Category: Do the Right Thing

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Disunity in the Body Politic and Society as a Whole

Many folks bemoan the obviously divided state of our society, but that’s really just either a thoughtless dismay or a disingenuous appeal to rally around destructive values. Mankind (yes, I use the time-honored term; I am not a Child of Darkness–at least in that regard) has always been divided into Children of Light and Children of Darkness, always has been for all of recorded time. I prefer to view the obvious divisions now in plain view as clarifying a time to choose which side one is on: Light or Darkness.

If you should decide to choose Light, then recall also these things:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”? Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer).

And

“The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

And

“What fellowship does light have with darkness?”

Division should be a Very Good Thing, but it depends on the children of Light not hiding that Light but shining it into the Darkness.

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“Gunsplaining,” “Mansplaining,” and Other Lame Excuses for Ignorance

Any time I see “[Whatever]-splaining” used by someone to dismiss an argument, I know the person using the term is really saying, “I don’t have an argument, and I just don’t want to listen, so I’ll use this nonsense term instead of putting my fingers in my ears and chanting, ‘na-na-na-na. . .’ and maybe the horrible person using facts and reason will just go away and leave me with my chosen, ignorant opinions.”

At that point, I realize that the only proper response is raucous mocking.

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2018 Polls: The Stupid Vote Gains Ground

In future, vote all red, folks. (*sigh* Lesser evil and all that.) You will have all the years after you die to vote blue.

At least there’s one good thing out of the Repugnican’ts losing the House: hopefully it will gridlock Congress. I say hopefully, because

  1. When Congress isn’t passing laws, at least it’s not making things horribly worse and
  2. MAYBE it will gridlock. . . if the Repugnican’ts in Congress can overcome their predilection for bending over and begging, “Please. May I have another?”

It could happen. . .

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A General Summary (Voting Guide) from Six Years Ago

These are just a few examples from which to generalize. Not all will have any direct application to any one election.

This year, again, I’m voting primarily against stupidity and evil.

Stupid or evil? (Or both?)

“Pro-choice” (which is really, “Deny ANY choice to the unborn”)
The Thugs Standing Around program of full employment for goons and petty tyrants
“feddle gummint” tyrannical meddling in citizens’ lives while actively enabling outlaws
The Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism
Enablers and apologists for the hate cult of the Butcher of Medina evil
One can select any issue dominated by the lies of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, politicians *gag-spew*
and Academia Nut Fruitcakes and plug it right into the “Stupid or Evil” matrix for consideration.
Punishing job producers for success
Encouraging sloth and greed by robbing those who are productive to give to those who are not (including cronies of politicians who milk the public purse and abscond with our grandchildren’s futures)
You get the drift.

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For the Polls Tomorrow. . .

Do NOT encourage everyone you meet/know to vote! The Founders were justly leery of too much democracy (which is why they designed the Constitution to create a representative republic with some democratic elements). Always remember Third World County™’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom:

“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance”

ONLY encourage those who are well-informed and who have a rational bent to vote. Actively discourage the ignorant, misinformed, DISinformed, and notably brainwashed from voting. Their influence is uniformly negative, no matter their unthinking, uncritical, ignorant political bent.

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Made Me Laugh. Stop It.

“‘I’ll Clean Trump’s Clock’ – Author Brad Thor Announces He Will Challenge Trump in 2020”

Urm, not if he politics as poorly as he writes. (His writing’s about on a par with Dan #gagamaggot Brown, IMO. OK, maybe a little better. Currently, there is no worse “bestselling” writer than Dan Brown. I found Thor’s stuff merely pedestrian and boringly predictable. Tastes vary, though.)

Thor’s stuff is good enough for made-for-Lifetime “C” movies, though. That’s better than Dan Brown’s stuff which is just stupid.

On second thought. . . There were plenty of stupid people around to vote for both The Trumpery and The Queenie Cacklepants Cylon in 2016, and it takes a certain kind of stupidity to find Thor’s books at all readable, so. . .

*sigh*

Someone, please save us from the ambitions of mediocre writers and conmen and corrupt pols. #gagamaggot

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Check, Mate

When my Wonder Woman was a college student (anonymous Minnesota state school 40-*mumble* years ago) she attended a lecture by a black guy trying to lay off guilt for slavery on his listeners. Q/A session came around. She asked, “Why should I feel guilt for things I never did? My people weren’t even here then!

*silence*

Next day, she bought a “Norwegian Power” t-shirt.

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At Least THIS Illiterate Practice Is Still Deprecated

The occurrence of “try and [verb]” as against the correct “try to [verb]” in print in general is still minimal. Unfortunately, the #gagamaggot misuse of “and” still seems to be very common in (typically) very poorly edited self-pub text and in social media, etc., all over the increasingly “mass man”-dominated1 Internet.

Social democracy sometimes sucks.

Do note that I have no objection to the use of “try and” when it is genuinely appropriate and adds meaning. For example,

“Two Judges Try and Fail to Shut Down Union Strike” in a headline is OK, though in a sentence in the body of a text it would be better-written as, “Two judges try–and fail–to shut down union strike,” or, slightly less clear, “Two judges try, and fail, to shut down union strike.”

Or,

“It’s better to try, and regret, than not to try, and regret.”

In neither of the cases above would “try to” convey the meaning intended, but cases like this are rare compared to misuses of “try and” where “try to” is appropriate. Sadly, the colloquial misuse of “try and” contributes to a poorer language rather than enhancing English.

1See Ortega.

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Down with Dysgraphia!

*sigh*

I have become convinced that, despite enabling many fine writers to become successful authors, self-publishing/”Indie publishing” has had an overall negative effect on the quality of text available. The sheer number of aspiring writers afflicting readers with their dysgraphia is appalling. *sigh* Oh, well, at least writing reviews on Amazon encouraging such dysgraphics to just PLEASE JUST STOP IT offer some slight ability to ameliorate the problem. Slight.

For MUCH less than the tip of the iceberg upon which contemporary lazy, subliterate, self-made dysgraphics sink their “great works,” start with:

Commonly misused words and phrases

Of course, a simple search for such things will turn up many, many more such lists, but that’s a start. And,of course, such lists don’t even scratch the surface of grammar that would gag a maggot, stupid misuses of tenses (quite apart from more ordinary grammar errors; for example, an understanding of past perfect and past conditional tenses seem to be dead, dead, dead *sigh*), and on and on and. . .