Stephen L Goldstein, The Sun Sentinel

September 4, 2011
Stephen L Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
RE: Modern American Liberalism, pet peeves, and your brutally honest explanation of the connection between them in your column in today’s Sun-Sentinel.
My dear Professor,
I can’t stand ending sentences with prepositions. There are but two exceptions to this hard and true rule. [Exceptions to rules – moral relativism - are one of the driving forces of modern American Liberalism, no?]
#1 – It is acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition if there is a proposition attached to it. #2 – It is acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition if you are a fan of Winston Churchill.
As to signing a statement, any statement, I suggest you remove the 2x4 from your eye before trying to get the mote out of your neighbor’s eye. When will the editorials of the Sun-Sentinel be signed? I have been told by a highly placed source, one that must remain confidential, that you will resign should your policy of signing everything not be adhered to. ”Adhered to”? Count me as a big fan of Churchill.
The next time a “highly placed source who must remain confidential” tips you on a private sin of a public servant you must instantly “out” him lest you wish to confirm that as a card carrying modern American Liberal your favorite color is still plaid.
I have been in Texas on personal business. Because of my international acclaim as a ditch digger I volunteered for the “shovel ready” moat project on the Rio Grande. Since I am from Florida I volunteered to bait my man eater traps with live baby manatees to secure a few dozen 10 to 12 foot bull gators for the soon to be finished moat. It was the least I could do for the Waiting for Godot “summer of recovery”.
I got to your column on the Internet. I never did thank Vice President Alpha Gump for his timely discovery of same. That was a busy time for him. His main job then was keelhauling Governor Dukakis – “Competence, not character”, remember? – for giving a weekend furlough to convicted rapist murderer Willie Horton who, mirabalie dictum, raped and murdered again. That’s one of the beauties of modern American Liberals. “They never let you down.”
“People should be required…” is the war cry of the Democratic Party. It is the iron fist in the iron glove. It doesn’t matter what the subject is. Light bulbs, teenage obesity, Gibson guitars, 5th trimester abortions, drowning polar bears, Affirmative Action, furbish louseworts, Global WarmingCoolingClimateChange, bad war vs. good war, green jobs, “Pass the bill so we can see what’s in it”, the minimum wage, bad Bush deficits vs.
good Obama deficits, believing that making the rich poorer will make the poor richer, skipping the part where Keynes says tax cuts are must in a recession, “Will no one rid me of that damned Constitution”? airport groping, eating your seed corn, “fairness”, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as the prototypical modern American Liberal Nazi, “reset” buttons – Thank God that tomorrow is a holiday! Listing all those sins could cause terminal carpal tunnel syndrome. I’ll dip both hands in freezing pickle brine like the morning after medicine.
“People should be required…” must be offset by “Quis custodes custodiet?”. Translation? Send a SASE.
“Average Americans are probably the world’s least informed people.” Would it mark me as a knuckle dragging, homophobic, gun toting, Tea Partying, Global Warming denying zealot if I were [N.B. the use of the subjunctive] to ask for the whole list?
Where do we rank compared to the Uighurs? How about the mighty Flems and their eternal foes, the stout Walloons? Serbs? Croats? The unfairly rich swells who summer on Martha’s Vineyard? The Kikuyus? The Goths? The people of Paraguay? The people of Zimbabwe? Les merdes du Quebec? The people who vote for Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters? The non-swimming Cubans? Los aficionados de Chavez? The people still yearning for Midnight Basketball? Wal*Mart haters? Moderate Muslim terrorists?
The election in 2008 of a total non-entity, a man devoid of any experience beyond that of perpetual victimhood, a man who would be hard pressed to find his ass using both his hands, may well buttress your argument.
I ask you to remember 1976 and 1980.
On the trip back to the White House after his inauguration in 1977 it became obvious to those Americans still capable of rational thought that America had blundered in electing Jimmy Carter. It took less than 3 years for him to convince the rest of America that he was without doubt the worst President of the 20th century. As soon as the Constitution allowed the “least informed average Americans” unelected him.
It may be too soon – it’s only 11 years into the new century – to give Lord Barack the Beneficent the same laurel earned by Clod Carter. He has set the bar of ineptitude so high that it would take 7 league boots to get near it.
One thought and one suggestion before getting back to the border for armed. night patrol.
Walls work very well when they are built to keep people. out Take a peek at China and the wall that Hadrian built. Both worked. The one best remembered for keeping people in, the Berlin Wall, worked for almost 30 years.
Obama said he wanted to “transform society”. I’ll start by transforming the way English is taught in this country. Serious thought must be given to Napoleon’s rule before a battle. 3 soldiers were chosen at random and tried for cowardice. They were found guilty and executed. He said it “encouraged the others”. It would work wonders with syntactically challenged teachers.
The thought is that the hiring of English teachers should be given the same status as the hiring of the football coach. Macbeth must be on par with the tight end coach. The retention and promotion of both should be on parallel track. Diagramming a sentence should be as important as attacking a two-deep zone. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda holds no water in the post-game film review. It should be given less tolerance in the FCATs. Try it. In fact it should be “required”.


Kevin Smith


PS – As to “conferring lifetime titles”…My father was born before man flew. He was graduated from grammar school on a Friday night. Saturday morning he was shoveling coal at the end of 22nd street in Bayonne, NJ. He was 26 years old before he went to high school. He was 36 years old when he passed his Bar exam. He won a lot of money betting on Truman in 1948. When he died, after man went to the moon, walked around, and came back, and after his time on the Bench, he was still called “Judge”. What’s your problem with that?