The Wit and Wisdom of Winston
Because I never know how long my articles are going to run when I start out, and because I have a sneaky suspicion that not everyone reads all the way to the end, I’ll start out with a few of Winston Churchill’s observations before I get to my own.
Because I never know how long my articles are going to run when I start out, and because I have a sneaky suspicion that not everyone reads all the way to the end, I’ll start out with a few of Winston Churchill’s observations before I get to my own.
Here is just a smattering of his genius:
“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”
“A nation that forgets its past has no future.”
“If you’re not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.” And if you’re still watching CNN and MSNBC at 50, you have neither.
“There is nothing that government can give you that it hasn’t taken from you in the first place.”
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
“One man with conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions.”
“The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery.”
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
“You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.”
“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself by the handles.”
“Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.”
“Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.”
Democrats oppose photo IDs for voters, but they’re all for illegal aliens and convicted felons having the right to vote. So the question I would put to the Democrats is why it is okay for Mexicans, Guatemalans and O.J. Simpson having a say in our elections, but they’re aghast at the idea of Russians having even the slightest influence.
It seems to me that the only conceivable reason is that the others all vote for Democrats, whereas the Russians, who are better educated, might actually favor Republican candidates on occasion.
On the other hand, the only reason I want to see Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate is because it’s the only way that Trump might be able to push his agenda forward and actually replace Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court with conservative justices.
Otherwise, with few exceptions, congressional Republicans are a pack of jackals and morons. You merely have to note that under the leadership of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, they are still sending $600 million a year to the Palestinian Authority and another $500 million to Planned Parenthood to recognize that, as Texans might say, they’re all hat and no cattle.
What, you have to wonder, are they so afraid of? That the Palestinians will stop being our friends and staunch allies, or that they might alienate the ladies of NOW and college coeds, whose sole political concern seems to revolve around the perpetuation of promiscuous sex? Nothing else — not a nuclear North Korea, fair trade deals, a flourishing economy or an end to open borders — seems to matter quite as much as tax-funded birth control devices and the availability of abortions on demand to these female pinheads who vote exclusively for Democrats.
The hypocrites didn’t even have a problem voting for the likes of that serial sexual predator, Bill Clinton. All that mattered to them was that Clinton, like every other male sleazeball who regards Planned Parenthood as a godsend — saving him from the embarrassment and the financial responsibility of siring a child after a one-night stand — elected to pass the cost along to the American taxpayer.
Although we keep hearing that Republicans control the majority of state legislatures, what we don’t hear is that Democrats control the vast majority of our 50 most-populated cities. The 50 range from Arlington, Texas, with a population of 388,125, to New York, bulging at the seams with 8,537,673.
California and Texas have 15 of the cities within their borders; the only states with more than one of the 50 are Arizona with three, and Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Tennessee and Oklahoma, with two each.
Of the 50 cities, 33 have Democrats at the helm, 14 have Republicans and three are allegedly Independents. Of those three, two are Jewish (Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio and Carolyn Goodman of Las Vegas) and one, Nancy McFarlane of Raleigh, was endorsed by the Democratic party. So, it’s pretty safe to say that 36 of the 50 most populated cities are run by Democrats, which should go a long way to explain the sorry state of urban America.
In case you may have missed it, a religious studies major was booted out of a Christianity class at Indiana University of Pennsylvania because he had the effrontery to point out to Professor Alison Downie that, contrary to her opinion, there are only two genders.
Making the wicket extra sticky is that the male student, Lake Ingle, needs to complete the class in order to graduate at the end of the semester.
Professor Downie justified his expulsion by claiming he was guilty of disrupting her class when all he was guilty of was upsetting her politically correct apple cart.
There are three questions that pop to mind: 1. Just how easy is it to become a professor these days? Maybe I should look into it. 2. Why the heck is this autocratic cretin conducting a class in something as absurd as Christian Feminist Theology? And 3. What possessed young Mr. Ingle to sign up for a class called Christian Feminist Theology? If he was looking to meet girls, I would have advised him to spend time near the organic vegetable section at the local supermarket or that he look into borrowing a friend’s dog.
When I recently queried my readers about which of the Commandments they found most difficult to obey, one guy admitted that because of the home in which he was raised, it was number Three, explaining that he was in his teens before he realized that Christ’s middle initial wasn’t “H.”
On a related topic, someone sent me the following exchange: “Dear God: Why do you allow so much violence in our schools? A Concerned Student”
“Dear Concerned Student: I’m not allowed in schools. God”
While reading a true crime book written about one of his cases by Vincent Bugliosi, I came across some memorable asides by the man who, as LA’s District Attorney, prosecuted Charles Manson, and who then went on to be a successful criminal defense attorney.
At one point, he dismisses the idea that defense attorneys are all brilliant, a silly notion that came into vogue during O.J. Simpson’s trial when we kept being told that he had a Dream Team striving to help him avoid a guilty verdict, when, in fact, what he had was a dream team of prosecutors. A dream team, that is, if you’re the defendant and looking to avoid life imprisonment for a double murder.
But he saved his best for judges, writing: “The American people have an understandably negative view of politicians, public opinion polls show, and an equally negative view of lawyers. Conventional logic would seem to dictate that since a judge is normally both a politician and a lawyer, judges would be perceived by the public as being lower than whale waste.
"But on the contrary, the mere investiture of a twenty-five-dollar black cotton robe elevates the denigrated lawyer-politician to a position of considerable honor and respect in our society, as if the garment itself miraculously imbues the person with qualities not previously possessed. For example, judges have, for the most part, remained off-limits to the creators of popular entertainment, being depicted on screens large and small as learned men and women of stature and solemnity who are as impartial as sunlight. This depiction ignores reality.”
For confirmation, one need only consider the Supreme Court, where Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg manage to combine unrestrained hubris and a blatant disregard for the actual words of the Constitution nearly every time they ask a silly question or pronounce a misguided judgment.
Quite obviously, it takes more than $75 worth of black robes to turn these judicial sows into silk purses.
Although they attempt to make it sound as they’re members of a particularly elite unit like Navy Seals, all FBI agents are designated “Special Agents.” Sounds like those participation trophies we keep hearing about.
I’m signing off now. Regards, Special Pundit Prelutsky.
