Let's Try and Get One Thing Clear

There's one thing that I would like to get clear with everyone regardless of ideology, when you use the phrase 'modest proposal' try and do so in the spirit of Jonathan Swift or use another phrase.

The offending author this week is editor and publisher of the Nation, Katrina Vanden Heuvel (and whenever I see her on TV, I always think, 'damn she's full of it', and then I think, 'she's still pretty damn hot', and then I think, 'good think she can't here what I think, since she'd probably take my admiration of her beauty as some sort of anti-feminist 'keeping her in her place' ploy by me for focusing on her obvious good looks', when in reality, she's just really hot in an upper-crusty, most likely into really kinky sex sort of way).

The point of her article (as I comprehend it, maybe there's a layer of sarcasm or wit that I missed, but I doubt it) is that Totalitarian comparisons about leaders or viewpoints or policies should be off limit to folks of any and all political stripes (she pulls examples from Sen. Dick Durbin, Radio Talk Show embarrasment Michael Savage, Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld just to name a few). Yet in the short section that she writes leading up to the many quotes she uses she has this to say

The purpose of public speech is not just to restate anger but to clarify the principles and evidence that fuel it -- in ways that invite discussion, not inhibit it. The demons are already among us -- so let's muster up some new analogies and declare a ceasefire on such demonizing rhetoric as this

So, analogies to totalitarian leaders from history, bad. Suggesting that the other side are the walking embodiment of hellish forces unleashed on this land by the dark lord himself, "the demons are already among us" that's perfectly reasonable.

Well maybe her suggestion is more along Swiftian lines than I give her credit for. But I've seen her speak plenty, and read some of what she's written, and I don't think she's ever demonstrated the smallest iota of having even the whiff of a sense of humor, so when she uses the phrase "demons are already among us" she means by demons whatever the secular humanist equivalent of honest to satan demons are. (and of course anyone paying attention could discern her to mean by the word 'demon' Karl Rove and his evil Minions).

So I guess the real point of her article is save the Hitler comparisons comrades (or maybe she'd be more cosmopolitan and use the Russian word Tovarich), cause the evil emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania is FAR WORSE than anything any past totalitarian dictator ever unleashed.

Yep, sounds just about right.

Anyway, back to my original point, please folks, use Modest Proposals wisely and carefully.