"You Tomorrow"

A couple of posts ago, in this blog, a kindly reader named John, commented, “You are now officially a curmudgeon!  Congratulations!”  If you take a look at Webster’s New World Dictionary, the definition of curmudgeon is: a surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered person; cantankerous fellow.  Most other sources add the word elderly.   Now if the definition were simply, a cantankerous, elderly fellow, it would be pretty close.  Surly, ill-mannered and bad tempered really don’t apply.  (But, if a pessimist living in his seventh decade is all that is required, congratulations were in order.)  The comment was made after the post titled, “HR 20….” And, HR 20 is in fact a stupid piece of legislation, co-sponsored by most of the Democrats in The House.  You need only to read it and see who co-sponsored it, in order to see that my criticisms of it are valid.  It would have been nice if the Democrats who co-signed the bill had read it first.  They simply cannot be dumb enough to think that HR 20 is a good piece of legislation for campaign reform.  It is a major increase in campaign spending.  You see, “they simply cannot be dumb enough” is a compliment and would certainly not be said by a curmudgeon.

 

In a logic class, while at Loyola University, I learned that appealing to one’s prejudices rather than to reason, as by attacking one’s opponent rather than debating the issue, is the fallacy of ad hominem.  Ad hominem is constantly seen on our TV editorials (cable news programs), talk radio and in far right and far left emails.  A good example, that is way overused, is comparing anyone to Hitler.  I don’t know that John read enough of my blog posts to know my age before his comment, so for all he knew, I may have been simply a pessimist (realist).  John, please read H.R. 20 and see if you can find any error in my analysis.  I would love to hear it.

You may ask why, “You Tomorrow” as a title?  It’s a warning.   My life trajectory has been: good student, to non-believer, to activist, to lobbyist, to realist, to pessimist, to John’s curmudgeon.  I would guess that the simple majority tend to see an elderly male pessimist as a curmudgeon.  I kind of like the title, see it as a badge of courage and awareness, but if you don’t, and are a middle aged pessimist, you had best mend your ways.  You women reading this don’t need to worry; because the term is normally applied to males.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz