For fun, I tell people I’m a scientist, working in fictional humorous fields:
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Etymological Entomologist — Studies Book Worms
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Pachydermal Ichthyologist — Studies swimming elephants : Facts & Video — What, you’ve never heard of elephant seals?
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Phantasmological Mathematician — Studies ghostly and spiritual math as in:
Question: Spencer the Sociable Spirit and his 5 friends — Casper, Wendy, Hot Stuff, Spooky, and Pearl — all want to sit on a fence post. How many rails and posts does the fence need so they all can sit on a fencepost at the same time?
Answer: 5 rails and 6 posts. Every fence has 1 more post than rails. Confused? Imagine a fence with only one rail ( it looks like this: |-| ). See? Two posts has one Rail. Similarly 3 posts has 2 rails: |-|-| and so on…
This is known in Phantasmological Mathematics as the “Spence Ghost Problem”. (That’s a joke, son. Don’t get it? See Fencepost Problem) *
* Careful readers will note that ghosts don’t sit anyway. They float non-mathematically above this sort of pun.
Gigantic shears will cleave off the far end of the riser while a diamond cutter, lowered on top of the blowout preventer early Tuesday, will try to make an even cut through the other end of the tube. A clean cut from the diamond cutter, which resembles a deli slicer, is important because engineers will then lower a heavy cap on top of the sheared-off tube to seal the leak.
In other words, they are going to perform a circumcision, then put a condom on it.
They’ll need an Oil Mohel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohel — mohel rhymes with “oil” ). A BP engineer with a deep-sea yarmulke and a knife.
What should we call the form of government where everybody is free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt somebody else?
Because that’s the government I want.
It sounds great, except the point that keeps tripping me up is the definition of the word, “hurt.” Some people (you extremists know who you are) are “hurt” when they see other people who don’t believe as they do. So they want to make laws (or use other forms of coercion) to force the others to believe “correctly.” Need examples? Inquisition; Holocaust; 9/11; Texas textbooks; Obamacare.
Is neglect “hurt”? Will this new form of government allow us to neglect others in need, because such neglect is “hurting” the needy?
In the end, I really believe that the form of government is a red herring. The real issue is how to create people whose moral and critical reasoning are sufficiently developed that the government doesn’t need to exist. Such people will do what’s needed regardless of the form of government.
But until such people exist, I think we need a strong government to do a few things:
Critics of America’s new health care reform are alarmed that it’s a giant step towards socialism. I’m OK with that. American socialism doesn’t have to be like Russian socialism was. American socialism can be based on the Judeo-Christian ethic of caring for the least among us. It can be based on compassion, and charity, and just plain old good-neighborliness.
Call it what you will, providing health care insurance to an additional 30,000,000+ people is a Good Thing.