How can anyone be a bystander while someone is stabbed? Mark Steyn

Steyn Online ^ | 12 Sep 2003 | Mark Steyn

[Gritty]

To expect the government to save you is to be a bystander in your own fate.

BTTT

[headsonpikes]

"To expect the government to save you is to be a bystander in your own fate."

So true, on so many levels.

[litany_of_lies]

"The libs in the dem controlled cities are the ones who seem to be more reluctant to pass CCW laws."

Except in Ohio, where the big impediment is RINO Gov. Bob Taft, who ran 5 years ago in support of CCW and has done everything he can to thwart it since.

[AnnaZ]

Maybe we shouldn't have dinner with him, after all. ;^)

Eek... you're right. But after contemplation I've decided it's almost worth it.

 

(((sigh!)))

[ValerieUSA]

The Swedes are Olive Oyl, they will cry, "Popeye! Help! Popeye! Save Me!" when their good pal Bluto turns on them...
America is Popeye.
Eat yer spinach, kids.

[IncPen]

I wasn't referring to any gun laws or ideologies in my comment.

I was simply stating that people in rural areas see the value in intervening and will do so, and then correlating that to Bush's support in those areas -- as opposed to urban folks who are used to having things taken care of, by the government ("for free"), as in a nanny-state.

For what it's worth, I support gun rights.

[Prodigal Son]

It doesn't appear that wog is a particularly nice word nor is it an acronym for "worthy oriental gentleman".

Merriam Webster

Main Entry: wog
Pronunciation: 'wäg, 'wog
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps short for golliwog
Date: circa 1929
chiefly British, usually disparaging : a dark-skinned foreigner; especially : one from the Middle East or Far East

Word Reference.com

wog1 [wɒg]
noun (British) (slang) (derogatory)
a foreigner, esp. one who is not White [ETYMOLOGY: probably from golliwog]

Your Dictionary.com

wog
n. Chiefly British Offensive Slang
Used as a disparaging term for a person of color, especially a person from northern Africa or western or southern Asia.

Dictionary.com- lists a similar definition.

Online Etymology

wog - World War II British armed forces slang for "native of India" (especially as a servant or laborer), possibly shortened from golliwog.

http://rec-puzzles.org/sol.pl/language/english/etymology/acronym

Supposed (but not real) acronyms:

wog Worthy (Wealthy) Oriental Gentleman

American Heritage Dictionary

NOUN: Chiefly British Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a person of color, especially a person from northern Africa or western or southern Asia.
ETYMOLOGY: Probably short for golliwog.

-------

Which would bring us to golliwog: (again the American Heritage Dictionary)

NOUN: A doll fashioned in grotesque caricature of a Black male.
ETYMOLOGY: After Golliwog, a character in books by Florence Upton (died 1922), American illustrator.

Some more info on the etymology of the word wog and offered by Oxford's

http://acadprojwww.wlu.edu/vol4/BlackmerH/public_html/xliberty/oed/wogcite.html

[IncPen]

My favorite 'learned on FR' word is 'gobsmacked'.

I use it whenever I can.

[Shooter 2.5]

Well, that's one RINO Governor we know of that's against a CCW Bill. He said he was against it because the police associations were against it as usual. I understand the organization[OFCC?} that's working to pass the law is meeting with the Highway Patrol in a little while to straighten things out.

[Shooter 2.5]

I agree completely with you. I just gave you another map that explains just that. The CCW support comes from the rural areas because those people are self reliant. The opposition is in the big cities because of a nanny state syndrome.

A nanny state disciple would never believe it was necessary to defend themselves.

[Teacher317]

Why pass up a perfectly good opportunity to use my 1911 for its intended, legal, moral, and ethical use?

Defense of others (whose lives are in immediate peril) justifies deadly force, at least in Indiana.

The only thing that would trouble me is that my beloved Kimber would rot in a police evidence locker for at least a decade, if not forever.

Is it wrong of me to think these things, rather than to fret over the life of the murderer-wannabe?

[IncPen]

Thank you.

[Shooter 2.5]

Like Cooper said, there shouldn't be any handwringing or doubtful pauses. After a dirtbag is eliminated from the gene pool, the beer should taste better and the sky, bluer.

I still remember the morning I heard Ted Bundy was executed. The sun was just appearing over the trees and it was beautiful.

[MARTIAL MONK]

I found this, unsourced, on the net:

All Personel, South East Asia Theater of War: Upon receipt and thereafter, you will cease refering to our allies as slopes, gooks, slants and yellow bastards and afford them the respect due to the worthy oriental gentlemen that they are.

Viscount Robert Mountbatten Commanding General South East Asia

While no etymologist I, it would seem from your research that Mountbatten was engaging in some particularly Churchillian word play.

Surprising, though, was your unfamiliarity with the term. Robert Ruark built two African novels on it; Uhuru and Something of Value. If you have not read either or both of these you, in particular, should not eat nor sleep until you have copies. It will be worth your while.

[Prodigal Son]

Surprising, though, was your unfamiliarity with the term.

Why was that surprising?

[Penner]

But just about every Swede quoted in every news story seems mired in what National Review's Dave Kopel described, after 9/11, as "the culture of passivity".

Yeah, those passive Swedes. Why can't they be more like Americans?

[MARTIAL MONK]

While it's not a vocabulary staple in the U.S. I've heard it used in backwaters of Texas and Oklahoma. Places where a furriner is someone from the next county. Places where the last British influence left with Cornwallis. It may not have the same dark connotations that you seem to attach but it's more in line with the French bashing we've seen lately. Wogs and Frogs.

[Pokey78]

Thanks!

Steyn ping.

[RobFromGa]

thanks for the ping, another Steyn gem...

[mrustow]

Like all brilliant sayings, it has that feel of the perennial, as if it must surely be hundreds of years old. But it isn't. It's as new as today's headline ... and Socrates.