Over at National Review Online, Dennis Prager has some important things to say about Donald Trump's choice of words. Well, what choice of words, first:
The following comments were made in a public speech last week by a man considering running for president of the United States.
On gas prices: We have nobody in Washington that sits back and says, ‘You’re not going to raise that f***ing price.’”
On what he would say as president to China: “Listen, you mother f***ers, we’re going to tax you 25 percent.”
On Iraq: “We build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road, they blow them up, we build again. In the meantime we can’t get a f***ing school in Brooklyn.”
Ho hum. The reality is that I love me some F-bomb. I do object to Trump's sentiments, though. But it's not the fact that Trump puts some salt on his verbiage, it's the fact that he thinks he can yell at China and say he can tax a trade partner at 25 percent. Protectionism is great, until you pay for it with their tariffs and so on. We're in the can with the Chinese, but I'm unsure that this is the solution. Washington doesn't set gas prices, either. And Iraq? Anyone who was for the war knew going in it was a 'you break it, you buy it' deal. And Brooklyners don't need a school for f***ing. They already know how (joke by amphiboly — like cooking school). Regardless, Prager has other issues. Yeah, it's with the dirty words, especially with their use in public.
But there is a world of difference between using an expletive in private and using one in a public speech. For those who do not see the difference, think of the difference between relieving oneself in private and relieving oneself in public. It usually takes a university education and a Leftist worldview not to see the enormous moral distinction between public and private cursing.
One disanalogy: nobody has to clean up a puddle when I tell a dirty joke. Another: I'll still privately curse in front of my neighbors. One more: some cursing is artistic and is wasted unless it is shared with the world. I can't help it: It's OK for someone to collect all the dirty language someone else has used. Fine, fine — I do understand Prager's point, though. It is unseemly to curse like that. I get it, and I've even got a university education and everything (read the quote again, if you didn't get that last one). I'm glad that Prager made sure to get in an unseemly jab at educated elites while chastising a Republican for acting indecently and uncivilly.
If we cannot count on Republicans and conservatives to maintain standards of public decency and civility, to whom shall we look?
Geez. Is this another false dilemma without the other option?
I think you're right. Unlike passing Health Insurance Reform, this is not really a big f—ing deal.
On amphiboly. Last Saturday, driving through Skokie, I spied the following sign:
"Sorry Student Driver."
Hey John, nice Biden reference.
Another amphiboly from the news: "Kim Jong Il met a worker injured on the job by accident."
And, by the way, whatever happened to the Republican desideratum for president being "the kind of guy I'd have a beer with"? Anyone who can't find room for the f-word likely fails the beer test.
But they only wanted to have a beer with a recovering alcoholic.
Sorry student driver, without the comma (Sorry, student driver) leads me to believe that someone was pointing out how bad that driver was, not that (s)he was just learning how to drive. Reminds me of the Ratchel Ray "loves to cook her family and her dog" magazine cover…
Dennis Prager <a href="http://thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/2009/01/dennis-pragers-conservative-mans-guide.html">possibly could use a semester or two</a> at one of those f***ing schools….
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for stopping by. And that Prager column is off the hook silly. I'm sending a link to that column to one of my colleagues in Womens Studies, just so that she has ammunition for when someone says that nobody these days is blatantly sexist.
Going back to amphiboly, via the Volokh Conspiracy, a Telegraph article: "Mr Panetta also told the network that the US Navy Seals made the final decision to kill bin Laden rather than the president." ( http://tinyurl.com/3rsxoua )