Curtis Dahlgren
Orwell's "1984" turns 60, and WE come to a "fork" in the road!
By Curtis Dahlgren
"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there." — Yogi Berra
I SAW A BUMPER STICKER THAT SAID, "I THINK. THEREFORE I'M LIBERAL." I WASN'T IMPRESSED. I would much rather take "advice" from a Yogi Berra than a Harvard grad, or a University of Chicago law professor. Especially on economics. For example, Yogi said, among other things:
- "The future ain't what it used to be."
- "A nickel isn't worth a dime anymore."
- "We made too many wrong mistakes."
- "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is."
- "Even Napoleon had his Watergate."
Yogi could have been talking about foreign policy when he said, "The other teams could make trouble for us if they win." He could have been talking about liberal "thinkers" when he said:
"There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em."
Yogi could have been talking about the proliferation of liberal pundits, even in the Republican party, when he said:
"It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much."
He could have been talking about utopianism when he said, "If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be."
WHAT'S SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND? You think conservatives never think? Berra could have been talking about economics when he said that "Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical."
SCARIEST HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Feds mull tweaks to economic revival programs." As if that were where the answer lies! Our ultimate salvation lies in TWEAKS? We need a "revival" all right, but not necessarily a physical "revival." Or more federal "programs."
"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours," Yogi said. I don't know what that has to do with anything, but as William Cowper advised:
"Laugh at all you trembled at before" [spoken like a "True Believer"].
Jack Benny could have been thinking about the IRS when he said, "Your money or your life!" (I'm thinking; I'm thinking).
THE COLUMN-OF-THE-WEEK was by Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe, "1984 turns 60." I have a slight difference with Jacoby, who said that George Orwell was an avowed socialist. In actuality, Orwell may have been "tinkering" with British socialism in 1949, but he did not die an "avowed socialist." Despite lefrt-wing attempts to paint Big Brother as a "Right-wing" regime, in FACT, George Orwell once said:
- "No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer."
- "Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."
- "So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."
- "It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is democratic . . "
- " . . the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers . . " [ABC, CNN]
CONCLUSIONS
Obviously, George Orwell's writings have been misused by the Left to deviously advance their agendas (a "Democratic Socialist" is a good guy while Big Brother is a "right-wing extremist"). As the bumper sticker implies, "ONLY liberals think." Have they cornered the market on intelligence? Orwell said:
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it . . "
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
"Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible."
But they're not. Orwell said that a Liberal is a power worshipper without power. They "think" they're winning. They "think" they think!
Liberal bumper stickers say "Think globally; act locally." But I say:
"Think universally. Act individually."
P.S. This would be a good week to start "acting individually," given the number of diabolical, robotic, bills before Congress right now.
BTW, the President gave a commendable speech about fathers for Fathers' Day. I won't attempt to detract from it, but I would add a few points:
A really good father doesn't spend the family's entire yearly GDP in the first 100 days of his "Fatherhood."
A good father doesn't try to shut up political opponents the way they do in Iran or other "Islamic Republics."
A good American father doesn't attack our Founding Fathers — because an attack on your "roots" is an attack on YOU.
PPS: If I don't post a new column next week, don't worry about it. If I'm AWOL, I'll probably just be hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine or something.
© Curtis Dahlgren
June 24, 2009
"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there." — Yogi Berra
I SAW A BUMPER STICKER THAT SAID, "I THINK. THEREFORE I'M LIBERAL." I WASN'T IMPRESSED. I would much rather take "advice" from a Yogi Berra than a Harvard grad, or a University of Chicago law professor. Especially on economics. For example, Yogi said, among other things:
- "The future ain't what it used to be."
- "A nickel isn't worth a dime anymore."
- "We made too many wrong mistakes."
- "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is."
- "Even Napoleon had his Watergate."
Yogi could have been talking about foreign policy when he said, "The other teams could make trouble for us if they win." He could have been talking about liberal "thinkers" when he said:
"There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em."
Yogi could have been talking about the proliferation of liberal pundits, even in the Republican party, when he said:
"It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much."
He could have been talking about utopianism when he said, "If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be."
WHAT'S SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND? You think conservatives never think? Berra could have been talking about economics when he said that "Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical."
SCARIEST HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Feds mull tweaks to economic revival programs." As if that were where the answer lies! Our ultimate salvation lies in TWEAKS? We need a "revival" all right, but not necessarily a physical "revival." Or more federal "programs."
"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours," Yogi said. I don't know what that has to do with anything, but as William Cowper advised:
"Laugh at all you trembled at before" [spoken like a "True Believer"].
Jack Benny could have been thinking about the IRS when he said, "Your money or your life!" (I'm thinking; I'm thinking).
THE COLUMN-OF-THE-WEEK was by Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe, "1984 turns 60." I have a slight difference with Jacoby, who said that George Orwell was an avowed socialist. In actuality, Orwell may have been "tinkering" with British socialism in 1949, but he did not die an "avowed socialist." Despite lefrt-wing attempts to paint Big Brother as a "Right-wing" regime, in FACT, George Orwell once said:
- "No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer."
- "Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."
- "So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."
- "It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is democratic . . "
- " . . the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers . . " [ABC, CNN]
CONCLUSIONS
Obviously, George Orwell's writings have been misused by the Left to deviously advance their agendas (a "Democratic Socialist" is a good guy while Big Brother is a "right-wing extremist"). As the bumper sticker implies, "ONLY liberals think." Have they cornered the market on intelligence? Orwell said:
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it . . "
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
"Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible."
But they're not. Orwell said that a Liberal is a power worshipper without power. They "think" they're winning. They "think" they think!
Liberal bumper stickers say "Think globally; act locally." But I say:
"Think universally. Act individually."
P.S. This would be a good week to start "acting individually," given the number of diabolical, robotic, bills before Congress right now.
BTW, the President gave a commendable speech about fathers for Fathers' Day. I won't attempt to detract from it, but I would add a few points:
A really good father doesn't spend the family's entire yearly GDP in the first 100 days of his "Fatherhood."
A good father doesn't try to shut up political opponents the way they do in Iran or other "Islamic Republics."
A good American father doesn't attack our Founding Fathers — because an attack on your "roots" is an attack on YOU.
PPS: If I don't post a new column next week, don't worry about it. If I'm AWOL, I'll probably just be hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine or something.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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