Except the ones who hate my guts don't know it yet.

Any way; thanks.

If I am not prejudiced, I am cautious. I am careful to not give offense, and since I offend a lot of people and take for granted that I offend people, I avoid black people so I do not have to worry about offending them. But we are culturally different and it is hard to avoid giving that difference your attention.

I had a black girl friend once, and she was a pretty good fit, and she wanted to go white and I was like super man back then. But I let it out to an aunt that I was thinking about it and that news bounced around my family like a grenade. They are not very racist, but culturally it put them over an edge, and without any support for the idea, I could not go with it.

You really need a lot of family support to do kids, and all of that. They really did support my half Jewish child, and did so better than myself. I was never much of a father in spite of wanting children out of my own vanity. But they never made known that side of themselves, and I had taken for granted that they would not mind.

I saw the same reaction when my cousin's child came out as Lesbian. I don't care; because the kid was sharp; real intelligent, highly educated. And the family took it badly, and sort of rejected her. My Aunt phrased it thusly: She is not one of our denomination. I asked: What the heck does that mean? Did she join the Presbyterians? I would own her in a heart beat. She is one of us; she is super intelligent, and between her and her girl friend they have a child who needs family, and you will let some silly shit stand in the way of a relationship with this kid? There are none of us that are dumbbells, but I would point to such a one with pride.

The nonsense people believe is only more dangerous than the nonsense people think they know. Certainty is only a mask of ignorance. To learn is to know first ones ignorance, and that knowledge denies any sense of certainty.

like a healed over abscess. It is not polite to talk about racism in America for example. It does not mean it has disappeared, and is not a cause un-acknowledge of many events.

Is the fuss they make if you try to take it away.

Religio is a tie back to the past. Religion explains reality in the eyes of believers as well as science does for rational people. It also offers people a community and as sense of worth and purpose. It would all be perfectly acceptable if the religious did not demand special privileges which makes them more than politically equal, and if they did not try to involve themselves in issue beyond their department on the basis of their manipulated flocks.

And the thought that all authority was right, and beyond reconsideration. I got this a lot from my German grand mother, and it never seemed strange that the Holocaust could have happened were everyone was like her. The post war generation was more inclined to question authority. But I question all privilege based upon the authority of the government which is itself a privilege.

The history of religion preceding and following the English revolution proved that churches and denominations needed protection from other sects when in control of the government. The result is that now the churches can have every involvement in government, and can defy those laws that contradict their beliefs. Property privilege sets an impossible barrier to the democracy of the people, but it is only one way. Like the churches, those with wealth can still affect the course of government while government has no practical control of them.

People with privilege have rights as well, but people without privilege have only their rights. What did those with privilege do to deserve this favorable inequality?

Here the economy is only seen as an abstraction. The rich are good. The poor are bad; but the economy exists as a thing in itself.

These people have police privileges. They can do with impunity acts that would put any citizen in prison. And Yet, in spite of having this privilege they also demand their equal civil rights, and this means we are unequal to these police, or to any such privileged people. They have our rights. We only have our rights. They have in addition to our rights, special privileges. How are we supposed to have the equality upon which democracy depends while suffering these privileged people among us?

And their behavior is de-moralizing to the rest of society.

These religious people who do not want to support immorality do have a point. I don't want to support war or the death penalty. What they think is that immorality causes poverty, and the facts are just the opposite. Poverty causes immorality. And if they think christians or their churches can do the job of the government in trying to protect people from the extremes of poverty why don't they try. They are happy to help a neighbor having a rough time; but they do not get all the many thousands who will starve, do starve, will freeze and do freeze as a result of government supported poverty. They would be doing a good work just to get out of the way.

They make a big deal about hating the sin and loving the sinner. I think the facts are more often that they love the sin, and envy the sinner, and so hate them for being so free. How much of sin does anyone rational actually believe any sinner enjoys?