The late Joe Sobran: If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.
It’s the new frontier in shrinkdom: now we’re told that almost everyone is an unconscious bigot needing remediation, as shown by the words and acts of little children and old people. Psychiatry and its little brother psychology have always been agents of the state, as Thomas Szasz has shown, and this new theory gives them even more leeway to remake you. Need I mention that disliking groups not represented in the official victimological hierarchy doesn’t count as bigotry? That is, the whole thing is political, just another excuse to empower the state, left-liberal prejudices, and the psycho-babblers. BTW, the 18th-century notion of an unconscious mind, as popularized by Freud, is highly controversial.
A libertarian comedian, Rich Stein, provided some good humor at a dinner my wife and I attended last night. His funniest line involved a man who was so depressed over current political and economic troubles that he called a suicide hot-line for help. As with so many of our telephonic communications, his call was routed to someone in Pakistan. After explaining his sense of despair and of his desire to commit suicide, the man at the other end of the line asked: “Can you drive a truck?”
‘Oh, stewardess! I speak jive.’ RIP Barbara Billingsley. She explained why her iconic American mother character dressed as she did (practical reasons for filming!)
Some jottings about the news
