I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d,
And men were gather’d round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other’s face…
—Lord Byron, from Darkness
I. Introduction
Thomas Hobbes
Long ago, an English philosopher once characterized the natural state of the human condition as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”1 Perhaps Thomas Hobbes had it right. But considering the everyday lives of most modern Americans and Europeans, you wouldn’t know it. Until recently, that is. Over the course of our daily lives, most of us probably never give a second thought to how fortunate we Westerners — particularly Americans — truly are. How pampered and privileged we’ve grown accustomed to being treated. Most of us live and work in relative comfort. We cruise around in our SUVs, or other similarly extravagant vehicles, while listening to the latest songs on our I-pod playlist. We go to shopping malls (real or virtual) that cater to our every whim and fetish for things gaudy and gadgety. We chat (or text) away on our cell phones or clatter away on our laptops
while sipping gourmet coffee. We see luxuries as mere conveniences and conveniences as absolute necessities. And we demand all sorts of expensive “rights” from our government leaders who seem more than happy to dole them out to us provided we keep electing them to office. We’ve become so used to this coddled — albeit humdrum — way of life that we feel cheated if it is ever somehow denied to us. We see it as no less than our birthright, our inheritance, our legacy. We feel we are entitled to it.
And yet, most of us don’t seem to have a very clear understanding as to how we even got here; or have even the vaguest idea how entirely new and fragile all this is. And for those of us that do, it is a trifling thought that signifies very little as we go about our daily routine. We don’t stop to think that what we call life today in modern Western civilization, never even existed only four or five generations ago. And we have nary a thought that one day it might all just go away. Instead, we go on living in our own world enveloped by a kind of bubble of affluence and entitlement which deludes us into believing that Hobbes’s stark observation of man’s true state of existence is just not so. Or if it is so, then it has little relation to today. In our comfortable time and place, the realities of that other, much bleaker human condition are kept neatly at bay, tucked far away in other times, in other places. In short, we take everything we have for granted.
But only five generations ago, everything was completely different. At the very beginning of the twentieth century, there were of course no I-pods or I-pads or laptop computers. There were no cell phones (the telephone itself was still a new invention.) There was no Internet. There were no televisions, no radios, no air conditioners, no refrigerators, no microwaves, no coffeemakers, not even a pop-up toaster. In fact, the widespread use of applied electricity, as made available to consumers, was in its infancy. The newly invented gas-powered automobile would have been a quirky indulgence. And even basic needs like central heating and running water would have been considered a comfort that only a relative few could afford. Indeed, a world with all of these amazing things in it would have seemed, to the seventeenth century mind of Thomas Hobbes, entirely fantastical. And yet still alive today, there are those few very old folks who can actually recall, from childhood, the harder but much simpler times before any of these incredible advancements in the human condition had come into being. Before the world was utterly transformed.
II. A Brief History of American Capitalism
But what was responsible for this astonishing transformation of the world? What was the overall driving force behind the affluence and technological advancements? Was it government? No, absolutely not. And it definitely was not a large, centralized government. In fact at that time government programs, to the extent they existed at all, were nothing like the costly entitlements of today. Indeed, outside of waging war, the government’s role at the beginning of the twentieth century was, by today’s standards, a very limited one. 2
So what was responsible? In a word, it was capitalism. American capitalism. As the nineteenth century drew to an historic close, the premonitory beginnings of the new twentieth century foretold the advent of an even more momentous age. The decrepit despots and ruling classes of old Europe were on their last legs. Soon, the First World War would snuff them out completely. And in the New World, the age of American liberty and American capitalism — of individual freedoms and free enterprise — was well underway. America had made it through a bitter civil war and survived. And a nation, “conceived in liberty,” had in fact not perished from the earth. 3 Indeed, it was flourishing. America as an idea — an idea of freedom — had taken hold. Liberty, individual liberty, and self-reliance were at work in all spheres, and had become the fulcrum and foundation of the American economy. And they became embedded in American culture and society. The young American nation’s industrial revolution was in full swing.
Virtually over night, America went from an agrarian economy to an industrial powerhouse. And the nations of old Europe looked our way with envy and a desire to emulate. And emulate they did, but they only got so far. Caught up in class struggles and internecine conflicts, and tied down by the vestiges of their own feudal past, capitalism in the American sense never quite took root in Europe. The façade of capitalism was erected but deference to the central authority of the state remained. It would take yet another World War and then a Cold War for European nations to finally try to put misguided ideologies behind them. Yet even today much of Europe still seems poised to slip back into the false calm of despotism.
Nevertheless, as the new American century moved forward, the power of American capitalism, and the wealth it created, was spreading worldwide anyway it could. And as the reach of America’s brand of capitalism extended 
elsewhere, it began to utterly and fundamentally alter the lives and living standards of Americans and Europeans. Indeed many Europeans, not willing to wait for prosperity to come to them were now emigrating to America’s shores in droves. Capitalism was lifting off the shade of night and raising America and the world into a bright new realm of limitless possibilities. 
Unfettered freedom in the markets, freedom in the exchange of thoughts and ideas, created and still today creates the nurturing environment — the incubator — for individual initiative and innovation and invention to take place. It was the “pursuit of happiness,” that our founders had so eloquently bequeathed to us, made actual and real. Individuals, not governments, reliant on no one, other than themselves, armed with freedom and a desire to succeed: that was the simple but beautiful idea — a dream almost — upon which the young American nation was founded and that Americans were actually living.
And, at least until recent times, it was an idea that was lived by Americans without undue interference or “assistance” by government. Quite the contrary, it was a formula that worked precisely because government was removed from it. As little government as possible; only that government which is absolutely necessary — these were the things our country’s founders warned us about over and over again. But somewhere during the past one-hundred years or so, between New Deals and Fair Deals, between Progressive Reforms and Great Societies, between Social Justice and the Nanny State, between Hope and Change, we allowed government to gum up the works. Big time. We are now a full-fledged entitlement economy, society, and culture which is something the founders of this country never wanted us to be. Individual self-reliance and initiative have gone by the wayside. They have been supplanted by a group mentality of entitlement. We look to government now, rather than ourselves, for “rights” and other “free” stuff, and we are embittered and angry if ever we are denied our due. Moreover, we are made to feel justified in these feelings. Indeed, over the years we have been encouraged and conditioned by weak leaders within governments and by a misguided media culture to see these things — this grand benefits package — as our heritage.
But as we choose to remain an entitlement society, we shall go the way of all entitlement societies: sooner or later, the bubble bursts. And when it does, that other, cruel Hobbesian world comes rushing in.
III. Greece: The Collapse of an Entitlement Society
In Greece, that bubble has burst. The momentous events in Greece over these past several weeks and months have been a rude awakening for the Western world. Greece, the epitome of a modern entitlement society, has finally come crashing down. For decades, Greek citizens have relied on government entitlements and subsidies: unaffordable state jobs, excessive state pensions, government healthcare and other high-priced government programs and, consequently, the country has amassed unsustainable debt. They’ve simply run out of money. Now, the government’s long overdue attempts to rein in 
spending through a variety of austerity measures — a requirement of their multi-billion dollar bailout by the European Union and the largely United States funded IMF — have forced the Greeks to give up the entitled way of life that they had grown accustomed to and accept another, harsher reality. As a consequence, Greece has erupted. The Greeks have resorted to looting and rioting and lawlessness, resulting in anarchy and death.
At present, the only thing keeping the Greek economy alive today is the massive infusion of loans from the IMF and the European Union. The Greek 
economy and society have simply come undone. And it is dark days indeed for the Greek people: nasty, brutish and short. They must now try to start over. To search for the pieces of their past lives through the dark of starless nights and the sulfurous pall of extinguished days. To rethink the future and to relearn, perhaps, what they had never really taught themselves in the first place.
Now, comparable calamities are foreseen in the other entitlement nations of Europe: particularly Spain, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain and Ireland. If one or more of these nations experience similar death throes then the dominos will surely begin to fall. Some experts suggest that any number of obscure triggers may set things off and send fundamentally profound tremors undulating through all of the industrialized world’s economies. 4
Obviously, this all has potentially dire implications for the United States. But the Greek example illustrates a larger point: the inevitable predicament that all entitlement societies, including the United States, eventually find themselves in. As the debt grows, it eventually swallows up the nation’s capacity for production. Like in Greece, ultimately the nation’s economy is devoured entirely by national debt and becomes no more. Essentially, entitlement economies feed upon and finally consume themselves until there is simply no economy left. So is present day Greece a glimpse into the future of America? Are we coming undone too?
IV. Are We Coming Undone?
Well to start with, we are a nation and government that bears little resemblance to the one that existed just four or five generations ago (to say nothing of the one that the founders envisioned). We were then a land of immigrants — mostly European immigrants— who fled our respective home countries to come live the promised dream of America. But the sad irony is that now we have more in common with Europe and European systems than ever before. A recent study by the Heritage Foundation finds that one in five American households now depend on the government for assistance with basic necessities (e.g., food, housing, etc.) And one in eight households now rely on the government for food-stamps. This is to say nothing of unemployment subsidies, education subsidies and the advent of subsidized healthcare. All this, the study finds, while the number of Americans who actually pay the taxes to ostensibly support this government largesse is shrinking. 5
And, all the while, the government continues to grow. Recent federal government stimulus programs, government bailouts of industries, and now government-run healthcare have been heaped onto an already growing mountain of national debt. The government has become an enormous and myriad conglomeration— a colossus — of bureaucratic programs, agencies, divisions and departments that siphon billions off the nation’s wealth just to pay for the interest on the debt alone. While Greece’s debt to GDP ratio is at an unsustainable 110% the United States is now not far behind, with a recent CBO report estimating U.S. debt will rise to a staggering 90% or more of GDP by next year! 6 Continuing down this path, “we can expect a default on government promises (Medicare, Social Security, Healthcare), higher interest rates on U.S. government bonds or even a flight by foreign investors like China to alternative investments, and a drop in the value of the dollar, raising energy and consumer costs and spreading inflation throughout the economy.” 7 All of this resulting in a dramatic decline in American living standards for generations to come. Eventually, the colossus topples and falls.
The Colossus of Rhodes
But what’s more is that we, as a people, seem perfectly willing to accept this madness; and that is the real tragedy. Apart from a few vocal dissenters, today we, the people, look to government for solutions rather than ourselves. With our dependable entitlements and our reassuring affluence, with our mania for creature comforts, and in our sheer arrogance and complacency, we have moved well beyond mere apathy and into the mindset of dependency. We have lost our way and drifted far, far away from what we were one hundred years ago, and before, into something that we were never meant to be. We have allowed ourselves to be cajoled, nudged, and deceived by those in government who would have us depend on government rather than ourselves; so much so that we now feel entitled to our dependency. But dependency and liberty can never go together. So we’ve traded in one for the other. Now we’re left with platitudes from politicians, slogans of hope and change, images on the television, and our own vanities. We are left with the mere trappings of liberty. But not liberty itself.
So how long can America remain on this tragic, catastrophic course? How much longer can the unsustainable be sustained? How long before we realize that we have become Greece? Before we realize the inevitable, tragic collapse?
In a way, Greece is lucky that they are the first. They are lucky that there are still solvent institutions like the IMF and EU to come and bail them out. But what happens next? What happens to Spain, to Italy, to Portugal, to Great Britain, to Ireland? Who comes to bail them out? What happens to California? To New York? To Michigan? To Louisiana? To Florida? To Pennsylvania? To the whole of the United States? What happens when the economy completely shuts down? When currency becomes worthless paper? When investments, retirement accounts, savings accounts are completely wiped out? When there is no longer a monthly check from the government? When there is no food on the shelves? No electricity? No heat? No running water? When people have nothing left to lose; when we have finally come undone? Because sooner or later in an entitlement economy, society and culture, it all comes undone. And, frighteningly, these sorts of things always seem to happen sooner than anyone expects.
Darkness falls. And the night comes swiftly.
V. Conclusion: “We Are Americans”
It was a simple formula that the Founding Fathers gave us. Individual liberty combined with self-reliance in the pursuit of one’s own happiness. A simple and beautiful and common-sense formula; not some pricey entitlement and benefits package. We were given an elegant thing by very courageous, brilliant and generous men, and we threw it away; or rather so abused and neglected it that it is as good as thrown away.
However… However, individual liberty, self-reliance, free-enterprise, the free exchange of ideas and freedom of speech and expression — these essential ingredients that make up the rare alloy of capitalism — come from 
America and nowhere else. They come from our shores. They may have taken root elsewhere in the world, and thank Heaven for that, but they are American “inventions” if you will and they are what make us unique. America is the birthplace of these things and they are our true legacy, our real inheritance. Capitalism, the free-market way, is the unique American way. It is as American as apple pie or a Norman Rockwell painting. It is in our blood, so to speak. It is our culture. And for that reason, so long as we remain Americans, we can always naturally return to it.
And we will return to it. With the passing of this year’s Memorial Day into night and into day again, and with this week’s remembrance of D-Day and the consequential days that followed it, I am reminded that this country has seen 
dark days and darker nights before. This nation has faced formidable — seemingly insurmountable challenges — and has overcome them. And so I am reminded of this nation’s greatness, its uniqueness. I am reminded of its tenacity and inner strength. I am reminded of its love of freedom and individualism. And I am reminded of its people — our people. Our people are not the Greeks. We are not the Italians. Nor are we Spaniards or Portuguese. We are not English, nor Irish nor Scottish. We are not Germans nor are we French. We are not Russians. We are not Asians, neither are we Arabs. We are not Africans, we are not Australians, and we are not South Americans. We are neither Mexicans nor are we Canadians. We are, rather, all of these, and something much more.
We are Americans. E Pluribus Unum, is the Latin phrase. Out of many, one. And as Americans, we shall triumph over the undreamt of troubles that for us Fate has set in store. We shall change our course and right our faithful ship, as we have done so many times before. We shall come through this dour darkness to look yet once more into each other’s face, in the bright early light of a newly dawning day. 8
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Notes:
1: The full Thomas Hobbes quote:
“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” –Leviathan, Ch. 13.
2: Around the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States national debt as a percentage of GDP was only around 10%. United States currency was tied to the gold standard. There was no Federal Reserve Bank. And there was no Federal income tax — that would have to wait until 1913 with adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. For a great website on the history of U.S. Government, taxation, spending and debt, click here: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/index.php
3: The full Gettysburg Address:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate…we can not consecrate…we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” –Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863.
4: Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052304170.html
5: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36648
6: Washington Times article:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/26/cbos-2020-vision-debt-will-rise-to-90-of-gdp/
7: Heritage Foundation article:
8: The poem:
We Are Americans
We are Americans.
E Pluribus Unum,
Is the Latin phrase.
Out of many, one.
And as Americans,
We shall triumph
Over the undreamt of
Troubles that for us
Fate has set in store.
We shall change our course
And right our faithful ship,
As we have done
So many times before.
We shall come through
This dour darkness
To look yet once more
Into each other’s face,
In the bright early light
Of a newly dawning day.
– by Elbert Soler
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For related posts on this topic, link to:
https://culturecrusader.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/america-r-i-p/
https://culturecrusader.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/why-you-don%e2%80%99t-have-a-right-to-healthcare/
https://culturecrusader.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/the-arrogance-of-hope-change-%e2%80%a6-or-else/
Culture Crusader 
Why I Love Ann Coulter
April 5, 2010First, let me say that this is not a defense of Ann Coulter. As far as I’m concerned, she needs no defending. And if she ever did, she’d be able to acquit herself quite well. On the other hand, if you are looking for any semblance of objectivity here, stop reading. I freely admit my bias. This is instead a kind of open love letter to Ann: an offering of homage to someone whom, for reasons I expand upon below, I hold in very high regard. I can only hope she reads it!
Ann speaks the truth openly and unreservedly and, yes, sometimes even offensively. I am not going to recount here all of the controversial statements made by Ann Coulter. (Remember, I’m biased.) Besides, they are widely known. And if you are not aware of them, a ten second Google search will satisfy your curiosity (the liberal blogosphere is all agog about even her most casual remarks.) Regarding these controversial statements, most people simply dismiss them or relegate them to hyperbole, satire, or just bad jokes. A few of us view these comments in their context and see the larger point being made. The rest are liberals. These comments are Ann’s signature rhetorical devices and, while sometimes they are indeed over the top, one cannot say they are unoriginal, and they almost always make a big impression.
As General George S. Patton once said when asked why he used profanity while addressing his troops: “When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember.” 2
Of course, it has reached the point now where no matter what Ann says she gets herself in trouble with liberals and progressives. In fact, she doesn’t even have to say anything anymore. The mere prospect of her speaking is enough to make them all aflutter. The most recent incident was the “welcome” she received by the students and administration at that world renowned institution of higher learning, the University of Ottawa. To make a long story short, Ann was prevented from speaking at the school after the school’s provost sent an email warning her to watch what she says as certain speech may run afoul of Canadian “hate speech” laws. The obvious innuendo being that Ann is incapable of opening her mouth without potentially saying something tantamount to a crime! Needless to say, this touched off a firestorm and an on campus student protest ensued (a protest against Ann, not the provost) which created a dangerous environment and caused Ann’s security detail (yes, she needs that now) to call the whole thing off. For the full story, click here:
https://culturecrusader.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/gem-of-the-week-oh-canada-what-a-houles-you-are/
The attitude among liberal and progressive opponents to Ann Coulter’s right to speak is best summed up in their own words. When interviewed, University of Ottawa student protest organizer Mike Fancie stated he was pleased that they kept Ann from speaking. “What Ann Coulter is practicing is not free speech, its hate speech,” he said. “She’s targeted the Jews, she’s targeted the Muslims, she’s targeted Canadians, homosexuals, women, almost everybody you could imagine.” (Source: The Boston Herald) Well, if according to this genius “she’s targeted … everybody,” including groups on either side of a particular debate, then she can’t really be said to be targeting anyone, can she? It is this kind of aggressive stupidity that Ann comes up against almost every time she speaks in public. But worse than that, it is political correctness run amuck. It is liberal-progressive oversensitivity codified into absurd laws and rules and enforced by academicians and apparatchiks like the University of Ottawa administrator. The sick irony, though, is that they do so in the name of tolerance. Only in their Orwellian world could suppressing freedom of speech and expression be viewed as “tolerant.”
The face of liberal tolerance: A University of Ottawa student protester
Liberal rules regarding hate speech and free speech raise all kinds of subjective questions: Precisely what is hate speech? What is appropriate speech? When is speech offensive? When is it not? Which groups can you offend and which can you not? Is no group or individual at any time ever deserving of offensive speech? What about child rapists and murderers? What about terrorists? What about racists, adulterers and sleazy politicians? What about liars in general? Are all of these exempt from being the target of offensive speech as well? And if not all, then which are and which aren’t? What about the bogeymen of liberals: conservative speakers and commentators? Is there also a prohibition on speaking offensively to or about them? It would appear that there is not! I guess targeting conservatives, like Ann, is a-okay with liberals and progressives because they level their hate-filled rants and offensive slurs against her all the time. Apparently when Ann is the object, it is open season on hate. All of this points out the absurdity and insidious evil of liberal and progressive “rules” when it comes to what can and cannot be speech. Lies and corruption are the tools of the collective: they are the means by which it pushes around the individual and stifles any free thought or expression that does not fit into their agenda of political correctness. The status quo of political correctness and moral relativism are phenomena that have become entrenched in modern American culture, much to our great misfortune. Ann attacks and roots out this liberal hypocrisy wherever she finds it: whether it be in academia, the mainstream media, the Democratic Party, or Hollywood. She tears away at the façade of their lies and reveals the faulty edifice underneath. With a truth as hard as steel, she exposes their hypocrisy for what it is, and they hate her for it. Speaking truth to power, I think is what it is called, and it has become, in a way, her mission.
But one needs to ask, why does Ann even bother with all this? What is her motivation? Liberals assign a variety of motives: she is vile and malicious and can’t help herself; she is pure evil; she is a natural-born hater; she is only doing this to boost her book sales; etc. They lean on these rationalizations because they refuse to accept that anybody of her obvious intelligence would actually believe the outrageous things she says. They are so arrogant (or perhaps insecure) in their belief that they are right, that they are convinced there must be some ulterior motive.
Howard Roark
Ann has only one motivation: she actually believes what she says. And she says what she believes, no matter how offensive. The truth trumps polite conversation. Of course, Ann pays for this truth in the frightful extreme. She endures insults, scorn, contempt, even threats, and like Howard Roark, Ayn Rand’s hero in The Fountainhead, outright hatred for causing the entire foundation of their corrupted structure to shake. As in Rand’s novel, they would destroy her. They would burn her at the stake with the very fire she’s introduced, if they could. But therein lies the beauty of speaking the truth, it will always triumph over falsehood. Some might say her enemies always fall into her trap, but really it is not a trap at all, it is the truth: the logic of truth which will always unmask a lie. In the end, the status quo of the corrupt liberal collective is beaten. The individual of vision wins.
But if indeed this is Ann’s motive and mission, is truth-telling really necessary even when it offends to the point of provoking hatred and fear? I don’t think anyone would openly admit that it is better not to know the truth (though it would seem that for many, willful ignorance is truly bliss.) But what about the truth that offends? Is that really necessary?
The world as we know it today didn’t just come about over night. Down through the ages, the broadening of views, ideas and perspectives and the shifting of paradigms in the religious, political, economic, scientific, social and cultural spheres all took place only because someone said something or did something or created something that offended the status quo. In this country alone, the improvement of the human condition for blacks, women and other minority groups would never have happened unless someone ticked off somebody else. Indeed, the country itself would never have come to exist unless a courageous few spoke certain truths that were an affront to a mighty many. In all these instances, the offensive nature of truth was not just coincidental, it was essential. 3
At the end of Ayn Rand’s novel, the architect hero Howard Roark prevails. He stands atop the steel framework of his creation, admired by the woman who has finally come to see the true meaning of his spirit. His truth — the truth of one individual’s vision — wins out over the hypocrisy of the collective. Whether or not Ann Coulter shall ultimately prevail, only time will tell. But one thing is for sure: that quality of unabashed truth-telling is a rare and wonderful thing in this world, and it is why I love Ann. You see, I am a recovering idealist who wakes up every day looking for an honest man. Unlike Diogenes the Cynic, I do believe that at long last I have found one; only she’s a woman.
Diogenes Sitting in His Tub, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1860)
Footnotes:
Fn. 1: See the Comments section to this post for a video clip of the entire Howard Roark speech from the film, The Fountainhead.
Fn. 2: For a fuller version of the Patton quote: “When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can’t run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag … As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence.”
Fn. 3: Of course, none of this is to suggest that all truthful speech need be offensive or that just because speech is offensive it is truthful. On the contrary, there is plenty of offensive speech that is just plain offensive.
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