Tagged: Cultural Commentary

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Humpty Dumpty on Idiots

I continue to learn the most amazing things on Facebook–generally the things I thought I knew in grammar school and had to spend a lifetime unlearning. Today, someone recirculated a meme with the old wheeze that “idiot” comes from a Greek word meaning private citizen who did not take an interest in public affairs, to which a libertarian–very reliable people, libertarians, one knows what they are going to respond before a question is posed–that the polis was everything.

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Matter Matter Matter, Part I

I am frequently asked, sometimes more than once a day, what I think of an article in a conservative magazine or some oracular pronouncement from the guru of the moment, whether the guru of the moment be Jordan Peterson or Bernard-Henri Lévy, Greg Mortenson (co-author of Three Cups of Tea) or Tucker Carlson, Bill Maher or Noam Chomsky.  When I have something better to do, I dismiss the question by saying I have not read enough of the writer or guru to form an opinion.

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The Government We Deserve: Postscript

If we can trust a recent Rasmussen poll, nearly half the eligible voters in the United States believe the republic established by the mythical founding fathers has crumbled.  Predictably, Republicans are more inclined to this gloomy opinion than Democrats, and perhaps surprisingly, women more than men.

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The Government We Deserve, Conclusion (at last!)

Suppose, per impossibile, we were to carry out an even more thoroughgoing plan of reform.  You can fill in any impossible details and requirements that suits your fancy.  Even if we were to gain the whole  world, we would still be left with a population of some 300 million clueless lost souls, without any skill or knowledge that is not technical, with churches that are the enemy of Christ, with a commercial culture that is more morally degrading than heroin and methamphetamines.

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The Government We Deserve, Part II (of 4)

In the off chance that this screed might be read by people who do not already know the score, I ask such imaginary readers  to imagine a visit from Jefferson or Twain or Mencken or even some reasonable politician like Robert Taft or Sam Ervin, who asks us to take him on a guided tour of these United States.  We might begin their tour by taking them to see New York or San Francisco or Chicago or Portland, in fact to  any major city in to witness the complete breakdown of law and order, sanitation, and public decency.