dress in suits, drive nice cars, have the latest hair-cuts and speak with the latest vocabulary. How could someone who looks like the President be a criminal? Also, Blue Collar Crime is easy to see, it's very visible. Money is just numbers on a computer screen. No blood, no broken glass, no burnt-out cars. A TV show can show you pictures of Blue Collar Crime that will make you gasp and cringe. It's much harder to portray the theft of millions by a boring city trader, public servant or dime-a-dozen walking Suit.

The kind of crime committed by the lower socio-economic classes is completely different in character from that committed by the rich and powerful. The News of the World used private investigators to illegally gain access to hundreds of mobile phone voicemail accounts held by a variety of people of interest to the newspaper, to make a profit. They published the private affairs of grieving and vulnerable people so that they could buy that house in the Bahamas, that private finishing school education for Mindy and Mandy, the latest Ferrari, more shoes, more struggling businesses, more sweat shops, etc. The cause of the wealthy thief is shallow and decadent. The cause of the poor is just, is understandable, is necessity, is the very result of unfair wealth distribution in society.

Wealth and power buy immunity from the Law, Taxes and even Guilt, thanks to society's acceptance that the worst criminals are Blue Collar not White Collar workers. We need to focus on the real criminals.

Optimists and Pessimists

Are you an Optimist or a Pessimist?

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Some believe that you are one or the other.

Some will describe you as one or the other; but is their opinion of you itself optimisitic or pessimistic?

Some will sneakily call themselves Realists, but are in fact optimists or pessimists in disguise, so there is no 'third way'. Realism is not even relevant to the issue, because the issue is about how things should or shouldn't be, not how they are or aren't.

The people who describe you as an optimist or a pessimist may themselves be one or the other, thus affecting their opinion of which one you are.

This smacks of relativity, doesn't it. Perhaps you're an optimist if you talk to him, but a pessimist if you talk to her. In which case, what point is there in knowing which one you are?

Is there anything at all to be gained from considering this arguable dichotomy?



Optimism and Pessimism are argued to predict how you will approach all opportunities, set-backs and upheavals in life. In fact, people who raise the OP thesis are largely optimists themselves. They raise the issue in order to impart to you their self-declared wisdom that everyone should be optimists like them, because it is a superior state of being and approach to life. Pessimists are sad, lonely people, optimists say, who drag themselves down and are their own problem. It's not the world's fault, it's your fault - it's your attitude.

 
So, how do we describe a struggling African family, should they flee their village after several raids by rival tribes. Are the fleeing survivors being pessimistic about their situation and should be a bit more optimistic?

However, the conclusion that you are one or other is based on past experience, so the whole thesis is logically entwined with holding the argument that you can never change - your future is your past (just like a Bank when you go for a loan). But we all know that only severely dumb boring people (like Bankers) are so dull and risk averse. Not all of us are like that. It is a conclusion derived by inductive reasoning - the same argument that concludes the sun will rise tomorrow, because it has always done it before. The OP argument is deterministic: if you were pessimistic in the past, then you will be pessimistic in the future, it is your destiny.

As someone once said, "An optimist is someone who insists that everything is alright when it is not."

We think the OP thesis is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It is just stupid.

Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants and other Tradies

Universities were never intended to be apprenticeship schools, but they are. Nowadays, you can't get a job in a whole range of intellectual industries unless you've been to university and completed a related or general university degree. In effect, the university is the same for the lawyer, doctor, public servant, as the technical training school is for the plumber, builder, electrician. Universities pump out suit monkeys with degrees in exactly the same way that technical schools pump out tradies with trade certificates. On average, they even earn the same range of salary. The average public servant even earns slightly less than your average tradie.

Universities were intended to extend the wealth of collective human knowledge and wisdom. The great philosopher Plato opened his Academy, the world's first university, in ancient Athens to give adults the opportunity to learn a universal breadth of knowledge, to broaden their minds and contribute to the current body of things known and understood in the world, and beyond the world. In the Gardens of Academus, Plato taught the philosophical subjects of Logic, Ethics, Economics, Aesthetics, Epistemology, Politics and Natural Philosophy (now known as Science).

Plato's star pupil was Aristotle who went on to teach a young Alexander the Great and formed his own university the Lyceum. From Plato's Academy, we derive all our 'academic' words and language. More importantly, we also derive all of our institutes of higher learning, some of which offer a 'universal' understanding of the world and award their most accomplished students the title Doctor of Philosophy or PhD.

Universities were never intended to be factories for manufacturing lawyers, doctors, accountants and public servants. So, what the hell happened? A lawyer is just a tradie. A lawyer's trade is the Law. A lawyer is an expert in the Law, which they can prove to you by showing you their trade certificate (an undergraduate degree in law from a university). Like a brickie, a lawyer practices his trade by providing his learned services and skills to a paying client. So what's the difference between those smarmy, self-congratualting professionals with degrees and the average Joe tradie? Not a damn thing.

But Our cause is the conservation of the University. Its protection against being reduced from an institute of universal understanding, knowledge growth and the pursuit of wisdom to becoming nothing more than a suit factory, pouring out an endless stream of boring, pathetic, prententious, elitist mummies' boys clutching their trade certificates in law, accounting, IT and other tripe as they saunter into the money sector having left nothing behind, but debt and giving nothing back to society except another annoying service we all have to pay for when something goes wrong.




























Our suggestion is that we keep our once esteemed universities sanctified and preserved as institutes not of learning, not in the manner of a library or news agent where people come in and take things away for themselves, but to return universities back into institutes of contribution to the sum of all human knowledge and understanding. People come in and give to the university. They research, they propose their thesis, it is accepted or rejected, then they leave.

The only reason trades are taught at university is money. Trades in law, medicine and accounting are expensive, which is why only the rich can afford to pay for such learning. Years ago, universities  stooped beneath themselves and prostituted their knowledge to the rich in exchange for training their spoilt brats to be elitist tradesmen. This practice must end.

Lawyers, accountants, doctors, nurses, IT workers, plumbers, brickies, sparkies and other tradesmen should piss off out of universities and go learn your trade in a technical school or trade college, do your apprenticeship and get lost. Neither lawyer, nor sawyer, neither surgeon nor plumber, contributes to the collective wisdom of our world. They just learn enough to practice what the world already knows and then they leave. They give nothing back, so they have no business even looking at a university. Get over yourselves! Admit that you are what you are - a bunch of tradies -  and piss off.

Leave the practice of philosophy, the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom to the thinkers. Doers should just do.