October 6 is the traditional date commemorating the martyrdom of William Tyndale, in 1536. Tyndale translated the New Testament and much of the Old into the English of his day, and in the process added more new words into the English language than any other single writer, with the possible exception of Shakespeare. He also laid the ground for the later, and more famous, King James (“Authorized”) Edition of the Bible.
Among his memorable coinages and turns of phrase coined as translations from Hebrew and Greek into English include
Passover (constructed from the Hebrew Pesach or Pesah)
Liberty, then, is the sovereignty of the individual, and never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time, and property, each living and acting at his own cost.
Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, but yet real activity. The ardent desire for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ideen zu einem Versuch die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen (1792; 1852, posthumous), English edition The Sphere and Duties of Government, as translated by Joseph Coulthard (1854), Chapter One. The book also appears in English as The Limits of State Action.
“Look,” tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris, “let’s be honest. . . .”
When a politician talks about being honest — presumably “for a change” — it’s gonna be a doozy.
President Trump’s “Twitter account should be suspended.”
“What?” the reader will likely object, “Trump’s Twitter account is the second-best thing about the his presidency!”
The reader wouldn’t be wrong.
We may disagree about the actual best thing, but the presidential Twitter account is indeed one of the things that makes the current chaos bearable. Sure, it is the cause of much of the chaos, but, well, we take our chuckles where we can get them. At least Trump’s tweets are not articulated in standard insiderese.
So, what did Trump tweet that so upset the former California prosecutor?
This: he had come to the “conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!”
Harris publicly called upon Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, to “do something” about the tweet.
He did nothing.
Understandably.
Suspending the account of the United States President because a failing opposition candidate was offended by typical Trumpian hyperbole would br idiotic. Mr. Dorsey has a lot to answer for, sure. But complete and utter idiocy? Not that.
For he knows something: Donald Trump has it within his powers to command every federal agency to cease using Twitter. Trump himself could switch to Gab or Minds or even MeWe — perhaps he should.
The federal government is not required to use a particular social media platform over another, is it?
It has now become a very common sentiment, that there is some deep and radical wrong somewhere, and that legislators have proved themselves incapable of discovering, or, of remedying it.
Satire exaggerates not just for a laugh, often employing the reductio ad absurdum for cutting effect — casting our attention on human follies and crimes.
Worthy of The Onion, sure, but better than most recent Onion efforts.
How did the Bee leap to the forefront of modern satire? Well, it’s a Christian site, actually, which seems to help. The Bee’s writers do not accept any dominant strain of contemporary culture as an admirable norm — like today’s “woke comics” must — so it is easier to find the absurdities in this current epoch’s conflicted and contradictory politics and culture.
The Bee so effectively lampoons dominant culture that snopes.com, the progressives’ most popular (putative) fact checking site, warned that the Bee’s great Chick-fil-A satire confused some readers because it “altered some details of a controversial news story.”
Satire is funny. Not getting satire? Priceless.
The Babylon Bee’s biggest competition may not be The Onion.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Nick Gillespie of Reasonmentions some titles that caught his attention: “‘Trump Is Being Influenced by The Russians, Screams Communist!’ and ‘Woke Polar Bear Apologizes for Being White.’ Classics include ‘Trump Proves He’s Not A Racist By Showing His Rejection Letter From The KKK’ and ‘Local Christian Would Do Anything For Jesus Except Believe Things That Are Unpopular.’”
On October 3, 1919, James M. Buchanan was born. Buchanan would go on to an illustrious career in economics, developing the theory of “Public Choice,” and receiving the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work. His books include Cost and Choice, The Calculus of Consent (with Gordon Tullock), and The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. Some of his most interesting research was into the realm of constitutional theory and practice.
He died January 9, 2013.
In 1925, on this date, Gore Vidal was born. Vidal would go on to become one of the leading post-WWII liberal essayists as well as a major novelist and screenwriter. His most famous novels include Burr, 1876, and Lincoln, installments in his American history series; his collection of essays, The United States, was one of his many bestsellers. Vidal was an elitist who expressed sympathy for populism and socialism, but also was a radical civil libertarian, and may occupy the extreme of the “liberal” quadrant in American political ideology: great on personal liberties but quite bad one market/property liberties.
