My trouble with Philosophy started more than 50 years ago, on a spring Sunday morning. The boy’s catechism class met in the basement of St Paul’s Rec Hall under the rear stairway. For these final sessions before Confirmation, Father Weiss, SJ, had been brought in to tutor the essential dogmas of Catholicism. No one would dare challenge the learned, but fierce, Jesuits, so who better to teach a group of unruly, pubescent boys.

The major subject of that catechism class was proof that the Catholic’s God exists. Father Weiss, a geologist by trade, took his time climbing this mountain, taking care to point out features of the landscape along the way. For example, he observed that miracles and saints were only possible if God exists; otherwise, those pinnacles would have eroded away long ago, or maybe never arisen. Thus, he only arrived at the proofs of God’s existence in the last 20 minutes of the class. I think he went through the Ontological Argument and another, as the class wiggled and fidgeted.

Poor fellow, there was an interruption when another priest came by, cutting off minutes from the very peak of his lecture: The Argument from Design. While I had raised a question or two about the previous arguments, I thought Father Weiss’ rushed argument clearly had problems. A colloquy ensued. Classmates fidgetted, hissed and poked; class time was up. Youngsters and girls rushed out of the downstairs meeting room, chattered past the priest, and marched up the stairs. Five minutes late, a restive class was dismissed and ran away. I spent several minutes more with Father Weiss, who also had to go - in my life, everyone else is always on a schedule. In the end, he advised I had to take all these things on faith, even if I could see the errors or insufficiencies of the argument.

Father Weiss sent me a card now and then for several years after that. I was very pleased that he remembered me, but I don’t know why he sent them or recall what he wrote. I must have made an impression on him, or maybe he just sent cards to all the boys he taught.

My classmates forgot about the class and the catechism, and went about their normal teenage lives. But, my questions, once started, wouldn’t go away. I had a fierce and unhappy struggle with religious beliefs, enforced by tradition, which ended in my favor after I read Bertram Russell some 10 years after the Sunday school class.

I was liberated by Russell’s analysis, which boils down to this: proving things depends on premises and rules of logic, which determine the entire content of what is proved. You can prove anything or nothing about gods, because they are undefinable by definition. Further, universal properties, such as "perfection," don’t imply their own existence; instantiation is a separate, usually empirical, premise. In other words, I was deceived until young adulthood by a word game.

My classmates were intuitively smarter than me. They just ignored the baloney and did what they needed to do. Thus, they got the job, the money, the car, the girls, the house, the kids and everything else that goes with having a life. I spent a lot of years trying to figure out philosophical puzzles and their applications. They don’t pay you for this, so I haven’t much to show for my trouble.

Life’s branches twist and turn, but are always traceable to the roots. So, it is not surprising when branches grown from nearby roots cross, and cross again. In the 1980s, I had a client who spent time during the 1960s at the Jesuit seminary which sent Father Weiss to me. My client had done it to avoid the draft, and became an Orthodox Jew.

I have come to some firm, but not necessarily true, conclusions, if that’s a showing. For one thing, I’m a materialist - meaning, I believe the material of the world is all there is. I don’t believe in gods, demons or souls, or in forms and ideas. I am quite happy in assuming it all started from just nothing; a gigantic quantum accident which became the Big Bang. It’s a little more worrisome that it will all end in nothing, either by a gigantic collapse or in a whimper. (Right now, the whimper people seem to have the upper hand.) I have the usual human hope that, somehow, life will go on and on, even if that is unlikely.

When I think about it, being just a big quantum quirk seems strange and a little insulting. But, the alternatives are even more strange and really fantastic. So, the hard line materialist view is the one that makes the most sense to me, temporarily, in a world that ultimately makes no sense at all.

One great thing about materialism is it resolves the old duality of mind and body. Cartesian subjectivism is a distinction without a difference; it’s all a matter of your frame of reference. Looked at from the "inside" - which is what all us conscious beings do - the world behaves as it does. From the outside - when I look at you or you, me - the world still behaves as it does. Either way, it appears you and I behave according to similar principles. If you prefer to describe everything as a fiction of your imagination, it will come to the same thing as describing it a material, physical reality. So, I think the metaphysical distinction of mind and body comes to nothing.

I also think there’s nothing that can be said for "reality," except that it is there. If there is any validity to cogito ergo sum, it applies immediately as well to what we perceive, for the real or imagined world is what it is. I makes little difference if Descarte’s or Maxwell’s demons play tricks on us, because we have to go with what we’ve got.

Can I prove my materialism or subjectivism? No, no way. I take it as a self- asserted, existential premise; a logically and personally useful hypothesis. It could be a wrong assumption, but, so far, I haven’t discovered a more sensible one. All the others have lots of complications and lead to difficult results. Laziness and Occam’s razor apply.

One thing I learned from David Hume applies as well: ‘you cannot derive an ought from an is,’ or vice versa. What is, just is. What ought to be, or should be, is another matter entirely, and can be anything at all. As far as Ethics is concerned, it starts with its own premises, which we invent and from which we derive our moral prescriptions. As a materialist, I think most of our ethical precepts are accidents of our human biological and social existence.

But, enough. Why am I beating you up with this low level philosophizing?

Because, I want to make some political points about pretty basic differences between Liberals and dastardly Conservatives. No, I am no longer above striking below the belt; they’ve been doing it to us Liberals for years.

It starts with temperament: people are generally inclined toward change, or they resist it. Historically, I think most people have been creatures of habit (tradition and training); a conservative tendency. The basic advantage of habit is that the tried-and-true does work most of the time. It is less stressful for most people to leave things alone, because the greater fear is losing what they’ve got.

Liberals are usually more willing to take risk, to shake things up. This starts with the thought or feeling that things could be otherwise arranged, and that changed arrangements would be an improvement upon present circumstances. There are two risks in changing things: the effort put into making changes is wasted, and the change has unexpected (undesirable) outcomes. I think liberals have almost always been a minority everywhere, just because wasted efforts are a discouraging experience, and things often don’t turn out as predicted.

It is often noted, with some surprise, that Americans are moderately conservative. But, why should we surprised, if that turns out to be the way most people are, most of the time?

Temperament is most often a social behavior, because it is inculcated in the young. Thus, it reflects the social position and aspirations of the elders. I think it obvious that members of the elite are more disinclined to change than the poor and disadvantaged. The frequent progression of people from youthful poverty and liberalism to elderly wealth and conservatism reflects gradual adoption of the values of the successful elite.

Temperament is neither an ethical principle nor a moral choice; it’s just a behavior. It does influence acceptance or rejection of certain arguments urging choices or principles. Thus, going back to Plato, conservatives are more likely to respond to ‘older is better’ and ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Liberals are more likely to be (frustrated) complainers, thus likely to accept any flaws that are pointed out.

Knee-jerks are not choices; they’re just responses. So, when liberals and conservatives give the expected answers to a question or situation, this only confirms our understanding of their behavioral patterns. There’s no moral choice in that. Automatic responses are like the theorems of mathematics: they are derived from higher principles using accepted algorithms. Once you are trained in a temperament, it’s easy to give the prescribed response to any challenge. The challenge works like a virus or bacteria in stimulating production of the necessary antibodies.

For most people, it’s only when temperament fails, a new situation develops or the challenge is overwhelming, that decisions have to be made. The pilot only takes control after switching off the auto-pilot.

We commonly make "moral" judgements about people’s behavior, assuming each deed was done by deliberate choice. We believe people think about everything they do, so are responsible for every act. I think this is incorrect, because people actually don’t think about or decide most of what they do. It’s just what they do. For example, I don’t remember taking my pills, eating most of my meals or most other events in my daily routine; they are just part of an automatic process. Yes, I took that pill, but doing so had no moral significance whatever.

If there is anything at all moral about most of our activities, it is only in the derivative sense; our acts result from some remote prior decision. Yes, I thought about whether to follow the doctor’s advice when the drug was prescribed, but I don’t think about it every day. There is a contretemps on REFILL day, when I have to pay the Pharmacy exorbitant sums. Then, I must weigh competing pecuniary interests against the health benefit. I didn’t think about the monetary cost, when the doctor was prescribing. Since I didn’t consider ALL the factors in my initial decision, it is not clear whether I will follow the prescribed course exactly. Circumstances change; rewards and punishments compete for attention. Picking up a refill is a focal point of the changes, the costs and the benefits.

I assume the doctor’s advice was honestly given, and the drug would be good for me. So, the doctor gave "good" advice; meaning, it was useful and indicated the doctor’s intention to help me. But, even if the doctor meant well, this doesn’t solve my financial dilemma when I attend the Pharmacist. The prescription is not an unqualified good.

If the doctor’s prescription was given deceitfully, or intended to injure, most people would say the doctor was immoral and acted unethically. Such an action can be judged, not only by the doctor’s intentions, but by the regulations normally governing medicine. Doctors give allegiance to the Hippocratic oath, so can be judged by the principles implied in it. The Oath is not only a prescription, but an ethical principle; it states what ought to be.

In writing a prescription, doctors follow the everyday application of medical knowledge and ethics. They don’t look into every possible circumstance - such as my poverty at refill time - because it is impossible to guarantee perfect performance. Well intentioned doctors do provide free samples, and assist where they can, but, in the end, the doctor has to attend to other patients. There has to be a balancing of one patient’s welfare against all the others. So, most of the time, the doctor is on auto-pilot, too, and doesn’t do anything worthy of moral comment.

There are really few occasions when we make truly moral judgements; i.e., decisions based on ethical principles. Most of the time, our "moral" judgements are just repeating of formulas created eons ago, which we’ve been trained (programmed) to use in situations we recognize. Most of the time, nothing moral or ethical is going on at all.

It is very comforting to live in an orderly world, to rely on conventional wisdom, with the assurance that everything turns out as expected. The workers work, the managers manage. Pull the cord, the butler appears; ‘You rang, sir?’ In such a world, there is neither want nor anxiety, nor the comprehension of such possibilities.

Conservatives love authority, so they are authoritarians. This is part of the self-conceived order, in which everyone has a part, and perpetually acts it. Authority requires and justifies that some are slaves, others serfs, and yet others their masters. To the conservative, money not only talks but guides. Having succeeded to power and wealth is not a matter of luck, but the Will of God. The ultimate authority, God, is required to justify and secure everything. You can’t argue with God, so every King rules by Divine Right.

In the conservative view, things don’t just go wrong; there must be a cause. In the perfect clockwork, people do not just die, they are murdered - sometimes by man, sometimes by beast, otherwise by God. The murder is only of the body, never of the soul. In a perfectly orderly world, people cannot come and go; they must play their parts forever. Hence, they have souls and reside in Heaven. For the inexplicable - dust in the gears, those who don’t have a part - conservatives have Hell, Satan and Devils.

There is the fantastic assembly of terra cotta figures outside Beijing, of the ancient Emperor, his generals and his army. This is the perfected conservative world, forever thus. Inexplicably, yards of dust buried the Emperor and his minions for millennia, until they were accidentally unearthed by a lowly Chinese peasant. Maybe the peasant was a descendant of those the Emperor killed for sport or glory.

My liberal views are based on the relativism that, as I feel it, goes along with the materialism/subjectivism. I start with Heraclitus: ‘you cannot dip into the same river twice.’ Things come and go; I haven’t any idea what place anything has. If you’re a king or a beggar, that’s you. If you feel you earned your way there, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean you deserved it.

A lot of people are like silly children fighting over Monopoly winners and losers. If they win, it shows their skill. If they lose, someone must have cheated or the winners just got lucky. As I see it, the winners and losers got there by a combination of luck and skill. Which was what can only be determined by many, repeated trials. Of course, winners don’t want any more trials; they want to keep their winnings. Winners often become conservatives. Losers complain about the game and bad luck, so often become liberals. But, that is not why I’m a liberal. The mainsprings of my liberalism are my cockamamie ideas about history, the universe and ethics. Liberalism is a default, because I cannot find any significant justification for the conservative philosophy.

I feel conservatives are often smug, complacent and uncaring. Their elite positions and assumptions encourage those feelings. It is no surprise to me that the Republican President, George W Bush, is doing what he is doing. I give him and his cronies credit for being consistent. What I don’t like about them is their persistent attempts to hide what they’re doing - this Administration is famously secretive. The President’s PR man, Karl Rove, is doing a wonderful job telling stories the public wants to hear. I might be more respectful of the Bushees, if they were more brazen; i.e., at least truthful.

I reiterate what I’ve been saying for 40 years: you will never solve our medical care problems without nationalizing medicine. Abolish the inefficient, insane private insurance system, employer insurance and lots of other bureaucratic agencies, and just pay the doctors directly. MEDICARE for everyone. (In case you didn’t know, 25% or more of everything you pay to doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, etc goes to insurance company bureaucrats and "insider" profits. The shareholders don’t get much of it. MEDICARE’s overhead is about 6-8%.)

What the people did was elect a Fascist Congress last November. I don’t use the word "Fascist" much these days, but check your Websters and Oxfords. The word applies.

Right now, I think Gov Howard Dean makes the most sense. Maybe Sen John Kerry will make it. I’m not carrying water for any of them. But, I think people would be smart to throw out the Fascists as soon as they can. Otherwise, you’ll live to regret it.