Santorum may praise the U.S. on behalf of its inherent[quality of] freedom. He may paint the U.S. to be the home of freedom. He may call the country from which I write (although not with crayons) the country of freedom----and I really admire the idea, but in the current environment the U.S. also lets loose the stupid in persons, which is kind of like the dye in your food coloring.
Actually, I was looking at a crayola crayon. This happened just the other day. I found a crayon in some box in some restaurant somewhere. The label said bittersweet----that was the color name. This is not a color, in my opinion. NOT. Is taste, or a flavor. Do you want the kid to eat the thing? Thank g-d our kids are smarter than that. I think they are above and beyond the persons responsible for these atrocious colors. The adults name the crayons that they pass out to kids like candy. Anyway, the color was kind of a reddish-brown, like a masonry brick maybe. Or like cinnamon. They called it "bittersweet." I know the color naming adult will certainly defend his actions but I think that the simple fact is that this is not the name of a color, rather an adjective that could describe food. So, the point here if there is one, is that food and color are different, OK?
What kind of a society are we? The color-namers at the Crayon company cannot make the distinction between color and flavor? Aren't they different things? My feeling is that they are getting everything mixed-up: color, flavor, food, the color of food, maybe the smell of the food, the scent of the crayon. Who cares? -- it's all the same to them. Do they like doing this to their minds? I'm sure they just love it! Sight, sound, smell, and ideas----who cares? It's all the same to us. Creativity is not at issue; it is a paper label. It is one word on a piece of crayon wrapper. It is not poetry, it is not sarcasm, and not even humor. It's not really humor either. (Although there are "Good Humor" ice cream bars in Chicago.)
Back to the crayon factory, the owners of it are just getting everything mixed up; they are proud of this, too.
They think they are good. They think they are a good flavor, but I do not think this is good! I see these crayon-naming persons as failing to make distinctions. The basic characteristic of consciousness is rationality, and the basic characteristic of a rational mind (or consciousness) is the capacity to make clear distinctions----like right and wrong, for example. Or high and low. Or good and bad.
If someone believed in clarity, he would not name a color "bittersweet." What kind of a message does that convey to the children? It is just very depressing, really.
If politician R. S. believes in clarity I would hope he would have something to say about a crayon they label "bittersweet." And freedom too, can mean just about anything. We are getting to that. But if the man has any real clarity about what he means by "freedom," I hope he understands that freedom is of no value to some crayon CEO who runs the company, yet is stupid.
Can't we do any better? It isn't freedom, it is stupidity. You cannot simultaniously preach to me about freedom and yet fail to condemn the stupidity that ends the whole conversation.
It does not matter that you proclaim that you luv freedom. You are not supporting freedom throughout the land, if you also support the free reign of stupidity throughout the land. As for these conservatives like Santorum, conservatives have a particular set of values and they emphasize certain things more so than others. Freedom means that different perspectives or sets of values are OK, in one country or society, to the extent they do no offense to the basic freedom principle which is the very principle you are operating under. But I do not think that you can support the conservative perspective, or the liberal one -- it doesn't make any difference -- without also supporting basic intelligence.
Let's go back to the crayons. I found the original box again and I found another crayon, you know? This one is called "wild strawberry." It is like a brilliant red. Why? Is "tame" strawberry less red? They are just making things up. But as I wander the touching "freedom" exhibition on the second floor of the historical society ( http://jacksgreatblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-new-affiliation.html ), I realize that all kinds of things are included under that designation, which is at least superficially a bit like having all kinds of names for crayons. Isn't it. The theme of the exhibit is Americans who have struggled to each obtain----or define----freedom; so there are these differences, a lot of meanings to freedom, as Americans struggle to define the word. That is kind of like the theme here of "freedom" as it is conceptualized by the Chicago Historical Society, which does not seem to be that bad of a place to study freedom. Yet freedom is not a color of a crayon----I should better say not only a color of a crayon. It is a sacred word, and not a stupid word. And even though it is a sacred word a whole lot comes under its meaning. This is what the exhibit showed.
In the article I read yesterday, Santorum emphasised the word strongly. One cannot help noticing that the historical society's take on freedom, on the meaning of freedom, seemed to exclude Mr. Santorum's meaning. You just have to feel sorry for these conservatives sometimes don't you? But actually it would have been there. It would have been represented by the forces of law and order and not the anarchists publishing in German and English language newspapers (who are equally represented in the video, tit-for-tat). The Santorum kind of rhetoric would have actually been a bit buried, underneath the activisms or the Americans looking to define what freedom means, a definitional process that extended not only establishment figures like Mayor Richard J. Daley, who issued a famous order to shoot looters----on behalf of freedom of course----but to Haymarket anarchists and American Indians. And other deviant strains of American flower. So, a little different emphasis there! Lots of hybrids here! Not all flowers wear sweater-vests. Some do, some do not.
Now you have a nation here whose collective intelligence is steadily falling; no is remedy in sight. So you cannot really go around calling them stupid. And why do I say that?
You have to bend with the bow or go with the flow. You live in a culture and you need to paddle your canoe in your own cultural river. So, you have to come to terms with these persons, persons that Green Day--the band--is talking about in their theatrical presentation now playing in Chicago: American Jerkoffs or whatever their show is called. Jaghoffs? No, I don't think that was exactly it. But something like that at any rate.
You have to kind of accept the fact that as of right now, anyway----this country, including our sterling elite, intellectual class, is, Well----stupid. But, although you have to accept it, you cannot just call things whatever you wish ("freedom"? "bittersweet"?).
Tomorrow I'll maybe find another crayon with a stupid color, and I can already predict that it just won't make any darn sense.
Well, that'll have to do for now...
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