It appears that the /home/username/.spamassassin/user_prefs file was way too large so I did mv user_prefs user_prefs.bak and spamassassin worked after that, naturally I had to start over again and create a new user_prefs file but it beat trying to clear out nearly 16000 lines of code, it was actually on my own admin account and I guess I went overboard on blocking spam domains