From John Sykes
Obviously, think Obama as you read this. He sets up untruthful straw horses and attacks them so often they become the cliches of his tyranny! What’s really sad is Obama’s acolytes think all cliches are truths!
From The Cliches of Tyranny:
For Goldberg, cliches “are a way to earn bravery on the cheap, defending principles you haven’t thought through or perhaps only vaguely support.” Those who have spoken before a crowd, especially one of the college aged, and entertained questions will nod gently in agreement as they read Goldberg’s own version of the experience:
Often, I will encounter an earnest student, much more serious looking than the typical hippie with open-toed shoes and a closed mind. During the Q&A session after my speech he will say something like “Mr. Goldberg, I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Then he will sit down, and the audience will applaud. Faculty will nod proudly at this wiser-than-his-years hatchling under their wings. What a glorious moment for everybody. Blessed are the bridge builders.
My response? Who gives a rat’s ass?…
The worst cliches form when human reason and language lose their vitality and can neither support new ideas nor question old ones. This is perhaps a reason why cliches served 20th century totalitarianism so well. When you hear the same lies over and over, even the most skeptical person loses the ability to fight them. In this sense, Goldberg demonstrates not only how tyrannical cliches can be, but how cliched tyranny has become. It takes vigor and humor to revive our intellectual faculties and to save our language from dying–to use another banality–not with a bang but with a whimper.
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