Words Mean Something
A little bit ago someone wrote about the word “bellwether” and it stuck in my mind, and was pushed to the front by someone using it this weekend, and misspelling it “bellweather”.
If you didn’t know, a “wether” is a neutered ram. A “bellwether” is a neutered ram with a bell around its neck that is used to lead a flock of sheep, a “Judas goat” without a clear purpose, if you will.
I just finished reading The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and have been paying more attention to words, especially the willful misdefining of words in the political battles that have severely restricted the number of sites I read.
Just for general consumption: commander-in-chief is one of the job functions of the President of the United States, not vice versa. The qualifications for President of the United States are 35 years of age and a natural born citizen of the United States. Arnold Schwarzenegger has the experience to be commander-in-chief by virtue of being a governor of a state [governors command the National Guard of their state], but he isn’t qualified to be President because he was born in Austria.
I admit a personal prejudice against those who haven’t been a governor running for President. The Senate is not a good place to prepare for making executive decisions. The Speaker of the House is a better position and the framers of the Constitution agree with me on that small point.
If people are going “to hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest”¹ they aren’t communicating, they are leeching bandwidth from the truth. Currently much of the vibrant discussion in blogtopia™ has been slowed from a pure running river of opinion into a fetid fen of foolishness, dotted with putrid ponds of pettiness and prejudice worthy of no regard by sentient beings. More simply, much of the Left has taken on the worst aspects of the wingnuts.
Is winning so abhorrent to liberals that they will stop at nothing to prevent it? There is no other way of sanely regarding the recent spate of formerly open comments on too many blogs that have been shuttered or moderated by the total breakdown of civility and reason.
Some people should keep in mind is that these invective filled posts will not disappear. They are cached and saved by multiple groups. This insanity will be available for the future to read, and marvel at its childish spite.
While the candidates are running remarkably mild campaigns, their supporters are quite insane. I have been voting since 1964 in Presidential elections. I have seen some nasty campaigns, but they pale in comparison to what occurred in the 19th century. The disproportionate reactions by formally seemingly rational people has probably set the stage for an amazing come from behind victory by John McCain. At this point the wounds are too deep for binding by November. People have poisoned their candidate’s image with their paranoid reactions to the slightest criticism.
1. Paraphrase from the lyrics of The Boxer .
8 comments
Ah, yes, the song with the George W. Bush refrain: “Lie lie lie, lie lie lie lie, lie lie lie…”
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The perversion of the meanings of words is almost a signature of the worst the GOP has to offer. I know the phenomenon has been around since Lee Atwater in the Reagan era, but I’ve never gotten used to the notion that the way to “win” an argument is to torture the meanings of perfectly good, long-defined words in a way that even Charles Dodgson’s Humpty-Dumpty could never have conceived of doing. Then again, torture seems to be a specialty of this administration; I suppose we should not be surprised that they inflict it on words as well as people.
I look forward to a time in which I can remove moderation from the comments on my site. I put them in place in response to the, ahem, immoderation of one individual I encountered on another familiar site. When the discussion between us became heated, he decided, with my concurrence, to move it to my threads, for the sake of our host (in the non-technological sense of the word). Things grew still more heated. I asked the offender to go away. He refused. I tried banning him. He got around the ban. I “trexed” his posts… something I am never proud of doing, but I had to do something… and still he came back. Eventually I used comment moderation as a means of assuring myself that he inflicted his persistence only on me, not on my readers. I hate it.
On the one hand, I would prefer a wide-open discussion; that’s what I have had, for the most part, since I added comments to the YDD several years ago.
On the other hand, a person’s blog comment threads are not a “free speech zone,” nor am I obliged to allow my threads to become a forum for right-wing rants. (There are plenty of sites with those… some such sites belong to major media outlets.) I am not a patient person; I do not suffer fools or wing-nuts gladly (except for the big wing-nuts that can be used to hold on bicycle wheels). I have had reasonable discussions with conservatives on my threads, but that is not what is at issue here. This particular poster is no friend of mine… not quite a troll, but not willing to play well with others, either.
But I am as dismayed as you are, when I read the big-name sites, with the degree to which people who ordinarily would be friends are at each other’s throats in comments. And IMHO the candidates tacitly encourage such incivility by their own bad behavior. It’s a heckuva note. And we may end up with McCain as president, in part as a result of all the infighting.
</rant>
(Thanks for your patience with this one.)
Actually, Steve, the candidates themselves are pussy cats compared to ’68, ’72, and ’76 when things did get personal in the primaries. The Republicans in the 1980 primaries hadn’t adopted California’s “11th commandment”.
It’s the supporters, not the campaign officials who are totally overboard with absurdity and distorting what is said to fit their twisted vision of the opponent. The have become Stalinists in their persecutions and purges.
You both are all wrong and your candidate sucks! /has tantrum
I’m in Florida, and, thus, have no candidate or vote.
i’m in florida and my candidate withdrew from the race the day after i voted for him, so there!
Look at the bright side, Hipparchia – if your name is still on the Dems list and they go through with the last stated plan to send stamped envelops with their sham ballots, you will at least get a free stamp.
only one stamp? do these people not realize how many tongues there are in this household? not that it’s likely to even be a real stamp. probably they’ll just use postage meters and preprinted envelopes.
Alas you are probably right, which means, if they use the business reply envelops which are actually “postage due” it would be wrong to send back an empty envelop as it would cost them money.