THE JOKE'S ON US! - A Humourous Look At The Words Which Shape Politics

Yes, I have a warped sense of humour. That’s why I spell ‘humour’ the Canadian way.

WELCOME:

This post represents not only my warped sense of humour, but the official launch of my own blog site. I hope that you will all consider becoming regular visitors. As of this writing, I have no idea whatever how things will eventually evolve. Expect future additions of photos, cartoons, audio and visual content, etc., which will be added even to the material already published.

Posts preceding this one were originally published in other forums and media, prior to the launch of this blog.

There’s still a lot of work to do before everything actually begins to take shape and evolve its own identity and character. I’ve learned from past experience that I can never predict how a particular project or undertaking will ultimately manifest itself. Something tells me that this effort will be no different.

So for starters, and just for fun, I present you with a collection of silly definitions of the words which shape our political world. I’ve collected them from various sources, and have written a few of them myself. This is the first time that this collection has been published as you see it here.

As humourous as they may be, at the same time many of the following definitions aren’t really so ‘funny,’ if you know what I mean. And that’s why I’ve been forced to conclude that: The Joke’s On Us!
Enjoy.

– Robert Metz December 7, 2011

THE JOKE’S ON US! – A humourous look at the words that shape politics.

A is A: Eh?

Academic Freedom: The freedom to be academic.

Actually: Perhaps; possibly.

Administer: To inflict, as a medicine, a sacrament, justice, or a government.

Affirmative Action: The White Man’s new burden.

Agnostic: A God-fearing atheist.

Altruism: Concern with the selfishness of others.

Anarchist: One who advocates the separation of Existence and the State.

Anarchy: An unavoidable consequence of cutting back the size of government, namely, the utter chaos caused by hordes of former government employees running amok, rioting, looting, raping and pillaging.

Animal Rights: Proof that egalitarianism is for the birds.

Anti-Racist: One who is prejudiced against the prejudiced and intolerant of the intolerant; one who hates the haters and discriminates against the discriminators.

Appeal: In law, to put the dice back in the box for another throw.

April Fool: The March fool with another month added to his folly.

Art: This word has no definition.

Assure: To cause to feel uncertain.

Austerity: Higher taxes and more government spending and regulation (austerity for the people, freedom for government).

B-1: A vitamin essential to the heath of the military industrial complex.

Balanced Budget: After the government takes enough to balance the budget, the citizen has to budget the balance.

Behaviourist: A psychologist who wants to make people behave.

Big: Bad (if it’s a business); Good (if it’s government).

Bigot: One zealously attached to an opinion that differs with one’s own.

Bilingual: Able to utter doubletalk in two languages.

Black Market: The under-the-counter economy.

Book Burning: Censorship in the 451st degree.

Budget Cut: A decrease in the rate of increase in government spending.

Bureaucracy: A perpetual inertia machine.

Bureaucrat: A red tapeworm.

Candidate: Someone who stands for what he thinks voters will fall for.

Cannibal: One who loves his fellow man — with gravy.

Capitalism: The cause of every socialist failure.

Censor: One who enlightens the world by burning books.

Civilization: The question is not where civilization began, but when will it?

Collective Security: A diplomatic arrangement for the maintenance of world peace through war.

Commitment: A politician’s solemn pledge that somebody else will do something — and that you will be committed to pay for it.

Common Good: Individual bad.

Common Knowledge: Something generally known among the ignorant; proof that what we know can hurt us.

Communism: Rugged collectivism; dog-eat-dog socialism.

Competition: The rivalry between lobbyists striving for the same political patronage.

Confession: An admission of wrongdoing, often obtained by wrongdoing.

Conscript: One forced to fight for freedom.

Conservative: Someone who doesn’t belong to any organized political movement.

Considerate: Thoughtful of others and of what they can do for you.

Consult: To seek another’s approval for something already decided upon.

Court: What a man does to win a mate and the place he must go to divorce her. (In these days of frequent divorce, most of the courting is done after marriage.)

Court Fool: The plaintiff.

Courtroom: A place where justice is usually dispensed — with.

Credibility: Ability to deceive.

Dangerous Drugs: Drugs.

Defeat: Something that is bitter only when swallowed.

Definition: A word that’s not a definition.

Democracy: Government of the sheep, by the shepherds, for the wolves. (See also: ‘Dictatorship’.)

Dictatorship: Government by force and fraud, as opposed to democracy, government by fraud and force.

Diplomacy: Lying in state; The art of letting someone else have your way; The art of getting something as though you were giving it.

Diplomats: Spies and terrorists. (When a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps; when he says perhaps, he means no; and when he says no, he’s no diplomat.)

Doubt: The philosophical device Descartes so cleverly used to prove everything he previously believed.

Draft: An ill wind from which many a young man has caught his death.

Education: Something that never hurt anyone who was willing to learn something afterwards.

Egalitarian: One who cannot see the difference between a hero and a zero, a champ and a chump, a winner and a wiener, or a king and a kong.

Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

Election: You don’t have to fool all of the people all of the time; during elections is sufficient.

Fabian: A creeping socialist.

Fair Wage: What everybody wants to be paid, but no one seems to be getting.

Feminist: A sister who wants to be Big Brother.

Fence: A place for stolen goods and politicians.

Fine-tuning the Economy: Massive government disruption and ultimate destruction of the economy.

Foreign Aid: Handouts across the sea.

Freedom: The power to do as you please, as long as you don’t offend reformers and as long as you pay racketeers for protection.

Free Thinker: A bachelor or widower.

Friend: One who has the same enemies as you have.

Good Citizen: An obedient slave.

Government Debt: When you think of the government debt the next generation must pay off, no wonder a baby yells when it’s born.

Happiness: A wild goose which everyone has an inalienable right to chase; the agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Hard-Core Pornography: Pornography which makes one’s core hard.

Hate Literature: Literature that one hates.

Hats: Political candidates use them to cover their heads, toss them into the ring, and talk through them.

Helping The Poor: Plundering the productive.

Heresy: Disagreement with the One True Lie.

History: The record of the evil that men do; Something that never happened, written by someone who wasn’t there; A series of lies officially agreed upon. (See ‘Heresy’.)

Holy War: A war,  for God’s sake!

Honest Politician: One who, when bought, will stay bought.

Hypocracy: Rule by hypocrites, the most popular form of government.

Hypocrisy: The vaseline of social intercourse.

Hypocrite: One who practices vice while preaching versa.

Idealist: One who hopes to keep the politics out of politics.

Illegitimate Child: One born of illegitimate parents.

Impartial: Unable to perceive any personal advantage from either side of a controversy.

Infallible: Incapable of admitting error.

Intellectual Activist: A physical inactivist.

Intellectual Ammunition: Verbal bullets for Objectivists who want to shoot their mouths off.   (Blank-out cartridges also available.)

Irrefutable Evidence: Evidence that cannot be refuted because it cannot be examined.

Jailer: One who is his brother’s keeper.

Just War: Merely war.

Kill: To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.

Label: To libel.

Labour Union: An association of workers organized to advance the interests of the union organizers.

Lawful: Compatible with the will of the judge.

Law of Gravity: A very serious law that everybody obeys.

Lawyer: One skilled in the circumvention of the law.

Leader: In politics, one who follows his nose into other people’s business.

Liberal: One whose heart bleeds when the Federal budget is cut.

Locke, John: A closing or fastening device used to prevent unauthorized entry into public restroom facilities.

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of human misunderstanding.

Mad: Afflicted with a high degree of intellectual independence.

Mafia: A nonexistent group of perfectly respectable businessmen who just might break your legs if you say otherwise.

Marijuana: A substance which can cause deterioration of mental functioning and a tendency toward paranoia in chronic non-users.

Martyr: One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.

Me: The objectionable case of I.

Minister: An official with high power and low responsibility.

Minor: Less objectionable.

Monopoly: Any successful business which is able to: (1) undercut its competitors’ prices (unfair competition), (2) charge more than its competitors (price gouging), or (3) charge the same price as its competition (collusion).

Moral: Having the quality of general expediency.

Moralist: One who loves morality so much that he will commit any crime to maintain it.

Multitude: A crowd in which one finds political wisdom and virtue, based on the theory that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it.

Nostalgia: The ability to recall the past fondly, despite the facts.

Objectivist: A Randroid programmed to believe that sitting in an Armchair is Activism (A is A). (Also, see ‘Intellectual Activist’.)

Opinion Moulder: One who sculpts by using stupidity as a medium.

Otherwise: Some people are wise, some otherwise.

Outlaw: A menace to society, but not as bad as an in-law.

Pacifist: One who, when kicked in the rear, turns the other cheek.

Pain: An uncomfortable frame of mind caused by the good fortune of another.

Parapsychology: Science qua seance.

Philosophy: Many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

Plan: The best method for accomplishing an accidental result.

Playboy: A hedonist looking for consenting shedonists.

Politeness: a socially acceptable form of hypocrisy.

Political Crisis: Not getting re-elected.

Political Deal: The end of a political ideal.

Political Leader: One whose task is to keep ahead of several crowds, each going in a different direction.

Political Platform: Something not to stand on, but to get in on; What a candidate stands on before election, and falls down on after election; A politician’s principle that, since his rival has been robbing the public for years, he should now be given the chance.

Politician: The fellow who’s got what it takes to take what you’ve got.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Positive: Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.

Positivism: A philosophy that denies knowledge of the Real and affirms ignorance of the Apparent.

Poverty: A trap in which politicians invariably become entangled. The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the number of reformers who suffer from it plus the number of intellectuals who know nothing about it. (Victims are distinguished by their possession of all virtues and by a faith in leaders promising them prosperity.)

Pre-existence: The un-noted factor in creation.

Preference: The erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.

Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong an ailment with least harm to the patient.

Property Taxes: Rent paid to government for property you own.

Public Opinion: The prevailing idiocies, delusions, and impossible dreams of the people, collectively.

Quotation: Another’s words erroneously repeated.

Realism: The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads.

Reconsider: To seek justification for a decision already made.

Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck, or one’s neighbour. (In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.)

Revolution: An abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

Rich: One subject to an accounting of his earnings and property by the indolent, the incompetent, the un-thrifty, the envious and the luckless.

Right: Legitimate authority to be, do, or have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one’s neighbour, the right to have measles, and the like.

School Spirit: Ardent loyalty to the school one is forced to attend.

Security: Freedom from freedom.

Self-evident: Evident to one’s self and to nobody else.

Selfish: Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

Sorcery: An ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence.

Statesman: One who tries to solve the grave problems that wouldn’t exist if there were no statesmen.

Statistician: One who can go directly from an unwarranted assumption to a preconceived conclusion. (Some statistical truths: Give a statistician some facts, and he will draw his own confusions. If all the statisticians were placed end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.)

Statutory Holiday: A day set aside for the celebration of getting off work or out of school.

Supreme Court: A court which corrects the errors of the lower courts by perpetuating its own.

Tariff: An import tax designed to protect domestic producers from the greed of their consumers.

Tax: The only thing known to defy the law of gravity.

Theoretical Ideas: Those which a professor of economics has about money.

Transfer Payments: Wealth taken from the people who work for a living and given to people who vote for a living.

Unfair competition: Successful competition.

Utopia: The best of all impossible worlds. A product of myopia.

Vote: The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and wreck his country.

War: A by-product of the arts of peace.

War on Drugs: A war to make the world safe for alcoholism.

Zeal: A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. {end}