The Reclamation Of Independence August 31, 2009
Posted by Michael in Man Laws, Philosophy, Politics.trackback
WARNING WARNING WARNING!
If you cannot stand run-on sentences, go no further. The author of this tract is a lawyer. Apparently he can’t control himself when composing a sentence.
Still, I think this is well worth reading.
WHEN IN THE GENERATIONS SUCCEEDING the one that pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to usher in the birth of the world’s only truly free nation, Liberty’s Progeny incrementally ceded their birthright to the government conceived and designed to serve a free people, and not be its servant, this generation is awakening to the terrible mistake that we, and our ancestors allowed to happen.
OK, that was bad enough, but the following blockquote is the next one sentence.
Charged with the terrible knowledge that comes with opened eyes, we now take up the long abdicated duty to rouse our fellow citizens and actively wrest the power and the liberties that have been progressively talked, cajoled, threatened, wheedled, and extorted from us, not only by those who ostensibly served us, but by their supporters and enablers who, by accident or design, saw fit to usurp and disdain such freedoms, that they might be withheld, and where impossible to withhold, might be condemned, until a corrosive contempt for these liberties, wrapped in velvet gloves, might so suffocate the circulation of them that this nation, conceived in liberty and the providence of a wise and benevolent creator, might indeed perish from the earth, plunging the rightful heirs of a proud and noble heritage in the the darkened waters of chaos, despair, and evil that surround them, a dank deluge that even today, other human beings actively seek to escape from in the inspiring embrace of this blessed and free country.
The rest is here:
THE RECLAMATION OF INDEPENDENCE « Taxes, Stupidity, and Death
Jeebers, BiW, that might almost be eloquent if you learned how to use this little thing right here >>> .
Also, I recommend paragraph breaks, topic sentences, and transitions between paragraphs. More information about effective composition is available here.
Nevertheless, I suggest that all you folks read this screed. Forget his compositional errors. You have to give BiW credit for some raw passion about the condition of our country, and he makes numerous cogent observations about what we have become.
In the history of publishing, I think The Elements of Style ranks third, behind the Gutenberg Bible and The Wealth of Nations.
Q: How does one know they have been paid the most left-handed of compliments?
A: When they find themselves saying “Thank you, Michael. I think.”
That writing is worse than the Apostle Paul. Yeesh.
Yeah, but Paul was also making some good points.
See what big letters he is making, with his own foot.
Maybe he’s German. The Germans are champions of long sentences. Here is a very minor example: “Wie er es nun zusammengesucht und aufgeladen hatte, wollte er, weil er so erfroren war, noch nicht nach Hause gehen, sondern erst Feuer anmachen und sich ein bisschen waermen.”
Another notable long sentence: “When, in the course of human evens, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind require that they list the causes which impel them to the separation.”
BiW, Michael is only trying to help you.
You really should shape that thing up with punctuation. And carve away at the baroque prose. It’s worth rewriting.
I’ve been informed that the Google search for it comes up with 51,700 hits. I think the rewrite ship has sailed, lauraw.
Why? Even more people will read it if you do it again.
When I’m writing, I seem to have a little internal monitor that goes off when it’s been a while since I used the ol’ “right hand bottom row ring finger” action in a while.
I guess that is why I’m not cut out for blogging, only commenting.
Its just an older style of writing, you aren’t very familiar with the immense sentences that writers once crafted, with multiple nested clauses between commas. It took concentration and education to understand what they were saying. It wasn’t until that hack Hemingway tried to write. Everything with. Shorter sentences. Even if it sucked. That everyone decided that long was bad.
It’s not a matter of familiarity, it’s a matter of how friggin hard you have to work to read it.
Someone should diagram that second sentence. Someone other than me.
BiW is being a very good sport about all these little rabbit punches.
We kid because we love, as Don Rickles used to say.
Besides, BiW can dish it out pretty good himself.
Besides, BiW can dish it out pretty good himself.
When you attack the form and not the message, I’m more or less OK with it. It is the way that it came to me, and it is what struck me, the author, as the correct presentation. I take the hit count, pingbacks, trackbacks, email chains, and publication in comments and posts at numerous sites as an effective rebuttal to one charge that the people I’m trying to reach wouldn’t understand half the words I use, and would stop reading by the second paragraph anyway.
As for some of the other criticisms raised in the comments there, I had hoped a few others might have set right a few of the misapprehensions. Since that doesn’t seem to be the case, I may write a less florid response to some of the other critcism of the message, after I complete the myriad of things I still must complete today.
BiW is being a very good sport about all these little rabbit punches.
Lauraw, if I was in the market for a FIGF, you would be it.
It’s not a matter of familiarity, it’s a matter of how friggin hard you have to work to read it.
Dave, I tried to work bewbs into it. I really did, but it just violated the spirit of the thing.;-)
http://tinyurl.com/le4rl4
Help me. Help you.
Helpmehelpyou.
Here is one of the Apostle Paul’s sentences that KC was referring to (the periods were added by the translators but this was one sentence in the original Greek):
>> I take the hit count, pingbacks, trackbacks, email chains, and publication in comments and posts at numerous sites as an effective rebuttal to one charge that the people I’m trying to reach wouldn’t understand half the words I use, and would stop reading by the second paragraph anyway.
You should put that flag counter thing on it. That would really make it seem important.
I gave BiW a hard time earlier when he posted this, but he’s right. It has the same style and cadence as the original Declaration, which is what makes this so powerful.
Otherwise, it would just be a couple bullet points on a powerpoint slide, and who pays any attention to that?
Punctuation, bewbs, flag counter, these are all great ideas!
See, BiW, your pals are just trying to help you out.
Also, in a treatise of that length, there should have been something said about bacon. Shame on you for leaving that out.
http://tinyurl.com/le4rl4
Help me. Help you.
Helpmehelpyou.
I think Pupster was actually born with the Hostage gene.
Like I said: familiarity and age. From an older time (such as when the Declaration was originally written) that sort of writing was standard, and even elegant. Today its too haarrrd to read, bro!