Our Favorite Quotes

From this day forward, it shall be attributed to Hoytedow.

Does it really matter who said it? Conservatives aren't like liberals who hang on every pronouncement of Al Gore and Obama -- we actually contemplate the content of the message. If the message is good -- who cares who delivered it? Messages don't get validated by attribution -- they are validated by meaning and truth.

 

Speaking of famous quotes and attribution -- how many of you remember this famous quiz?

 

If what matters is the content, instead of who said it, there's no point in claiming some famous dead guy said it, is there? But conservative websites are knee-deep in bogus quotes. So your self-rightous litle homilies about what's said being more important than who said it don't really apply to conservatives, do they?

The funniest example I can think of is the George Washington 'liberty teeth' quote. Conservatives solemnly repeat it to each all over the internet, even though anyone with a lick of sense can see it's bogus:

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizen's firearms are indelibly related.

"Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands."

Hello? "Prairie wagons?" There were no prairie wagons in George Washington's day. American settlers hadn't even reached the prairies yet, much less set out to cross them in covered wagons.

"99 99/100 percent"?!? When did good old George become the pitchman for Ivory Soap?

"Safe and sane"?!? That phrase was created in the 1950's, to promote safer fireworks. It's totally anachronistic to have Washington using it to refer to gun owners.

 

I assume your point is that lies get repeated. That's true. But it's not an original point, and it's not a sin that can be attributed to any group of people. It's a human failing. Apparently you would like to make it partisan -- I would advise against that, because if we do this could be a really nasty pissing contest. I suggest we both acknowledge that there are errors in the historical records.

BTW -- did you try the quiz?

 

No, my point wasn't that lies get repeated.

My point was specifically that the internet is covered with phony quotes from the founding fathers and other historical figures. And it's almost completely a conservative phenomenon. Not because liberals are any more honest, but because they don't see themselves as defenders of tradition like conservatives do. So they're much less likely to back themselves up with quotes (bogus or real) from the past.

You don't see many liberals longing for the good old days. Conservatism by its nature is the viewpoint that's resistant to change, and values the status quo and the examples of the past. That isn't particularly an insult; a certain amount of resistance to change (especially to change just for the sake of change) is the heavy flywheel that helps smooth the way the engine of progress runs, and the governor that keeps it from overspeeding and self-destructing.

No, I didn't take the quiz. But I've seen it before, and the fact that people don't know who said what proves nothing at all. I saw one a few years ago that asked people to choose which quotes were from Hitler and Mussolini, and which ones were from various prominent conservatives. That one didn't prove anything to me either....

 

I suggested you don't go there -- and so I'm not going to fire the first volley. Maybe this argument can end in a truce.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,[71] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

What makes you think I would interpret it that way?

(_) Al Gore; (_) Unabomber

 

There's a difference between valuing the past, and idealizing it. It's a phenomenon I call wanting to go back to the good old days that never were. My dad, who lived well into his eighties, once told me, "son, people are always talking about the good old days. But I was there, and I wasn't impressed."

I'm not sure what your little emoticons beside the names of Gore and the Unabomber are supposed to mean. But if you're trying to equate the two, I don't see the connection.

In his Industrial Society and Its Future (also called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), [Kaczynski] argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

The last time I checked, Al Gore didn't seem too worried about the erosion of human freedom--from modern technology or anything else. Nor is he anti-technology; in fact he touts post-petroleum based technology as one way out of our energy problems. And he certainly isn't out trying to blow people up.

 

“To do is to be” – Descartes

“To be is to do” – Socrates

“To-be-do-be-do” – Francis Albert Sinatra

 

“The German P.O.W. camp was full of British Military Officers who’d sworn to die rather than be captured” – Spike Milligan, The Goon Show

 

I have a vague recollection.

 

There were indeed prairie wagons in George Washington's day. People considered Kentucky the "west" at that time along with Ohio and Tennessee. We are not talking about the Great Plains here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_wagon

"The Conestoga wagon is a heavy, broad-wheeled covered wagon that was used extensively during the late 17 and 1800s in the United States and sometimes in Canada as well."

 

Favorite Troy quote: "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

 

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
Voltaire

 

"Many disagreements with others can be solved by taking the first step and speaking the kinder word, this may even make an enemy your friend."

Translated Arabic quote.

 

All Conestoga's were covered wagons, but not all covered wagons were Conestoga's. And Conestoga's weren't called prairie wagons; in fact the term didn't even exist during Washington's time. Conestoga's were heavy, rockered, somewhat boat-shaped freight wagons, used by professional freighters. They were not what most settlers rolled across the plains in.

Prairie wagons, more commonly known as prairie schooners, were smaller and lighter--they took two to four oxen, instead of the 8 to 12 that Conestoga's took. They were flat and boxy, and in fact were often just reworked and beefed-up farm wagons.

I repeat: there were no settlers rolling across the prairies in Washington's time to begin with, so the term prairie wagon couldn't exist. No one in his time ever said '99 99/100's percent pure' either, or 'safe and sane.' That quote is a complete joke--and my guess is that it was deliberately written as one, to see how many gullible idiots would swallow it as real. It would make as much sense to see a quote from Washington about Gatling guns or driver's licenses, California redwoods or illegal immigration.

And people back then might have called Kentucky 'the West,' but they sure as hell never called it 'the Prairie.'


prairie schooner
 
–noun
a type of covered wagon, similar to but smaller than the Conestoga wagon, used by pioneers in crossing the prairies and plains of North America.

Origin:
1835–45

http://dictionary.mwh.reference.com/browse/prairie schooner