Directive Number 10-289

[Selene]

First time since 1945...

The Age of the Zero - no jobs, not even green ones!

[Greybird]

The cartoon is vivid, but you have the issue almost backwards. This is not Directive 10-289, where those ruling the America of Atlas were decreeing a stagnant standstill as their legally enforced and desired ideal.

Instead, the current morass of every kind of statist nostrum has meshed in its aggregate stupidity to create a stagnation that is almost perfect in its inertia as to employment — but one which the planners most strenously, at least nearly all of them, say that they do not want.

Aside from the worshipful-tyrannical (and not conservation-prudent) Greens, the kill-all-our-"Islamic"-enemies-unto-nuclear-winter neoconservatives, and others who espouse mass death ... there is really no one in this country who holds up no net improvement in employment as an ideal.

As rare as it is, you're almost being unfair to the statists with this one.

[BaalChatzaf]

The Great Zero has occurred has occurred on the eve of King Obama's Jobs Speech. Perhaps when he goes on the air, he will be cut off and an implacable voice will announce --- King Obama's time is up. This is.. -

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

The cartoon is vivid, but you have the issue almost backwards. This is not Directive 10-289, where those ruling the America of Atlas were decreeing a stagnant standstill as their legally enforced and desired ideal.

Instead, the current morass of every kind of statist nostrum has meshed in its aggregate stupidity to create a stagnation that is almost perfect in its inertia as to employment — but one which the planners most strenuously[sic], at least nearly all of them, say that they do not want. [<<<<I wonder as to whether they would not want that]

As rare as it is, you're almost being unfair to the statists with this one.

Steve:

I understand that it is "almost backward." I know that this is not Directive 10-289. However, let us posit a scenario of the specter of the threat of a clear exponential increase in unemployment.

Don't you think they would attempt to freeze everything in place?

I know it is not a good fit, but they are capable of a Directive 10-289, which was my stretch to make the point.

Adam

[Greybird]

Well, of course they're capable of anything. I do think, though, that we should give credit to such vestiges of rationality as do still exist, and what remains here is that almost no one is corrupt enough to insist that people not be allowed, de jure, to obtain new employment. It's too easy to stretch Rand's vivid fiction tropes to situations where we think they ought to fit, even if they don't.

... What objection do you have to my use of "strenuously"? (Should have been immediately followed by "say," on second look. I hope you're not going to insist on the archaic prohibition of the split infinitive.)

[Selene]

Well, of course they're capable of anything. I do think, though, that we should give credit to such vestiges of rationality as do still exist, and what remains here is that almost no one is corrupt enough to insist that people not be allowed, de jure, to obtain new employment. It's too easy to stretch Rand's vivid fiction tropes to situations where we think they ought to fit, even if they don't.

... What objection do you have to my use of "strenuously"? (Should have been immediately followed by "say," on second look. I hope you're not going to insist on the archaic prohibition of the split infinitive.)

Steve:

Agreed.

As to the strenuously, it was just my correcting of the spelling of strenuously which was red lined in my program and I instinctively corrected it and added sic.*

Adam

*Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, (sic)—when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source. The usual purpose is to inform readers that any errors or apparent errors in the copied material are not from transcription—that they are reproduced exactly from the original writer or printer. A bracketed sic may also be used as a form of ridicule or as a humorous comment, typically by drawing attention to the original writer's mistakes.

Edited September 4, 2011 by Selene

[Greybird]

Ulp ... I did leave out a U initially. I try to avoid misspellings, and I do so, erhm, strenuously.

If you see a misspelling in quoted material, correct it silently, if you so choose. I don't think it needs to have attention drawn to it. (Everyone should know what "[sic]" is for, a device that can be overused when it doesn't involve misspellings causing ambiguity. Yet few do.)