9/11 Idiots : Para-Annoyed

Excuse me, maybe I never got the memo, but when did paranoid conspiracy theories about the government's role in 9/11 become some kind of conventional wisdom among leftists?

These people remind me of the enormous and credibility-destroying gap between rhetoric and action we see in the forces arrayed against abortion. They claim that abortion is the same as murder, but the vast majority of them sure don't act like it. Wouldn't most of us take the law into our own hands and overthrow the government if we and millions of others really thought millions of innocent people were being routinely and legally slaughtered? And what about the disgusting and intricate bathroom activities and absurdly frequent funerals that conferring full legal and moral human status on very early term miscarriages would require but which are never carried out by even the shrillest pro-lifer? Surely this is all the evidence we need to prove that all anti-choicers who stand anywhere on the Planned Parenthood side of Eric Robert Rudolph implicitly admit that there is quite a bit of gray area here?

Which brings me back to the 9/11 conspiracy believers. Anone who honestly thinks that our government planned or blessed 9/11 needs to put down their various narcotics ingestion paraphernalia, quit their jobs (those that have jobs), and spend their full energy acting to uncover the truth and punish those involved.

Anyone who can sit on their ratty couch in a filthy dorm-room believing the movie "Loose Change" and do nothing more than rant inefectually about 9/11 as if our government's culpability is a foregone conclusion deserves to suffer the kind of tyranny they ignorantly believe rules over them.

So which is it, conspiracy idiots?

Either you don't really believe the conspiracy, in which case please, please just shut the hell up and return quietly to your xboxes, or you do, in which case let's see the largest demonstration in history on the Mall in Washington demanding the truth!

Oh, and one more thing. Bush and His Evil Omnipotent Masterminds stopped by, they left a message for you. It was something like "thanks for either not voting in 2000 or voting for Nader, you morons!"

Traditional Definitions

Will we soon see George W. Bush, of all people, take over William Safire’s famous “On Language” column?

He seems, after all, to have a newfound passion for linguistic fidelity in the form of “traditional definitions.”

This past weekend the vocabulary-teacher-in-chief used his radio address to express his abiding fear that tolerating gay and lesbian matrimony will cause irreparable harm not to the institution of marriage, an easily refuted inanity, but to the traditional definition of marriage, a clumsy but indubitable tautology.

It is, of course, impossible to demonstrate how gay marriage in any way harms the institution of hetero marriage and easy to argue the opposite premise.

So Bush suddenly feels compelled to defend the honor of the traditional meaning of the word marriage.

It’s as if slave owners had called a constitutional alteration meant to ensure the survival of their peculiar institution the “defense of citizenship amendment” because freeing slaves would alter the traditional definition of “American Citizen.”

But, okay, I guess I can get on board with all of this protecting of traditional definitions. While we’re at it, I’d like to suggest a few more words whose traditional definitions seem in dire need of protection.

Take “war” for example. Can we agree that war on a tactic, i.e. terrorism or eye-poking, is nonsensical? And can we agree that war is something that needs some sort of achievable end goal?

Hey, protecting traditional definitions is fun! No wonder they like it so much they want a constitutional amendment.

Let’s try another one. How about…hmmm…let’s see…oh, I know! “Torture!” Maybe we can get an amendment protecting the definition I found in Webster’s, “anguish of body or mind”. That would take care of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo pretty quickly, and, if my reaction to them is considered, might actually end Bush's weekly radio addresses as well.

Boy, once you start thinking of these it’s hard to stop. “Patriot,” as in “USA Patriot Act,” springs to mind almost unbidden.

Then, of course, you have to wonder about the word “elected.” The last time I checked “something the Supreme Court does” didn’t appear in the OED under “elected.”

And, not to epistemologize, but what about “know”, as in “we know where the WMDs are?”

And then there’s “accomplished”, like “mission accomplished."

“Intelligence” has a number of traditional definitions, and this administration has managed to wrong each one.

Why don't we have a contest? You, my nearly nonexistent readers, can suggest some of your own. Some more suggestions: "compassionate", "conservative", "uniter."

In the meantime, can we please take advantage of Bush’s nascent respect for the power and sanctity of language to get a constitutional amendment protecting some traditional pronunciations in addition to traditional definitions?

I’m particularly partial to an amendment protecting the traditional pronunciation of the word “nuclear.”