Tag Archives: hyperbole

A matter of opinion…

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Yesterday I saw several social media posts decrying the administration of the current president as the “most out of control and corrupt government in history.” Now it’s fair to say I don’t agree with many of the administration’s policies, but I also know that “in 621_356_history_of_the_world_part_onehistory” covers a lot of ground and a lot of really, really bad governments.

Take for example the Soviet Union under Stalin, who purged somewhere between 1 and ten million of his own people. That’s pretty bad governance. Hitler, that other bookend of 20th century dictatorial madness had a large hand in starting a war that killed 60 million people – or a little more than 2% of the world’s population at the time. Like Stalin, that’s not a great track record. Fast forward a few years and you have Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the killing fields of another 1.5 million. The drug wars raged across Columbia in the 80s and 90s, with politicians being bought or killed by the cartels. Not the recipe you’d want for successful democratic government. The Afghani Taliban made it their mission in life to suppress dissent, create a permanent underclass based on gender, and wipe out two thousand years years of cultural history. And those are just examples from the last hundred years.

Step back to the French Revolution, the Roman Empire, the Mongols, the unification of China and you’re going to see government that behaved in ways our sensitive souls can’t really fathom. Bad as the Obama administration might seem, I think laying the mantle of “most out of control and corrupt” in the vast sweep of history might just be a touch hyperbolic. Sure, it makes a good enough sound bite, but it really discounts the fact that history goes back a long, long way.

We’re all welcomed to our own opinions, but I do wish people would limit their appeals to the blessing of history until they inform themselves on what they’re actually talking about… Otherwise you just end up sounding like an idiot to those happy few of us who didn’t fall asleep in Into to World History.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Fleeing to Canada. Despite the ferocity of your Facebook or Twitter conviction, face it, no one is actually going to move to Canada as a result of this week’s presidential election. Even if you did, you’d find a high tax rate, national health care, and an entire province that wants to break away and form its own country. So all you’d actually accomplish is swapping out one dysfunctional political system for another and paying a hefty moving bill for the privilege. Can we all give the hyperbole a rest and start talking about changes we can make here in the real world to start undoing the mess we’ve collectively made over the last 60-odd years?

2. Antique Technology. Using Internet Explorer 8 is pretty much like driving around in a 1979 Dodge Omni; sure it’s technically transportation, but its reliability is questionable and its style is pretty much non-existent. Like the idiot lights on out fictitious Omni, IE8 spends most of its time throwing up security certificate errors, blocking content, and generally making it unbearable to use for anything other than the most basic tasks… and even then it’s slow as Moses in a minefield. It’s always a comfort to know that here in the most technologically sophisticated arms of government, we insist on plodding along with antiques from the last decade. That’s a sure path to effectiveness and efficiency.

3. Mary Jane. If the people of the great state of Colorado want to toke up for recreational purposes, I say God bless. Given this country’s outstanding record of success at enforcing morality laws, my advice to the DEA is just let ‘em go. We can argue all night about pot being carcinogenic, addictive, a gateway to the wild world of opiates and other drugs, but I have a hard time seeing how it’s all that much different than cigarettes or alcohol. Regulate it, tax it, and then let the states decide how, when, and by whom it can be used. Carrying pot as a Schedule 1 narcotic, with heroin, meth, and LSD strikes me as dishing out a $1000 penalty for a $10 crime. In the grand scheme of shit that’s important, sorry, this just doesn’t make the cut for me.