Democracy For Dummies

A friend of mine sent me a quote last night. It was not meant as a critique, nor as a suggestion -- let's establish that right up front.

But it brought up a long-standing issue about this blog that really ought to be addressed, and today it's time.

Tonight, the "State of the Union" speech will attempt to set the bar for simplistic bullshit to new World Record heights. And, therefore, what follows couldn't possibly be more timely.

Here's the quote:

Subject: Quote of the Day...

"If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when reading."

Don Marquis

And you know what? I wrote for a guy who got rich from ... writing(?) When I was 23 years old, I was hired as the editor for four sections of HUSTLER Magazine, then ensconced in Century Towers East, in the Century City colony of high-rises in Los Angeles.

Thirty-eight floors below my office window, the Beverly Hills High School football team practiced. And in the HUSTLER/CHIC editorial offices, the copy for several magazines, specials, etc. was churned out on a continual, factory assembly line of writers, re-writers, re-rewriters and editors.

I was trained in "dumb guy" proofing at HUSTLER, which the estimable Mr. Marquis' suggestion neatly summarizes.

But Larry Flynt weren't (and ain't) no dummy. He wasn't selling words, after all. So I know how to write in the manner that legions have implored me to adopt in these blogs: short, sweet, pithy, simple.

But I reserve the right, since no one's paying me for these, to give thoughts the weight and depth that I think they deserve, and not the abbreviated, bloviated sound bites that endless commercials on radio and television demand. PEOPLE Magazine based its prose style on articles that could be taken in the time required for a certain seated bodily function. USA TODAY pioneered the newspaper-as-comic book style.

In fact, in a sea of verbiage, the actual length of thoughts, outside the Charlie Rose Show, seems eternally divided into 15 and 30 second sound bites.

Is that what we consider human potential? The "citizen" envisioned in the Declaration and the Constitution?

Oh yes, I know: when longer language is utilized, it's generally to obfuscate or to impress you with how little you are able to grasp the complexities involved. But it does not follow that all thoughts are simply minted as briefly (optimally) stated.

It's been suggested for several years now that I simplify and shorten this blog and its postings. And, while I have adamantly refused, I have not stated my reasons before now.

It was suggested to me several times that I ought to "dumb down" my commentary on progressive talk radio when I was a regular at KOPT. It was well-meant advice, to be sure.

But you know what?

We HAVE a fellow who's going to give a "State of the Union" address tonight, who epitomizes the simple virtues of simplistic thought and speech. And we all know how that's turned out.

Democracy for dummies don't work, brothers and sisters. The two million who revolted against England were over 90% literate. And they had -- according to estimable historian David McCullough -- the highest standard of living on Earth in 1776 (the eponymous cited reference).

Abraham Lincoln, thought of by many as the greatest American, was an autodidact. His education was entirely self-created through reading books. He was also, not coincidentally, the finest writer to ever occupy the presidential office.

Horatio Gates, the engineer of the miracle of the cannons of Fort Ticonderoga, was a bookseller in Providence, Rhode Island, and imported the military tactics and strategy books that the Continental Army's leadership learned the art of war from.

In New England, at the time of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlet, the literacy rate among men was 96%. Among WOMEN it was 92%.

The success of the Revolution was due in no small part to the literacy and the intellectual thirst of the Americans. And that understanding of self-improvement through application and learning (whether book or life) was infused into every line of the Constitution that they drafted and ratified.

Democracy is not a pastime for dummies. Tyranny is 'government for dummies.' In Tyranny, answers are simple, and action is easy: Believe what we say; do as you're told.

Now, I bring this up because there have been complaints on a near-continuous basis that this blog is too long, the language is too tough, the thoughts too complex or too in-depth.

So what?

If you want to read facile morons, there are a plethora of them. Hell, if you need easy prose, pick up a copy of HUSTLER.

But if we're going to talk about the serious diseases that afflict the body politic, then the fact that some point isn't fully elaborated, or, like the average DailyKos commenter, the reader hasn't been spoon-fed every drab of thought like Gerber's strained peas on a rubber-sheathed safety spoon, well, spoon-feeding is part of that government for dummies alluded to earlier.

If you're reading this blog, you have access to the most powerful library in the history of the world. A library of knowledge that makes the lost library of Alexandria look like a broken-down bookmobile by comparison.

There is no excuse for ignorance in the current State of the Union. So why has it become so fashionable?

Courage.
.