Double-speak, 21st-century-style

What the fuck?

Gordon Brown has "imposed a voluntary ban on exports of livestock and livestock products" in reaction to a foot-and-mouth scare in Britain and a ban by importing countries of British animal products

Brown: Quick action on foot-and-mouth

A "voluntary ban"?

George Orwell would have a fuckin' field day with this political era. H.L. Mencken would laugh. Lord Acton would cry.

And, meanwhile, I gotta sit and pretend like this shit makes sense or is logically consistent?

Oh, that's right. I have to. It's the law.

The more this bullshit persists, the more it makes a mockery of the law. A consistent governing philosophy would avoid that. I've got one. Does Gordon Brown? Does anyone else, these days?

If you care about the law and governance, you don't abuse it like this. Unless your short-term will to power is more important to you than your commitment to more a more honest culture and more honest governance, as a consequence.

"Why didn't I go into insurance or banking?" George Orwell has got to asking himself, these days.

It's a good question, George. Noone gives a shit about recrimination or bullshit overwhelming a more deeply honest discussion of life and governance, anyway. It gets in the way of their political ambitions or their wallets or their bitterness. Might as well sell coverage for when the world goes to shit from all this fuckin' double-think.

How long we gonna pretend that forcing and pressuring our way through issues is working, we have to ask ourselves? I have no confidence that Hamas or Hezbollah or Al-Queda will ask themselves that question. Liberal democratic peoples and cultures and governments I should be able to expect better from.

It's the only direction for any substantial hope, besides. And it is most certainly the only honest way forward. And despite all of our bumbling, liberal democratic peoples generally fumble forward. And that is why I know that this ugliness that has substituted itself for engaged democratic thought and discussion must end, at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Because the hallmark of liberal democracies is not that we make the right choices, all the time. It's that we face our mistakes more honestly, generally after the fact, and correct our course.

Mark Twain would probably laugh, and want to cry, and think, "As can be expected." And, as he did when our more vicious, partisan impulses got the best of us during our Civil War, he would ease us into a more decent direction.

We are goddamn fools. The human race. Absent finding separate bedrooms, maybe we can learn to love one another, again, and say we're sorry, as all good relationships have to do if they want they want to last. Makes me miss all that making up with Brandi.

And, maybe, in the future, we can learn to stop fighting so goddamn much. And to listen more than we talk and think deeply and carefully more than we react and take up arms against one another.

All good relationships get killed more by the fighting than by what we fight about. Losing the forest for the trees and forgetting that we fight because we love one another, not because we're irreconcilable.

At what point in a person's heart does love get replaced by a passion more akin to hate?

At the point at which we forget that we have a choice. To love people often despite themselves rather than constantly fighting for our own perspectives and ways and self-centered desires to will out.

I had to lose the best friend I've ever had to learn that lesson. Perhaps we'll all have to lose a lot more before finally learn it. I hope not. Because if you've never lost a best friend like I had, I wouldn't wish it on you.

Maybe we can do little better than that.

Love,
Ben