(no subject)

[andrewducker]

One of my passions is explaining things to people in ways that ordinary people can understand. I hate few things more than people saying "It's very simple, we simply verbeetzle the umpeffeltzter wnd wackdoodle the malporkerizer" because they've forgotten that ordinary people don't speak that language.

This therefore made me very happy. Especially as it uses the Duke of Hazzard as an explanatory tool.

Comments

LOL

[davecleghorn.livejournal.com]

Brilliant, that just gave us a big laugh here.

In which we go off on a tangent...

[worldforger.livejournal.com]

Oh, my god! Cat and I were rolling on this one!

Although I realize you did not write this, I've been impressed by your ability to exlain things, as well. Here's a request that calls upon your abilities... One that may prove a challenge even for you... *grins*

Can you find a way to explain (in simple enough terms for the average Bush suporter to understand) that changing what the war with Iraq was supposedly about since WMD haven't been found, attacking the bill of rights in the name of natonal security even though our national security agencies have gone on record saying the Patriot Act will do nothing to stop terrorist attacks, and posing with photo ops with various groups (police, firefighters, paramedics, veterans, the elderly, the working poor, etc.) and delivering sound-bites about supporting these groups while quietly introducing legislation to cut their funding (along with cutting funding to inspect large packages coming into the US from abroad), defying the UN (a group we helped form and whom Bush used Iraq's defiance of as a partial rationale for defying them ourselves to attack Iraq) are not the acts of a nice or honest man or a patriot, no matter how much he quotes some "holy" book in speeches, no matter how many pilots' work he takes credit for, and no matter how many "tough guy" sound bites he produces? And work in there something about how pro-Bush-ites are making a habit of vandalizing the property of free speech advocates, how the Bush administration (especially Ashcroft) thinks defending the Bill of Rights is un-American, and relate all of this to how a country begins to slide down the path to Facist Imperialism and police-statehood? Oh, and about no-fly lists and selected peace activists, known anti-Bush people, and civil liberty lawyers being harrassed and detained at airports? And secret arrests, state-sponsored torture, and all that other lovely stuff our current regime is doing? Oh, and work in the election fraud evidence somehow? Maybe using The Matrix or something?

When I try to explain, I get too pissed off and begin to sputter and rage incoherently at the nearest inbred, mouth-breathing, anti-American (yes, I can say that--I think that supporting attacks on freedom of expression and protection against invaions of privacy is in iteslf an unpatriotic act) neo-Nazi (read-Bush supporter).
:-D

This isnt' really a fair challenge, though. Anyone who is swallowing his line of bullshit probably isn't smart enough to understand polysyllabic words, or is so emotinally maladjusted and brainwashed that there is little hope short of intensive deprogramming. I actually spoke to one person whose response was, "well, if you're not doing anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about." And went on to opine that not supporting the president is as unpatriotic as you can get! I'm not joking.

On a serious note, I wonder how much longer I'll be allowed to type words like this and retain my security clearance/citizenship/freedom. Canada has begun offering political asylum to at least one group, I suppose, and I'm sure they and other countries will take more of us if the new US Nazis continue to gain power. *shudders* I love my country despite its' glaringly obvious flaws. I'd hate to see that happen.

Yes, yes... this could be seen as rather off-topic, but it's the whole "explaining things" aspecty that brought it up. I honestly have been at a loss as to how to break through the denial of otherwise sane-seeming people. I wonder if the more reasonable Germans had this problem with the rest of them during the Nazi rise to power?

So um... yeah... If you can think of a simple way of wording this, I'd appreciate it.