I participated in army ROTC at Kent State University (1964–66). I decided not to be commissioned as a second lieutenant. Maybe my thinking was similar to George “Warmonger” Bush (“I’m the decider,” or “A dictatorship would be a lot easier”) and Dick “Shotgun Duckhunter” Cheney (“I have other priorities than the military”). Quack, quack!
Writer and critic Paul Valery wrote, “Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” As with many wry oxymoronica comments, there’s a great deal of truth embedded in Mr. Valery’s thinking. Politicians, once in power, have often been inclined to keep citizens from the affairs of state. This is especially true when citizens are disgruntled and critical of the way things are being done. What to do with opponents and dissenters? How to silence critics? From censorship to assassination, etc.
However, such methods always prove to be ineffective in the long term. “It is characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack” (Voltaire). “No government can be long secure without formidable opposition” (Disraeli, 1844). And “A patriot must always be ready to defend his/her country against its government” (Edward Abbey).
(Acrimonious)
At Loggerheads Again
To Rory Althans: I do not hate our country. Although I do recall Mitt Romney (“Romnesia”) say something about “self-deport.” I visited Austria and Switzerland in July. As a first-year baby boomer, I have to admit that I really like Switzerland’s politics and culture. However, I do not have a copious amount of money to deposit in their banks. WTF (wow, that’s funny!)?
To all fellow denizens, read The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf.
Never forget that the most powerful weapon an oppressor has is the mind of the oppressed. For enlightenment, view The Unknown Known about Don Rumsfeld, where his brain is in a black hole. I would remind Rory Althans that Howard Zinn (1922–2010), author of many books including A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, saw combat duty as an air force bombardier in World War II.
David A. Hancock
Chester
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
VOTING IS JUST A GAME
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not stacked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right but I am not vitally concerned that the right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to wo(man) feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise wo(man) will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
There is but little virtue in the action of masses of wo(men). When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote. (Henry David Thoreau, 1849, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience: Resistance to Civil Government)
Today we may think of the following:
“Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody” (Franklin P. Adams, 1944).
“Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against” (W. C. Fields).
“If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it” (Ken Livingstone, 1987).
Matt Lynch’s maxim: “More jobs—less government.” Advice to Matt Lynch: find a new job, new career, and do us all a favor and get out of government.
It’s that time of year again. When I think of taxes, I think of the following perspicacity:
“I want to be sure that he is a ruthless SOB, that he will do what he is told, that every income-tax return I want to see, I see. That he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends. Now it’s as simple as that. If he isn’t, he doesn’t get the job” (Richard Nixon on the kind of person he wanted to head the Internal Revenue Service).
“Read my lips: No new taxes” (George H. W. Bush).
“Only the little people pay taxes” (Leona Helmsley).
“Income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf” (Will Rogers).
“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people” (The Wealth of Nations [1776], Adam Smith).
“The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third” (Voltaire, 1694–1778, attributed to Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution [1867]).
David A. Hancock
Chester
Thoughts About Destiny
Novelist Dorothy Allison said, “Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth.”
I thought about this and started to ruminate on human venal, sordid, narcissistic, and megalomaniacal behavior and attitudes, which then reminded me of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Mark Antony’s speech that goes, “Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.” Now replace Caesar with some names that you can think of (e.g., dead dictators and living also).
This reflects a poster on a bulletin board at a local college counseling center, The Essence of Destiny:
Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Choose your words, for they become actions. Understand your actions, for they become habits. Study your habits, for they become your character. Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny. (Anonymous)
Maybe Carl Sagan is right with his perspicacity: “I worry
