PLATONIC OR MORONIC?

Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom.

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.7.vi.html

We now have legislation that has been passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the Prez so that my SS check for $674.00 will be duly deposited in my free checking account.

The entire piece of legislation is much more complicated than I could ever surmise or relate. Others who would merely imitate Icarus are not at a loss for words so why should my opinion matter anyway?

My interest revolves around this Super Committee!

Watching the whole debate about whether the rich (now known as Job Creators 'cause we can't call 'em RICH anymore) should pay more or less in taxes has got me thinking. And I think that maybe we've done our Job Creators a bit of a disservice.

Rich people are like German Shepherds--they're smart, they're high-strung, and if you don't give them stuff to think about and do, they'll spend all their time chewing on the furniture and biting the wrong people. Or getting a really weird color tan. Why, it's almost cruel to lower Rich People's taxes, like George Bush did, without giving them a way to justify themselves by living up to their reputation as Job Creators. It takes away their pride--they may not know it, but the Rich have sunk into a well of complacency that would put any Welfare Queen to shame. Surely, a rich person's mind is a terrible thing to waste.

I just watched Claire McCaskill make a ridiculous statement on "Meet The Press," where she accused the "extremes" on the right and left of dominating the current economic debate and called for new and louder moderate voices of compromise.

The left has had no voice in this debate whatsoever.  Claire McCaskill doesn't speak for the left. President Obama barely allows himself to speak to the left, much less for it.  Bernie Sanders is not even a loud voice in the economic debate.

No doubt many of us have heard by now that nearly half of all Americans pay no taxes. Now, of course, an easy response to that is to correct that statement by pointing out that all Americans pay taxes, but that still leaves the statement that nearly half of all Americans pay no federal income taxes as being true.

In the famous Monty Python parrot sketch, Michael Palin’s understandable outrage at being sold a Norwegian Blue that was actually “stone dead” as he put it, does not get him a new bird. What it does get him – from the John Cleese character who originally sold it to him – is a barrage of obfuscating re-specifications of the bird’s condition. No matter that the bird by this point “has passed on….is no more…has ceased to be” – is, in fact, “AN EX-PARROT;” and no matter that its current capacity to stay upright is entirely due to the foresight shown by John Cleese in nailing it to its perch. The new owner is simply told that the bird, far from being dead, is “resting,” “stunned,”  “prefers kipping on its back,” and – my favorite – “pining for the fjords.”

The sketch works, of course, only because both Palin and Cleese had access to a thesaurus. The humor comes from the play on words. Well, a thesaurus is working overtime in Washington D.C. right now, though its use is making nobody laugh. There is obfuscation aplenty, and it is thickening: which is why I recommend “pining for the fjords” to any of you who, like me, are growing increasingly outraged by our mainstream media’s inability to “tell it as it is.”