Curtis Dahlgren
Blarney words 101; The Lefty Lexicon, part 2 (the C-words)
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people." — Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)
"The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level." — Norman Mailer
"Government is only as good as the men in it." — Drew Pearson
"It's an ill wind that blows when you leave the hairdresser." — Phyllis Diller
A CONSENSUS IS WHEN WE AGREE TO SAY IN PUBLIC WHAT NONE OF US WOULD SAY IN PRIVATE. So said Abba Eban (one of the Top Ten quotations of all time). And that is one of the Loony Left's favorite words — consensus.
There are a lot of C-words in the Lefty Lexicon. That's because there are a lot of them they like and a lot of them they hate. Let's look at a sample of the former first:
They LOVE condom, civility, choice, and consensus.
"Condom," etymologically speaking, is a combination of the English word "con" and the Irish word for "dumb" (just kidding, I THINK). But you get the picture (I'm afraid). To the liberals, the condom appears to be — not the solution to ALL the world's problems, but — most of the really important ones!
"Civility" is the word they use to scold people who are UNCIVIL (i.e., who disagree that the condom is the solution to most of the world's really important problems). The liberals think that society is becoming more and more "uncivil" because more and more people are "questioning liberal authority" these days!
"Choice" is a biggie. Choice has to do with the freedom to kill but not the freedom to speak. You can actually be arrested for laughing at the wrong joke or using a forbidden word in a liberal Utopia, but the government there will pay someone to kill your baby for you. But the term "popular choice" or "consensus choice" are oxymorons in LaLa Land, because the majority does not rule in their universe. Subjective and arbitrary political correctness does!
"Consensus" is a word like candy to them. They don't need a majority to rule, but if they happen to have a consensus once in awhile, it's like frosting on the cake. Taxation then is as easy as stealing candy from a baby. People like to perceive themselves as being on the "winning" side, so some people can be manipulated by P.R. and mass-psychology into "agreeing" with the Loony Left.
Etymologically, the word "consensus" originated from the phrase "feeling together." It is related to the verb "to consent," so the Left goes about political campaigning much like a suitor pursuing a mate: Emotion is both the ends and the means; substance doesn't matter. Results don't matter either; "GOOD INTENTIONS" DO.
Besides, many pursued potential mates prefer the "bad boys" anyway. Logic and reason be damned. It works the same way in Politics 101. All it takes is a concentrated media blitz on the topic du jour to make the liberal position sound like the "mainstream." Anyone outside the mainstream, in the wide, calm part of the river is considered a "fringer" or "extremist."
A supposed "consensus" ends all debate before the debate even begins, and "correct thought" trumps "free speech."
I just received my copy of "The Politically Incorrect Guide (tm) to Global Warming," by Christopher C. Horner, and it has a whole chapter on "The 'Consensus' Lie." Horner says that the premise of the Left is, "If you slander everyone who questions you, maybe someday your claims will stand unquestioned."
He says that Al Gore claims that not one "reputable" scientist disagrees with him — "a clever ploy among environmentalists, in that disagreement with them inherently disqualifies one from being reputable or credible."
"Peer review," so-called, works the same way in the Academy. One doesn't get to be one of the "peers" unless you already agree with theories such as evolution, global warming, and the inevitability of (contrarily) human "progress." Thus the "peer reviews" (surprahse, surprahse) always seems to agree with the preconceived premises.
C-WORDS THAT THE LEFT HATES: commerce, competitiveness, conservative, Constitution, and Christianity.
"Commerce" and "competition" go hand in hand. The Left does not want the masses to understand economics (supply and demand, etc.) because it is easier to demagogue the issues if the people are kept in ignorance. "CHOICE" actually becomes a 4-letter word when applied to economics and the marketplace. The liberals prefer such things "price controls" whether they work or not (thus "control" is one of the "good" C-words in the Lefty Lexicon).
"Conservative," it goes without saying, is a fighting-word. Even though they say they hate "labels," they aren't a bit shy about labeling anyone who is outside their "liberal mainstream" as "divisive" or "mean-spirited" (which means it is very, very "unfeeling" of you to disagree).
Do "labels" mean anything? Well, imagine a stranger's hand deep inside your back pocket. But wait! You're not imagining that! It could be your mayor or state legislator or Governor or Congressman, but that hand belongs to a liberal.
To put it in its simplest terms, a liberal is someone who says "Stay out of my bedroom." A conservative says, "Stay out of my bedroom AND MY POCKETS.
"AND DON'T KILL MY DAUGHTER'S BABY BECAUSE THAT'S MY GRANDCHILD!"
"Constitution" is usually a swear-word too for the Left. The Constitution was written by a "bunch" of dead, white males (who have been dead for a long, long time and therefore can't possibly be "relevant"). The Constitution is nothing but a g — d — "piece of paper." Sandy Berger would probably steal it from the Smithsonian Institution and burn it if he could. And our Attorney-General probably wouldn't even prosecute him for it.
"Christianity" and Judeo-Christianity are 4-letter words to the Left. A media P.R. campaign has been building for about a year now, fueled by atheists who are coming out of the closet. To them, people of religious leanings are "dangerous" and "scary." Christ was "a man who married a prostitute named Mary, and they named their son 'JUDAS.' And they've all been dead a long, long time, too." Wow! Talk about insulting our intelligence!
WORDS FROM THE HORSE'S RUMP
I'm reading an article in the March 19, 2007 National Review ("Lonely Atheists of the Global Village") by Michael Novak. It's a review of three "popular" books published last year by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. It's a long article and it's very difficult to choose just one or two quotations from it, but here are some:
"The battle flags they put into the wind are Voltaire's Ecrasez l'infame! Meanwhile, all three pretend that atheists 'question everything' and 'submit to relentless, almost tedious, self-criticism' . . . [but] self-questioning about their own scholarly indifference to their subject, about the horrific brutalities committed in the name of 'scientific atheism' during the 20th century . . . all such questions are notable by their absence."
"Dawkins, too, expressly presents himself and other atheists as 'Brights,' distinguished by their 'healthy' and 'vigorous' minds. Poor believers — he openly complains — are by contrast with him trapped in delusion, unquestioning, mentally dead . . . He led a two-part show on religion for British television, called The Root of All Evil?" [70% of Brits now share Lennon's desire for "a world with no religion"].
"Yet his complaint about 'unquestioning' faith seems a bit odd. Some of us have thought that the origin of religion lies in the unlimited drive in human beings to ask questions — which is our primary experience of the infinite . . That is the experience that keeps driving the mind and soul on and on, and is its first foretaste of that which is beyond time and space."
"On the fifth page of his book, Dawkins describes his hopes: 'If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.'" [Rotsa Ruck, Rich]
"I have no doubt that [alleged] Christians have committed many evils, and written some disgraceful pages in human history. Yet on a fairer ledger of what Judaism and Christianity added to pagan Greece, Rome, the Arab nations (before Muhammad), the German, Frankish and Celtic tribes, the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons, one is puzzled not to find Dawkins giving thanks for many innovations: hospitals, orphanages [etc] . .
"And why does he overlook the hard work done [by Judeo-Christian thinkers] on concepts such as 'person,' 'community,' 'civitas,' 'consent,' 'tyranny,' and 'limited government' . . . that made possible such great documents as the Magna Carta?"
"I wish I could write that Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris are more open and respectful than Dawkins, but their books, too were disappointments. The letter that Harris claims is intended for a Christian nation is in fact wholly uninterested in Christianity on any level, is hugely ignorant, and essentially represents his own love letter to himself, on account of his being superior to the stupid citizens among whom he lives."
CONCLUSION
Academia claims to encourage "critical thinking," but is clearly interested only in being "critical" of the "retros" among us.
Michael Savage recently played the recorded words of a Princeton professor by the name of Cornell West. A self-described Leftist, he talked about people out there who actually believe they are in direct communication with a Deity twice a day, and he says that "this is what we have to deal with"!
My own prayer for our college and university students is that their professors will so overplay their hands that our kids will see that the atheists have no trump left. They have no aces up their sleeves, and they are even showing their hand, for God's sake!
Michael Novak tells how his daughter went to Duke calling herself an atheist, but her professors did overplay their hands.
"She decided that atheism cannot be true, because it is self-contradictory. Moreover, this self-contradiction is willful, and its latent purpose is pathetically transparent.
"Atheists want all the comforts of the rationality that emanates from rational theism, but without personal indebtedness to any Creator, Governor, Judge. That is why they allow themselves to be rationalists only part of the way down.
"The alternative makes them nervous."
I COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT ANY BETTER MYSELF.
P.S. A wise man often said that as long as 50 percent of Americans are trying to do what is basically right, God's everlasting arms will remain over us. "Great" Britain seems to be down to about 30 percent believers, and we seem to be getting a reverse flow of "culture" from that side of the Atlantic.
To paraphrase someone though, "Imagine a world with GOOD religion."
© Curtis Dahlgren
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people." — Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)
"The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level." — Norman Mailer
"Government is only as good as the men in it." — Drew Pearson
"It's an ill wind that blows when you leave the hairdresser." — Phyllis Diller
A CONSENSUS IS WHEN WE AGREE TO SAY IN PUBLIC WHAT NONE OF US WOULD SAY IN PRIVATE. So said Abba Eban (one of the Top Ten quotations of all time). And that is one of the Loony Left's favorite words — consensus.
There are a lot of C-words in the Lefty Lexicon. That's because there are a lot of them they like and a lot of them they hate. Let's look at a sample of the former first:
They LOVE condom, civility, choice, and consensus.
"Condom," etymologically speaking, is a combination of the English word "con" and the Irish word for "dumb" (just kidding, I THINK). But you get the picture (I'm afraid). To the liberals, the condom appears to be — not the solution to ALL the world's problems, but — most of the really important ones!
"Civility" is the word they use to scold people who are UNCIVIL (i.e., who disagree that the condom is the solution to most of the world's really important problems). The liberals think that society is becoming more and more "uncivil" because more and more people are "questioning liberal authority" these days!
"Choice" is a biggie. Choice has to do with the freedom to kill but not the freedom to speak. You can actually be arrested for laughing at the wrong joke or using a forbidden word in a liberal Utopia, but the government there will pay someone to kill your baby for you. But the term "popular choice" or "consensus choice" are oxymorons in LaLa Land, because the majority does not rule in their universe. Subjective and arbitrary political correctness does!
"Consensus" is a word like candy to them. They don't need a majority to rule, but if they happen to have a consensus once in awhile, it's like frosting on the cake. Taxation then is as easy as stealing candy from a baby. People like to perceive themselves as being on the "winning" side, so some people can be manipulated by P.R. and mass-psychology into "agreeing" with the Loony Left.
Etymologically, the word "consensus" originated from the phrase "feeling together." It is related to the verb "to consent," so the Left goes about political campaigning much like a suitor pursuing a mate: Emotion is both the ends and the means; substance doesn't matter. Results don't matter either; "GOOD INTENTIONS" DO.
Besides, many pursued potential mates prefer the "bad boys" anyway. Logic and reason be damned. It works the same way in Politics 101. All it takes is a concentrated media blitz on the topic du jour to make the liberal position sound like the "mainstream." Anyone outside the mainstream, in the wide, calm part of the river is considered a "fringer" or "extremist."
A supposed "consensus" ends all debate before the debate even begins, and "correct thought" trumps "free speech."
I just received my copy of "The Politically Incorrect Guide (tm) to Global Warming," by Christopher C. Horner, and it has a whole chapter on "The 'Consensus' Lie." Horner says that the premise of the Left is, "If you slander everyone who questions you, maybe someday your claims will stand unquestioned."
He says that Al Gore claims that not one "reputable" scientist disagrees with him — "a clever ploy among environmentalists, in that disagreement with them inherently disqualifies one from being reputable or credible."
"Peer review," so-called, works the same way in the Academy. One doesn't get to be one of the "peers" unless you already agree with theories such as evolution, global warming, and the inevitability of (contrarily) human "progress." Thus the "peer reviews" (surprahse, surprahse) always seems to agree with the preconceived premises.
C-WORDS THAT THE LEFT HATES: commerce, competitiveness, conservative, Constitution, and Christianity.
"Commerce" and "competition" go hand in hand. The Left does not want the masses to understand economics (supply and demand, etc.) because it is easier to demagogue the issues if the people are kept in ignorance. "CHOICE" actually becomes a 4-letter word when applied to economics and the marketplace. The liberals prefer such things "price controls" whether they work or not (thus "control" is one of the "good" C-words in the Lefty Lexicon).
"Conservative," it goes without saying, is a fighting-word. Even though they say they hate "labels," they aren't a bit shy about labeling anyone who is outside their "liberal mainstream" as "divisive" or "mean-spirited" (which means it is very, very "unfeeling" of you to disagree).
Do "labels" mean anything? Well, imagine a stranger's hand deep inside your back pocket. But wait! You're not imagining that! It could be your mayor or state legislator or Governor or Congressman, but that hand belongs to a liberal.
To put it in its simplest terms, a liberal is someone who says "Stay out of my bedroom." A conservative says, "Stay out of my bedroom AND MY POCKETS.
"AND DON'T KILL MY DAUGHTER'S BABY BECAUSE THAT'S MY GRANDCHILD!"
"Constitution" is usually a swear-word too for the Left. The Constitution was written by a "bunch" of dead, white males (who have been dead for a long, long time and therefore can't possibly be "relevant"). The Constitution is nothing but a g — d — "piece of paper." Sandy Berger would probably steal it from the Smithsonian Institution and burn it if he could. And our Attorney-General probably wouldn't even prosecute him for it.
"Christianity" and Judeo-Christianity are 4-letter words to the Left. A media P.R. campaign has been building for about a year now, fueled by atheists who are coming out of the closet. To them, people of religious leanings are "dangerous" and "scary." Christ was "a man who married a prostitute named Mary, and they named their son 'JUDAS.' And they've all been dead a long, long time, too." Wow! Talk about insulting our intelligence!
WORDS FROM THE HORSE'S RUMP
I'm reading an article in the March 19, 2007 National Review ("Lonely Atheists of the Global Village") by Michael Novak. It's a review of three "popular" books published last year by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. It's a long article and it's very difficult to choose just one or two quotations from it, but here are some:
"The battle flags they put into the wind are Voltaire's Ecrasez l'infame! Meanwhile, all three pretend that atheists 'question everything' and 'submit to relentless, almost tedious, self-criticism' . . . [but] self-questioning about their own scholarly indifference to their subject, about the horrific brutalities committed in the name of 'scientific atheism' during the 20th century . . . all such questions are notable by their absence."
"Dawkins, too, expressly presents himself and other atheists as 'Brights,' distinguished by their 'healthy' and 'vigorous' minds. Poor believers — he openly complains — are by contrast with him trapped in delusion, unquestioning, mentally dead . . . He led a two-part show on religion for British television, called The Root of All Evil?" [70% of Brits now share Lennon's desire for "a world with no religion"].
"Yet his complaint about 'unquestioning' faith seems a bit odd. Some of us have thought that the origin of religion lies in the unlimited drive in human beings to ask questions — which is our primary experience of the infinite . . That is the experience that keeps driving the mind and soul on and on, and is its first foretaste of that which is beyond time and space."
"On the fifth page of his book, Dawkins describes his hopes: 'If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.'" [Rotsa Ruck, Rich]
"I have no doubt that [alleged] Christians have committed many evils, and written some disgraceful pages in human history. Yet on a fairer ledger of what Judaism and Christianity added to pagan Greece, Rome, the Arab nations (before Muhammad), the German, Frankish and Celtic tribes, the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons, one is puzzled not to find Dawkins giving thanks for many innovations: hospitals, orphanages [etc] . .
"And why does he overlook the hard work done [by Judeo-Christian thinkers] on concepts such as 'person,' 'community,' 'civitas,' 'consent,' 'tyranny,' and 'limited government' . . . that made possible such great documents as the Magna Carta?"
"I wish I could write that Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris are more open and respectful than Dawkins, but their books, too were disappointments. The letter that Harris claims is intended for a Christian nation is in fact wholly uninterested in Christianity on any level, is hugely ignorant, and essentially represents his own love letter to himself, on account of his being superior to the stupid citizens among whom he lives."
CONCLUSION
Academia claims to encourage "critical thinking," but is clearly interested only in being "critical" of the "retros" among us.
Michael Savage recently played the recorded words of a Princeton professor by the name of Cornell West. A self-described Leftist, he talked about people out there who actually believe they are in direct communication with a Deity twice a day, and he says that "this is what we have to deal with"!
My own prayer for our college and university students is that their professors will so overplay their hands that our kids will see that the atheists have no trump left. They have no aces up their sleeves, and they are even showing their hand, for God's sake!
Michael Novak tells how his daughter went to Duke calling herself an atheist, but her professors did overplay their hands.
"She decided that atheism cannot be true, because it is self-contradictory. Moreover, this self-contradiction is willful, and its latent purpose is pathetically transparent.
"Atheists want all the comforts of the rationality that emanates from rational theism, but without personal indebtedness to any Creator, Governor, Judge. That is why they allow themselves to be rationalists only part of the way down.
"The alternative makes them nervous."
I COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT ANY BETTER MYSELF.
P.S. A wise man often said that as long as 50 percent of Americans are trying to do what is basically right, God's everlasting arms will remain over us. "Great" Britain seems to be down to about 30 percent believers, and we seem to be getting a reverse flow of "culture" from that side of the Atlantic.
To paraphrase someone though, "Imagine a world with GOOD religion."
© Curtis Dahlgren
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