Accumulated Wisdom: Sixteen Theses for the New Millennium
For those who would have missed this otherwise....
Accumulated Wisdom:
Sixteen Theses for the New Millennium
A. BARTON HINKLE
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Published Friday, March 11, 2005
Herewith the precepts of the Prophet Barticus, handed down from upon the mist-enshrouded mountaintop. Gather all ye who are near, and attend.
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Human nature does not divide along partisan lines. The world is choked with stupidity, willful blindness, and corruption on every side. Therefore, it is folly to try to score general points off the individual failings of one's political foes. If the form of scandal that has beset your opponents has not afflicted your allies yet, wait.
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Political parties will always ignore the preceding precept.
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Newspapers, magazines, and columnists that never criticize their friends when their friends commit the same misdeeds as their enemies are no better than partisan hacks and should be treated as such.
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Politics is not a playoff game. It's okay to concede a point to the other side once in a while. Sometimes it's not just okay, it's required by intellectual honesty.
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Comparisons to history's greatest monsters (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Mao) should be reserved for those who commit monstrous acts. Those who refer to "feminazis," display bumper-stickers reading, "Rush is Reich," or invoke Josef Goebbels at the drop of a hat are not only not serious people, they clearly have not thought about the disservice they do to the memory of 6 million murdered Jews.
. . .
No one should be held responsible or unduly criticized for any statement made before age, oh, 25. After that, fire at will.
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The Constitution is a set of rules about how all the other rules in the U.S. will be set down. The question as to what is constitutional has nothing whatsoever to do with whether something is good, bad, pleasing, or displeasing.
. . .
People who talk about the causes of poverty are missing the point. Poverty is not caused, it exists ab initio and is the natural state of things. The real question is what causes wealth. In the answer to that question lies the solution to the problem of poverty.
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Freedom is a prerequisite for moral action. There is no virtue in saving a drowning child if someone has put a gun to your head and ordered you to.
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History's great accomplishments cannot be achieved without idealism. But skeptics and ironists never committed mass murder in pursuit of a putative greater good.
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Those who favor big government seem to imagine that government will share their values. When confronted with a powerful government that does not share their values (e.g., the Bush administration), they complain about some people "imposing their views" on the rest of us -- evidently never stopping to consider that they wish to do the same. Limited government, which allows everyone to cleave to his own values, is more harmonious with the inalienable right of each person to the pursuit of happiness enshrined by the Founders.
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Kant was right: "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." But a godawful lot of money has been spent trying.
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The most vituperative criticism generally comes from those who pay the least attention.
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The best source of obituaries is the London Telegraph. To wit: "The 6th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, who has died aged 82, was known to connoisseurs of botanical art as Alastair Gordon, a painter of flowers and plants; at the age of 80 he became better known to a wider public when he gave a frank account of his youthful exploits among the bordellos of Beirut, London, and Paris . . . .At Mrs. Fetherstonehaugh's in Knightsbridge, the girls were so high-class, Lord Aberdeen recalled, that, rumour had it, one Coldstream Guards officer discovered to his horror that 'the girl assigned to him was his own sister.'"
. . .
The best source of news is The Onion. To wit: "Five or Six Dudes Jump Out of Nowhere And Just Start Whaling on This One Guy"; "Poll: 73 Percent of Americans Unable to Believe This S---"; "God Answers Prayers of Paralyzed Little Boy -- 'No,' Says God."
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A gentle answer turneth away wrath, but a harsh word stirreth up anger. Sure can be fun, though.
2 Comments:
"Limited government... is more harmonious with the inalienable right of each person to the pursuit of happiness enshrined by the Founders." OK, great. In theory that's true (and communism really does work).
But how does the Bush Administration (in any possible way) represent "limited government"? If anything we've seen more intrusive "big" government, more military spending, more domestic policy intervention, more unilateralism, more public ideological force-feeding, more centralization of power... not LESS.
Sean said:
"how does the Bush Administration (in any possible way) represent "limited government"?"
Who says it does? Not Hinkle, me, nor lots of Republicans.
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