Rex's semi monthly column for January 2011. Subject: The Arizona Attacks

[rexanglorum]

As more and more facts emerge regarding the senseless bloodshed in Arizona, the more and more the left wing, authoritarian narrative of “heated political rhetoric

 

[budweiser]

Posting for later.

 

[dame theory]

Originally Posted by Budweiser

Posting for later.

 

[Betonblck]

Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


Even our own President just recently compared the GOP to “hostage takers

 

[stateofsingularity]

PFL.

Keep up the good work, fam.

 

[91mph style]

I respectfully submit that this is a breathtaking example of exceedingly inelegant and inefficient meandering rhetoric.  It is as if you had words that you wanted to use that you then forced, as if with a crowbar, into paragraphs, which only superficially flow from one to the next, and then interspersed with superfluous clause piled upon unnecessary clause, as if attempting to clarify an idea which needed neither clarification nor initial utterance.  Instead of function (the written piece) flowing from form (the idea), the needless rambling at some point took on a life of its own and gave birth to a bastard (read: unwanted and unloved) piece of writing.  Perhaps rather than semi monthly you could spare us and yourself and make this sort of rambling a biennial affair.

Peace and love.

 

[True Blues]

Originally Posted by 91mph Style

I respectfully submit that this is a breathtaking example of exceedingly inelegant and inefficient meandering rhetoric.  It is as if you had words that you wanted to use that you then forced, as if with a crowbar, into paragraphs, which only superficially flow from one to the next, and then interspersed with superfluous clause piled upon unnecessary clause, as if attempting to clarify an idea which needed neither clarification nor initial utterance.  Instead of function (the written piece) flowing from form (the idea), the needless rambling at some point took on a life of its own and gave birth to a bastard (read: unwanted and unloved) piece of writing.  Perhaps rather than semi monthly you could spare us and yourself and make this sort of rambling a biennial affair.

 

[moneymike88]

Originally Posted by 91mph Style

I respectfully submit that this is a breathtaking example of exceedingly inelegant and inefficient meandering rhetoric.  It is as if you had words that you wanted to use that you then forced, as if with a crowbar, into paragraphs, which only superficially flow from one to the next, and then interspersed with superfluous clause piled upon unnecessary clause, as if attempting to clarify an idea which needed neither clarification nor initial utterance.  Instead of function (the written piece) flowing from form (the idea), the needless rambling at some point took on a life of its own and gave birth to a bastard (read: unwanted and unloved) piece of writing.  Perhaps rather than semi monthly you could spare us and yourself and make this sort of rambling a biennial affair.

Peace and love.

im glad i scrolled to read comments instead of that short story

 

[rexanglorum]

cguy610 wrote:

---

Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


Even our own President just recently compared the GOP to “hostage takers

 

[b smooth 202]

Rex, my problem with your presentation is that you talk as if this country wasn't founded on fundamental flaws in which one class of people benefited DIRECTLY off the backs of another class of people. Your thesis is filled with accusations of the modern democratic party as some tyranical, authoritarian party, when the United States of America has NEVER been a free society for any of US, and only a select people benefit from the constitution.

The idea of the United States as a true democratic republic in practice has never been reality, the 'land of the free' is merely a Eurocentric fair tale, subjugating whoever they can. The seperation of powers is just that, a seperation of powers, but still a glaring gap between true representation of the average citizen.

Whatever system of government you have, corruption is inevitable. A violent revolution only acomplishes more violence.

 

[k2theablam]

I'm posting to read this at work.

 

[deuce king]

Originally Posted by 91mph Style

I respectfully submit that this is a breathtaking example of exceedingly inelegant and inefficient meandering rhetoric.  It is as if you had words that you wanted to use that you then forced, as if with a crowbar, into paragraphs, which only superficially flow from one to the next, and then interspersed with superfluous clause piled upon unnecessary clause, as if attempting to clarify an idea which needed neither clarification nor initial utterance.  Instead of function (the written piece) flowing from form (the idea), the needless rambling at some point took on a life of its own and gave birth to a bastard (read: unwanted and unloved) piece of writing.  Perhaps rather than semi monthly you could spare us and yourself and make this sort of rambling a biennial affair.

Peace and love.

  

 

[rexanglorum]

Originally Posted by B Smooth 202

Rex, my problem with your presentation is that you talk as if this country wasn't founded on fundamental flaws in which one class of people benefited DIRECTLY off the backs of another class of people. Your thesis is filled with accusations of the modern democratic party as some tyranical, authoritarian party, when the United States of America has NEVER been a free society for any of US, and only a select people benefit from the constitution.

The idea of the United States as a true democratic republic in practice has never been reality, the 'land of the free' is merely a Eurocentric fair tale, subjugating whoever they can. The seperation of powers is just that, a seperation of powers, but still a glaring gap between true representation of the average citizen.

Whatever system of government you have, corruption is inevitable. A violent revolution only acomplishes more violence.

First, you are correct that slavery and a fairly rigid class system was in place during the time that the Constitution was written and radified, furthermore, the authors of the Constitution were flawed, among other character flaws, most of them were Slave Owners. The fact that America's early leaders were part of an elite that lived well off of the labor of many makes America unremarkable, that is the political history of any society during and before the 18th century. What is remarkable is that the founders ackowledged that humanity is flawed and that they were not exempt from those flaws and that is remarkable because many leaders, today and almos tall leaders durin gand prior to the 18th century acted as if they were either in power because God willed it, they were God's instrument or they were semi or entirely divine and they were therefore infallible or at least were vastly superior to their subjects.

America's founders tended to understand how selfish,. evil and greedy people can be so they tried to limit the centralization of power in order to minimize the damage that could be caused by one men or a very small ground of people ruling, with no limits to their power, over everyone else in the Republic.


At its heart, there is one very fundamental question and salient in our political discourse are the same as they were at the time of the founding, that question is how much and how exactly should power be centralized? I dislike a lot of the current democratic party because of the two major political parties in the US, it seems like the Democratic Party believes that power is not nearly centralized enough and that if we could just concentrate more authority, into the hands of fewer people, facing fewer legal constraints, those few experts could remake society into an Earthly utopia. I find that delusional on their part and a cause for concern on the part of the vast majority of people, those of us who would lose what freedom we have carved out for ourselves in a very imperfect society.

You said that "The separation of powers is just that, a separation of powers, but still a glaring gap between true representation of the average citizen." You are absolutely on that point. The Constitution, the notion that government itself should be subject to laws and have its power preconstrained ultimately helps the average person. When government authority is in the hands of small ruling elite and they have absolute power, wealth and power accrue to that very small group. We have been moving in the wrong direction, more and more power has been concentrated and politically connected firms have been able to flourish amid widespread economic decline. I would argue that if the Constitution had been taken more seriously there would still gaps between the masses and the elite and gaps between rich and poor but the discrepancies would be smaller. Currently, subsidies of all sorts shield certain firms and their leaders and allow them to make more then they would if they were dealing in a freer market and conversely, the average person, the poor in particular would have a wider range of options and many of them would be less poor or not poor at all.


You are also correct that every system of government has corruption but corruption can be minimized and one way to minimize it is to build Constitutional, legal, barriers in order to prevent or minimize rent seeking, influencing public policy for narrow private gain. If Government was more limited in what it could do for private sector actors there would be less money in politics because it would not so important to lobby, what good is having the ear of Congress if the Constitution was taken seriously, it was robustly enforced and no matter how much money you give to members of Congress and their reelection campaigns they would not be able to reciprocate the "favor" by handing out subsidies, bailouts or protectionist legislation that far too many private firms currently enjoy.

Finally, you are correct that armed insurrection has bad results for all or most parties involved. Let us hope it never comes to pass, while it should be on the table, it should be an absolute last resort to be used only after all other, more peaceful legal and political avenues have been exhausted. 

 

[oidreez]

Originally Posted by 91mph Style

I respectfully submit that this is a breathtaking example of exceedingly inelegant and inefficient meandering rhetoric.  It is as if you had words that you wanted to use that you then forced, as if with a crowbar, into paragraphs, which only superficially flow from one to the next, and then interspersed with superfluous clause piled upon unnecessary clause, as if attempting to clarify an idea which needed neither clarification nor initial utterance.  Instead of function (the written piece) flowing from form (the idea), the needless rambling at some point took on a life of its own and gave birth to a bastard (read: unwanted and unloved) piece of writing.  Perhaps rather than semi monthly you could spare us and yourself and make this sort of rambling a biennial affair.

Peace and love.

this made me laugh

 

[dirtylicious]

http://www.telegraph.co.u...gainst-Barack-Obama.html

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Originally Posted by 91mph Style

I respectfully submit that this is a breathtaking example of exceedingly inelegant and inefficient meandering rhetoric.  It is as if you had words that you wanted to use that you then forced, as if with a crowbar, into paragraphs, which only superficially flow from one to the next, and then interspersed with superfluous clause piled upon unnecessary clause, as if attempting to clarify an idea which needed neither clarification nor initial utterance.  Instead of function (the written piece) flowing from form (the idea), the needless rambling at some point took on a life of its own and gave birth to a bastard (read: unwanted and unloved) piece of writing.  Perhaps rather than semi monthly you could spare us and yourself and make this sort of rambling a biennial affair.

Peace and love.

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way about his writing.

 

[teamjordan79]

thread reeks of ether

 

[rexanglorum]

Originally Posted by Th3RealF0lkBlu3s

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way about his writing.

I have a feeling that you dislike the content of what I write more than how I write it. If I wrote about content that fit your vision of the world you would be just fine with having to read a few commas.

I also really do believe that people such as yourself have a particular dislike for libertarians, Libertarians, Republicans, "Tea Partiers," conservatives, really any non leftists who can be eloquent. The narrative is that people, who dislike big government, must all be nothing but back country hicks, Sarah Palin is the image that leftists tend to conjure when they think of anyone who dares to disagree president Obama. It disrupts the whole narrative for leftists whenever someone can cast some doubt on various top-down, command and control policies without resorting to slogans and shallow one liners.


BTW, if anyone has any arguments against the substance of what I wrote, I would love to hear them.

  

 

[ruxxx]

@ 91.

 

[True Blues]

Originally Posted by Rexanglorum

Originally Posted by Th3RealF0lkBlu3s

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way about his writing.

I have a feeling that you dislike the content of what I write more than how I write it. If I wrote about content that fit your vision of the world you would be just fine with having to read a few commas. 

Your superfluous prose makes arguing against the content of your essay nearly impossible.

Seriously, if I submitted a piece of that style to my graduate supervisor he would laugh in my face.

 

[rexanglorum]

Your graduate supervisor obviously has no taste or he or she has a very limited view of how people should write.

You and your graduate supervisor should read a column by George Will or if you cannot stand something not written by a fellow leftist, try Cornel West. My tone is folksy in comparison to some writers.

 

[cwk]

The unexamined life is not worth living, but brevity is the soul of wit.  It's not often you see a thougtful, well-written post concerning history, politics, and rhetoric on NT.  OP is obviously educated and passionate, but a little too verbose for me. 

 

[bijald0331]

at what this turned into.

pfl.

 

[unkletomcruze]

Dog, a lot of what you write is unnecessary.

Your last 4 paragraphs would've sufficed, quite honestly.

That said, if I were to ask you to distill your O.G post into a thesis statement, would you be able to do it? And what would it be?

I've already read your post in it's entirety twice, and am confident that I know what you're asserting.

And frankly, I think you're a lil off your rocker for [color= rgb(255, 0, 0)]attempting[/color] to justify and/or humanize Laughner's actions by implicitly veiling it as a misconstrued act of patriotism against a tyrannical complex (the American government--the supposedly centralized democratic led American government).

Your inherent personal bias honestly makes it difficult to even take your post seriously.

But I could be wrong, so if you would kindly amuse me--distill your post into a bare minimum: a thesis statement; this way, I can be sure that I'm not reading too much, or too less, into your post.



...
 

 

[rexanglorum]

Originally Posted by UnkleTomCruze

Dog, a lot of what you write is unnecessary.

Your last 4 paragraphs would've sufficed, quite honestly.

That said, if I were to ask you to distill your O.G post into a thesis statement, would you be able to do it? And what would it be?

I've already read your post in it's entirety twice, and am confident that I know what you're asserting.

And frankly, I think you're a lil off your rocker for attempting to justify and/or humanize Laughner's actions by implicitly veiling it as a misconstrued act of patriotism against a tyrannical complex (the American government--the supposedly centralized democratic led American government).

Your inherent personal bias honestly makes it difficult to even take your post seriously.

I think you are somewhat confused about what bias is and what context you would find it. Bias is when someone lets their opinion negatively affect their ability to act as a good faith, neutral observer, reporter or teacher. I was writing about my opinion, my view of the situation, I never was claiming that I am just presenting the basic who, what, where, when and why of this story.

But I could be wrong, so if you would kindly amuse me--distill your post into a bare minimum: a thesis statement; this way, I can be sure that I'm not reading too much, or too less, into your post.



...
 

You want what I orginally wrote shortened, here it goes:

The time might come that violence against public officials might be needed but now is, thankfully, not the time and therefore, what Jared Loughner did was simply homicide as well as attempted homicide.