Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!
(07-31-2016, 08:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(07-30-2016, 11:15 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Wikipedia has a dictionary, and it has a definition for the word hit as a verb.

hit ‎(third-person singular simple present hits, present participle hitting, simple past [b]hit[/b] or (dialectal) hat or (rare, dialectal) het, past participle [b]hit[/b] or (dialectal) hitten)
  1. (heading, physical) To strike.
    1. (transitive) To administer a blow to, directly or with a weapon or missile.  [quotations ▼]One boy hit the other.
    2. (transitive) To come into contact with forcefully and suddenly.  [quotations ▼]The ball hit the fence.
    3. (transitive, slang) To kill a person, usually on the instructions of a third party. Hit him tonight and throw the body in the river.
    4. (transitive, military) To attack, especially amphibiously. If intelligence had been what it should have been, I don't think we'd ever have hit that island.
The third meaning is particularly ominous.

Ah, but you are assuming the use of English.  Every once in a while in political discussion on the net, you get Humpty Dumpty linguistics.

Lewis Carroll Wrote:"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
 Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
 "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
 "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

If someone makes an assumption, such as Humpty does in the above example, that he is the Master, no truth or fact matters except the proclamations of the Master..  Always keep this in mind when dealing with wannabe Masters and you'll get along fine.  Smile

I don't know whether Donald Trump even understands the possible meanings of what he says. Contrast Sarah Palin, prone to create such a neologism as "refudiate" (which does not pass my spell checker as the infamous "normalcy" of Warren G. Harding), a warning sign as much for suspect words as for spelling errors and tpyos) or using a word in an unorthodox way (as in "Barack Obama pals with terrorists"). Is the word salad of of Donald Trump more sophisticated than the word salad of Sarah Palin, or does he not understand the significance of some of his word choices? At least we all understand what Sarah Palin meant with the effort to blend the words "refute" and "repudiate", and we can figure out what Sarah Palin means when she uses the word "pal" as a verb.

Verbal integrity is an essential part of a minimal standard of honesty. If one is to use a word in a way that has multiple meanings with significance to someone else then one must demonstrate which meaning applies to that word at that time. Then, another important part of  the minimal standard of honesty, one must act in a way consistent with the meaning that one has expressed.

...Lewis Carroll was not only the author of two of the greatest works of the childhood canon of literature, but also a superb mathematician... and logician. His "Humpty Dumpty" is, of course, a dangerous liar. Lewis Carroll is unsurpassed in teaching an important lesson to children. If uses a word in a way in which it has two or more different meanings and one of those can be extremely hurtful, then it is up to the person who uses that word to make clear which meaning that word has.  Donald Trump obviously does not mean that he is going to slap his opponents and critics in the face. Neither is he going to give someone a forceful strike as in a block or tackle in football (he is obviously too old and not in shape to do that). Military force upon a military target is obviously never a one-man task today. So guess what that leaves! Al Capone used hired killers on an impromptu basis. Leaders without responsibility use a secret police like BOSS, the Mukhabarat, SAVAK, Stasi, KGB, or the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. (I made some edits to Wikipedia to put the latter in the same league as the Gestapo and the OGPU -- "secret police" -- and those have stuck). Yes, America has some precedent for a secret police, even if not at the federal level. The FBI is unlikely to do such dirty work for the President, Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, the Supreme Court, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff; it needs some violation of federal law (like occupation or destruction of federal property) for it to act. Should Donald Trump try to form some federal law enforcement agency or use an existing one to enforce his will in violation of the rights enumerated in the Constitution, then we have a Constitutional Crisis.

One can lie using any language. Just think of the nightmare of 1984  in which the vile regime of Oceania has turned practically every noun, verb, adjective, or adverb into a lie as "Newspeak" and made any communication other than command meaningless. Were I to imagine a sequel  to 1984  in which people reacquire their freedom, then much of the cure is the abandonment of Newspeak (that word passes my spellchecker) for practically anything else. Classical Latin, Old English, Cherokee, Korean, Quechua, or Esperanto would all suffice -- but not the English barbarized into something practically useless in a free society with an active culture.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply


Messages In This Thread
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - by pbrower2a - 07-31-2016, 11:13 AM
Basket of Deplorables - by John J. Xenakis - 09-10-2016, 11:06 AM
RE: Basket of Deplorables - by pbrower2a - 09-10-2016, 02:01 PM
RE: Gringrich - by The Wonkette - 10-27-2016, 11:29 AM

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Lets make fun of Obama while he is still relevant. Galen 207 122,609 01-25-2023, 07:45 PM
Last Post: pbrower2a
  Stimulus Bill Would Make Illegal Streaming a Felony LNE 7 2,570 02-02-2021, 04:12 AM
Last Post: random3
  Trump: Bring back torture to make America great nebraska 0 1,608 01-13-2018, 07:51 PM
Last Post: nebraska
  Bill would make New York first state to ban declawing of cats nebraska 0 1,887 01-13-2018, 07:13 AM
Last Post: nebraska
  Bill would make it a crime to videotape police in Arizona nebraska 0 1,821 01-11-2018, 04:01 AM
Last Post: nebraska
  High taxes, regulations make NY dead last in freedom nebraska 4 3,221 12-27-2017, 07:51 PM
Last Post: nebraska
  This result Bundy of trial should be fun. Galen 0 1,646 12-24-2017, 12:40 AM
Last Post: Galen
  Let's make fun of and bash Gary Johnson too! Eric the Green 16 17,943 10-15-2016, 02:50 PM
Last Post: Eric the Green

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)