“Discuss in the dark”

https://chesterton.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/discuss-in-the-dark/ ^ | February, 13 2008 | G.K.CHESTERTON

[MeshugeMikey]

“Discuss in the dark”

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good–” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

- Heretics (1905).

[don-o]

Gilbert ping

[MeshugeMikey]

SOMEHOW hearing this read on the radio this morning put me in mind of Net Nuetrality...

[Noumenon]

“The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government, they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten, that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of an advance auction of the sale of stolen goods.”

-H.L. Mencken

The American public's reaction to recent theft of the Internet can be likened to the victim in urban legend who awakens in a tub full of ice cubes to find that his kidneys have been taken. Most of us just haven't awakened - yet.

[MeshugeMikey]

AMEN!!