A key feature of our age is the meaninglessness of words and many credentials. They don’t convey useful information, and they haven’t for quite some time. For example, I’m Catholic and grew up assuming that the Latin origin of “amen” was self-evident. Moreover, the combination of singular with plural doesn’t make any grammatical sense if it was somehow mistaken for English.
I would’ve also assumed that someone with a divinity degree who’d been ordained by a mainline Protestant denomination would absolutely know the difference between ubiquitous Latin and the word “men” of Germanic origin. If you’d told me this person was also a member of Congress I’d have become concerned about the future of our country.
I stopped believing in the conventional definitions of words as a teenager. At this point, I’m not even sure what “country” means. Traditionally, it would’ve been a geographical area home to one or more demographic groups with a government engaged in some semblance of pursuing the majority interest. As best I can figure, it now denotes a zone of the transnational looting operation.
Thus, I’d exercise caution at getting outraged by a legislative fracas. Legislators in our environment are invariably drawn from the ranks of imbeciles and swindlers. There’s little to find intellectually or morally edifying from their antics. In other words, it’s not healthy to get frustrated at the disparity between what the credential of “congressman” should mean and the ugly reality.
From spending over a decade abroad, I can say that we’re not the only population who’s had to inure ourselves to some uncomfortable truths. For instance, the Africans I’ve encountered in my line of work simply assume that all their politicians are in office purely for theft. I know a guy from Yemen who told me they don’t even need politicians because every man has an AK-47.
East Asia has some of the most epic undignified spectacles. The Korean parliament has been known to get into some heavy brawls featuring serious implements like sledgehammers. In Taiwan, a melee recently occurred over U.S. pork imports in which a group of legislators wearing plastic rain ponchos began hurling pig guts all over the place and one was strangled. If you ask the average Taiwanese about that stuff, he’ll just shrug and say, “It’s our national shame.”
What I respect about these foreign politicians is that when they say “I’m going to fight for you,” they’re literally going to fight. Their actions endow the word with its proper meaning. I think this is a reasonable goal to which our legislators can aspire. It’s probably the only useful thing we’d be able to get them to do for us. I long to vote for a modern-day Hacksaw Jim Duggan who’d take his 2×4 to DC and mix it up.
I’m proud to officially announce my candidacy for the office of Dogcatcher.
A state rep going onto Twitter with his blue check mark to complain about the formal elements of style that Congress is adopting is the essence of futility.
If you’re going to complain, at least do it semi-effectively. Stand up and give a harrumph in the chambers while in session you useless cuck!
This is why I chose to emulate Preston Brooks as my nom de guerre.