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A Further Perspective
A Smatter of Opinion
A few reflections on the year passed.
Some time ago, I don’t remember just when, I was somewhere, I don’t recall just where, and I was asked by someone, I don’t recollect just who, for my opinion on something, I don’t retain just what, and I said I had none. The dismay which met my response was intense.
“No opinion?!” the fellow exclaimed, gasped, griped, snapped, spat. “But you’re an American?! You are entitled to an opinion!”
Before this encounter, I had imagined this entitlement could be forgiven, a bequest from the national patrimony, but I found that was unforgiveable. I had thought I could look at a subject from various angles, shake well before using, and if an opinion did not fall out I could move on, so long as my shrug was not too French. If there’s no gold in the mine, move on to a more maternal lode. Or stay right in my seat and cede my right to take a stand. If I can’t quantify it, I can leave it to the qualified.
No more. I learned that with the right to an opinion comes an expectation. A true American must opine for the flag. I live, therefore I choose; being pro-life, I must be pro-choice. Add to that my childhood fascination with columnists – Alsop, Buchwald, Buckley, McGrory and Alsop – and it is no surprise to find me hawking opinions for a liveliness, if not quite a livelihood.
As 2010 closes to a draw, I thank God (and The American Spectator) for giving me the opportunity to make my voice heard. In that light, a few reflections on the year passed.
***
The year began with the passing of the health care bill, the mandate or tax or benefit or entitlement or whatever it claims to be. It was not developed by anyone or any group we could identify. It did not have extensive research or studies in support. It made no tests, conducted no experiments, took no measured steps in development. It appeared fully born like Adam and was left on our stoop like an unwanted changeling.
The only thing I can say for sure about this Cyclops — and I know this experientially, not empirically — is that absolutely no one will benefit from this in any way and that none of the predicted improvements will materialize. It is not in the nature of things for sloppy people to do sloppy work and create a sloppy product which then produces fabulous results.
***
The feel-good story of the year featured a group of over thirty miners in Chile trapped underground for weeks. Through a miracle of international cooperation, the right people and the right machines were brought to bear on the problem, with happy result. This was what a world of individual initiative looks like.
***
Unfortunately, it probably comes too late to convince the Western world that salvation is the end result of freedom. Too many years of propaganda have convinced them that free rein brings the fall, and that Heaven is on the side of the Engels.
***
The daughter of the Clintons married a Jew in a multi-denominational service that denominated nobody and served nobody. It provided a model for religion as the collected vague thoughts of superficial people trying to ponder matters of the spirit without heavy lifting. The notion that there is no one below government who knows what he is doing thus becomes wedded to the notion that there is no One above government who knows what He is doing.
***
About the Author
Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. Here he speaks at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Miami on June 8, 2012.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (35) | Leave a comment
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RT| 12.30.10 @ 8:19AM
To choose one example of but many, "Or stay right in my seat and cede my right to take a stand. "
Sir, I do not know how you come up with those things but they are sheer brilliance. You are a modern day Ogden Nash, but better. After all, he just wrote poems. (Now true, that was back in the day when poems actually rhymed, but still...)
Appleby| 12.30.10 @ 9:46AM
They're not poems if they rhyme; they're verse.
Like the old Burma Shave signs:
He lit a match
to test his gas tank
and now they call him
Skinless Frank.
R Martin| 12.30.10 @ 2:32PM
I, too, enjoy Mr. Hommick's writing, but suggesting he is better (better?!) than Ogden Nash is a bit much. Has Mr. Hommick ever penned anything like this little Nash goodie:
"The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind
And conjures up a quacking noise
To lend allure to his decoys
This grown-up man, with pluck and luck
is hoping to outwit a duck."
Claudia Monteverdi| 12.30.10 @ 2:58PM
Most Honoured RT,
Yours is the very best letter I have yet to read in this space, HEAR HEAR!
Jay's talent is overwhemiing..as for Nash:
Ogden Nash
was long on cash
but short on matters moral...
Enter Jay,
who rules the day,
with that we have no quarrel!
regards,
Claudia
Appleby| 12.30.10 @ 3:59PM
That money talks
I can't deny.
I had some once.
It said GOODBYE.
Ogden Nash
Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 9:53AM
2011 a year that will live in Infamy. Future school history books will read: The year the Muslims conquered the United States of America. With not so much as a whimper from its cowardly military leaders, and name calling armchair patriots. Disgraceful,Shameful there are no words to adequately describe her defeat. As the 300 Spartans strength and ingenuity conquered all of those who challenged them, so a small band of renegades conquered the greatest country the world has known. When Davids rock slued Goliath. It also foretold a warning. "The bigger they are,the harder they Fall." Our country lost its battle of survival when it became intoxicated with its deceptive mentality, that it did not need its Creator anymore, and wisdom no longer was apart of its citizens physiology to survive.
Dan Hirsch| 12.30.10 @ 10:08AM
Dale,
Wake up! You are sleep posting your nightmares.
Surely posting here requires consciousness, doesn't it?
Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 5:41PM
Yes Dan, and it also requires an education in history,which you plainly are lacking. I can tell by your comment that you are a very young man, probably preoccupied with play station games ,cell phones,TV reality game shows,Computer games,and a host of other distractions, that focus the mind always in the wrong direction. Try reading some history books for a change like: "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" or how about "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich"and then maybe you might see or could visualize these tragedy's happening to America, in the light of what is happening with a Muslim called Barack Hussian Obama and his czars in the Oval office.It is you who needs to wake up, out of your lethargic mental state. If William L. Shirer or Gibbons were still alive they would have another best seller on the book market "The Rise and Fall of the Fourth Reich" but then again you probably have never heard of History has a way of repeating it's self, if nobody learns the lessons from it. Right?
Dan Hirsch| 12.30.10 @ 10:14AM
Jay,
Methinks you are being way too generous to Mr. Madoff. Did he not purloin funds given to him as investments, rather than making stupid investments? Surely, most of the securities firms would be in adjacent cells if it were a matter of poor stockpicking on Mr. Madoff's part.
He violated his fiduciary responsibility. Anyone else violating their fiduciary responsibility should go to jail, too. Looks like we need a new federal country club prison with about 537 cells (Mssrs Obama and Biden get rooms, too!)
Noliteme conculcare!
Claudia Monteverdi| 12.30.10 @ 3:04PM
Jay,
I can easilyexplain your recurring nightmares..when you speak of....to retain and not to retain... and then wander into ...maternal lode...Mamma mia, you are pregnant!
PS...don't talk to anybody without consulting a good lawyer--did i say "good" lawyer? OMG, maybe me too!
Thanks for such a wonderfully spicey slice of knowledge,
faithfully,
Claudia
Richard Baker| 12.30.10 @ 3:06PM
Dan:
With what the Congress has done over the years, the Madoffs of this world look like rank amateurs in comparison, don't they?
Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 6:00PM
Oh.... and Dan, if you are trying to make light of my truthful post,as all liberals with their silly adolescent and feeble attacks on the truth often do. Your at a huge handicap, because of your education in today's government run school system.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.30.10 @ 6:38PM
Dale,
I appreciated your post...the first three times.
Start a new one< Okay?
Dale Cord| 12.30.10 @ 8:38PM
Thank you Ken, I appreciate your comment!
Jay D. Homnick| 12.30.10 @ 7:23PM
Special request for my poetry, I gather, although it is already clear who can compete here with Ogden Nash, and her initials are CM.
ANONYMOUS
By: Jay D. Homnick
If the critics ask for your name
To treat you just like Don Imus
The better by which to defame
Then just go sign: Anonymous.
If the readers ask for your title
To make you less autonomous
As they fit to your bits a bridle
Then just declare: Anonymous.
If the faddists ask for your label
So they all can be synonymous
To steal scraps from your table
Then just you aver: Anonymous.
If contrarians ask for your style
In an effort to wax antonymous
And miss by as good as a mile
Then go hard to get: Anonymous.
If editors ask for your password
Ravaging with their economies
To usurp from you the last word
Then grab this motto: Anonymous.
If publicists ask for your slogan
And joints you made eponymous
As they threaten: no pain, no gain
Then go clear a way: Anonymous.
So, yes, you can be your own man
Remain becalmed and bonhomous
If no initials are set in stone, man,
Your monument reads: Anonymous.
ClaudiaMonteverdi| 12.30.10 @ 7:41PM
My thanks for the words of warm praise
she said,
My eyes do doth now beglaze
she said
permit her to mutter
her heart all a-flutter
it don't hold a candle to Jay's
she said
Put that in your pipe and shove it ...WHOOPS I mean SMOKE IT!
LOve and Kisses,
Claudia
R Martin| 12.30.10 @ 8:45PM
Jay and CM, by your examples you underscore just how peerless Ogden Nash is. Meter, folks, meter. It's harder than it looks. You gotta make it flow, e.g.
"Pity Mr. and Mrs. Bryan
He was eaten by a lion
After which the lion's lioness
Up and ate Bryan's bryaness."
Claudia Monteverdi| 12.31.10 @ 6:18AM
Dear Mister Martin,
Sadly, your adventurous bit of poesie is hardly writ in the limerick scance--it is interesting, and some might find it skillful, but your "e.g." no matter how it tries, does NOT precede a limerick by any untold stretch of poetic license...so sorry!
Mournfully,
Claudia
handbags | 12.30.10 @ 10:00PM
good post!
Occam's Tool| 12.31.10 @ 12:49AM
Look folks, 2010 has ended with the best news for some time: Bolton is gonna run for President---he's putting out the feelers, and this guy has only one speed---full ahead. John "reinforce the floor of the Oval Office to sustain the weight of my huge brass ones" Bolton is running! Time to set up the ass kicking machine, 'cause we've got an operator! If he gets elected, the Iranians and the NKs are in for some serious schoolin'!
Can you tell I'm excited.
Claudia Monteverdi| 12.31.10 @ 6:21AM
hey there Occam--sign me up for your team please-man o man do we need Bolton--my thought was Chritie Pres, Rubio VP and Bolton Seecretary of State--what doyou think?
Claudia
Occam's Tool| 1.1.11 @ 12:26AM
My Dear Claudia:
Bolton is to the Right of Christie on Domestic issues. He's a Goldwaterite. I like Christie, but I want Bolton.
Bob Grant| 1.1.11 @ 7:32PM
I will say this: he's the most articulate of the potential group of candidates. His foreign policy expertise is a huge feather in his cap. His domestic stance needs to be fleshed out more.....I'd consider him.
Certainly an improvement over the republican queen of media.
....oops sorry, I promised myself I wouldn't slam Sarah in a non-Sarah article. I'll try harder in the future :-)
general summerall| 12.31.10 @ 1:14AM
Dale: I was under the idea that it was the Athenians who drove the Persians out of Greece. Read some stuff from Victor Davis Hansen on how Epidamdanos(sic) and his army of Thebean farmers moved into Sparta to liberate the helots, and the Spartans crumbled like paper. And for a vision of modern America the big thing on the coming of 2011 is going to be MTV lowering Snooki in a glass ball into Times Square. A shame Mencken is not here to comment on that.
general summerall| 12.31.10 @ 1:20AM
Epaminondas
Claudia Monteverdi| 12.31.10 @ 6:24AM
General,
Epaminondas are Greek tacos--delish with an tall icey dark beer and some good fries---Better get some fast, word's out that Madame Obama is about to ban them ..
Yum Yum,
Claudia
Bob Grant| 1.1.11 @ 7:52PM
Will it come to this: While everyone else's ass will be required to get smaller under the new health care mandate, section 8, subsection 1324aa-b2...her's will continue to grow larger?
Yosemeti Sam| 12.31.10 @ 11:42AM
" ... And don't look now, but Jerry Brown has been reelected Governor of California...."
Yo, Mexifornians - what goes around comes around, eh?
LOL.
Bob Grant| 1.1.11 @ 7:37PM
The people who voted for the continued destruction of California need to stay put and reap what they sow when the s**t really hits the fan there.
Don't be cowards and bail to another state to spread your poison.
Petronius| 12.31.10 @ 11:46AM
Thanks!
Moochelle probably didn't know about them until you just mentioned them. Or were you just referring to the fries? Besides, lamb is pricey.
Prosit!
Occam's Tool| 1.1.11 @ 12:27AM
Petronius: Let me know when you are in the Twins, and we'll see about the lamb.
general summerall| 1.3.11 @ 3:36AM
Does the large arse on the lady refer to Snooki or Michelle? Anyway, the ball Snooki was lowered in only descended about 6 feet. The whole spectacle may have been an allegory of '10; much noise but little show. Thanks for letting me know that Epamindondas is both a great Greek hero and a great Greek taco.
Occam's Tool| 1.28.11 @ 7:34PM
The VDH book in which Epaminondas is mentioned is The Soul of Battle.