Potpourri

When I was in high school and college I did a little bit of formal debating. Debating is a little bit like fencing, albeit with words, rules, protocols and logic instead of foils and physical moves. One of the rules – the need for proof to support statements meant to carry the day and win the argument – resulted in a named error when the rule was violated. That debating error was called begging the question. I guess it is a sign of something lost that one now hears the term begging the question all of the time on the never ending torrent of words emanating from various of our well known opinion leaders: "that begs the question…" or "those circumstances are begging the question… ". Wandering syntax and grammar are vital signs of a living and growing language. No matter how painful "me and my friend went…" or "between you and I…" or "there is many things to consider" and their vast tribe of syntactical and grammatical kindred may be, to my ear, at least, they are the sign of a living and evolving language and as such they are the future of the language until they in their turn get mangled into something else.

And a cousin of evolving grammar is the inventive use of a word or phrase to mean something else.

Sometimes the new meaning causes the forgetting the old meaning. Sometimes not. In those cases where forgetting has occurred there is probably little or no damage done. In the case of the debating error once know by the name "begging the question" it appears that forgetfulness has indeed occurred. And its occurrence appears to be causing a great deal of damage. How else would it be possible for the religious right wing and the Republicans to keep carrying the debating day by saying things like "the argument against gay marriage is that if allowed it will destroy the sacred institution of marriage"?

In a similar vein I recently heard a right wing Republican decrying illegal aliens for:

1. Not paying taxes, and
   
2. Having a social security account.
   

So which is it? It probably isn't both. It's probably more likely B.

What are they really saying when large crowds of angry white people yell at our president "keep your hands off our kids"?

It seems to me that the existence of large irate crowds of ill informed people who like to gather and shout about gay rights, immigration and health care reform point to the fact that an alarmingly large and possibly increasing segment of our fellow citizens are mean, selfish and stupid.

I did learn something of worth the other day on NPR. Warren Olney presented one of his multiple viewpoint sessions on the subject of the Catholic Church's – the Roman one – recent statement of the viewpoint that revelation and science - evolution even – can certainly co-exist fraternally. The two are merely two different dimensions of the boundless truth of the universe and the universal god, or some such sort of thought process. So Warren had a Catholic theologian, a Protestant theologian, a secular scientist and a member of the religious right on the show. The two theologians pretty much agreed with one another. The right wing guy started with the fact that creation is six thousand years old – he had high praise for Bishop Ussher – and pretty much went downhill from there.

But back to what I learned: Warren asked him if the world is only six thousand years old why does carbon dating point to a much older world. The guy said carbon dating actually proved the six thousand year age; it was just a matter of getting the process properly calibrated.

That's a concept that could have widespread and revolutionary application.