The best speeches in modern history, the importance of voice in oration, and removing the hyphen to preserve MLK's dream while ending BLM's nightmare - tribute to Gonzalo Lira at the end
Hahaha that’s the same word that popped in my head for her! More commentators need to start emphasizing her role in all these wars. The left has cancel culture for middling things, we need a campaign of shame for people like her, billboards everywhere, psa on local tv, something to wake up the common people.
I used to feel that way until I started hanging around some Brits. It's a minor insult there or even just a descriptive. I get my feather s up when Americans use it because there's a really mean spirit behind it. Americans use the P word. Or, that might be gone now? With all the sensitivity stuff.
Say cunt in America and suddenly the place turns into a big fat church and people fall deadly silent. It’s a good thing to say if you want a bit of shoosh 🤫
I've never understood why that word is an insult when that is what all normal men (myself included, of course) value in a woman (in addition to other things, I suppose.) She deserves much worse.
I don’t understand women who are offended by it. With everything it does depend on tone, yet even then I think that by over using it it’ll take the power out of it. Like black people have reclaimed a slur word. Our “rather foreign looking people” from Greece and Italy etc have reclaimed the word wog. Anyway most women don’t like it no matter how much I try to explain why it’s important to de-fang it. 🤷🏻♀️🇦🇺
Thank you for sharing, and congratulations on 40 years of marriage! I’m not sure what that has to do with this- is it part of the criteria for deciding what women are entitled to feel? I know I don’t like feeling patronised by someone who has missed the point but that’s the beauty of free speech. Sharing openly without needing permission via marriage or anything. Lovely to hear from you. Cheers.
Great examples of great speeches sir! Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” and his farewell address to the Nation in 1989 were both all-timers. Surely tho, no one in living memory can beat Dr. King.
Also, you are 100 spot on about high school speech and debate. Being forced to think on your feet early, and on nights/weekends, really helps prepare kids for future success. A proper (non-woke) legal education is up there too. Both are great equalizers, in terms of upward mobility and good in their own right.
And being able to steelman an argument you explicitly disagree with. Nothing helps you understand your own position better than being able to honestly argue for the opposite viewpoint. The Wokitarians aren’t capable of this which demonstrates their fraudulent ignorance.
Who "believed him sincere"? I learned who he was from his supposedly classic speech after his association with Jeremiah Wright came out. (I only heard it a few months later, after the election.) The whole content was "I can't get away with denying any of this, but doesn't everybody do it?"
All his campaign speeches in 2008 had him repeating the same empty line about how "amazing" it was that a (50% or less) Black man was running for President. Would he have been as excited if it was (100% Black) Allen West? And he kept misconstruing the Constitution's phrase about "a more perfect union" as if it meant some kind of total collectivization of society. And how about the way he kept mentioning God in every speech in that campaign, and stopped as soon as he was elected?
The guy is an obvious clown and demagogue. (There also was a long essay claiming that his pattern of pauses in his speech was designed to hypnotize. I have no idea if this is credible, but it would fit his personality.)
Obama is pure evil. He was groomed and placed in power to destroy America, and he did it well by building a bureaucracy full of demons and liers throughout America. Satan’s Lieutenant along with partner Nancy and others. I’m so grateful I am not them when they die and meet our Almighty God face to face., Hope they like burning heat for eternity because it’s real.
Very few orators live the words they speak. Kudos to Chief Justice Roberts for living up to his words by betraying our country, unfairly denying the persecuted a hearing, ignoring the stolen 2020 election as if it was just bad luck, and demonstrating loyalty with the cover-up of the leak of the Dobbs decision that originated from his staff.
As to removing the hyphen... if your point is to make us all more connected as American citizens than I believe the current word order works best towards that objective. “Asian American” (hyphen free) makes ‘Asian’ the adjective that best describes ‘American’ the noun.
I LOVE that whole movie. The millennials, and 'Gens" would never understand or appreciate that movie. Most Boomers KNOW someone like each of those characters. I grew up with them.
As a Boomer-American, I agree with removing the hyphen. I'd much rather be called an American of Greatest Generation descent - and wow, did we descend.
A subverter might want to start using Ike's preferred nomenclature MICC which was for Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.
Because congressmen benefiting with votes and donations for the military bases and/or defense factories they approved for their district was the ugliest leg of the corrupt triangle he realized existed.
His aides convinced him that maybe it was best not to directly insult Congress in his farewell speech to Congress, so he crossed off a word.
Often overlooked is his warning about government funding of science and technology - "we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Seems to me nuland should be on a terrorist watch list from every nation on earth. The cunt.
I don't like to use the c-word, but she is the dictionary definition. So much blood on her hands and the neocon uniparty MIC.
I stand with our British brothers who use that word. I also like twat...
Us Brits seldom use the C bomb to refer to a woman though. She'd have to be a real Nuland to get called that
It’s what we call people when we’re being affectionate! ‘Straya! 🇦🇺
Hahaha that’s the same word that popped in my head for her! More commentators need to start emphasizing her role in all these wars. The left has cancel culture for middling things, we need a campaign of shame for people like her, billboards everywhere, psa on local tv, something to wake up the common people.
I used to feel that way until I started hanging around some Brits. It's a minor insult there or even just a descriptive. I get my feather s up when Americans use it because there's a really mean spirit behind it. Americans use the P word. Or, that might be gone now? With all the sensitivity stuff.
us Aussies have taken the use of that to creative extremes.
F and C can literally constitute half the words in a sentence, and still remain entirely understandable.
Really? That's funny and interesting. I'll have to be on the listen for that.
try this link for starters.
https://www.docdownload.com.au/australian-swearwords-slang-terms-abuse
a reasonably good summary of much of our swearing slang
Nice. Totally saving these.
Say cunt in America and suddenly the place turns into a big fat church and people fall deadly silent. It’s a good thing to say if you want a bit of shoosh 🤫
Don’t forget Liz Cheney.
I've never understood why that word is an insult when that is what all normal men (myself included, of course) value in a woman (in addition to other things, I suppose.) She deserves much worse.
I don’t understand women who are offended by it. With everything it does depend on tone, yet even then I think that by over using it it’ll take the power out of it. Like black people have reclaimed a slur word. Our “rather foreign looking people” from Greece and Italy etc have reclaimed the word wog. Anyway most women don’t like it no matter how much I try to explain why it’s important to de-fang it. 🤷🏻♀️🇦🇺
Women are entitled to be offended by anything or nothing (that's based on over 40 yrs of marriage.)
Thank you for sharing, and congratulations on 40 years of marriage! I’m not sure what that has to do with this- is it part of the criteria for deciding what women are entitled to feel? I know I don’t like feeling patronised by someone who has missed the point but that’s the beauty of free speech. Sharing openly without needing permission via marriage or anything. Lovely to hear from you. Cheers.
You wrote that you "don’t understand women who are offended by it", and I added that I understand even less than that.
Great examples of great speeches sir! Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” and his farewell address to the Nation in 1989 were both all-timers. Surely tho, no one in living memory can beat Dr. King.
Also, you are 100 spot on about high school speech and debate. Being forced to think on your feet early, and on nights/weekends, really helps prepare kids for future success. A proper (non-woke) legal education is up there too. Both are great equalizers, in terms of upward mobility and good in their own right.
Keep it up good sir!
And being able to steelman an argument you explicitly disagree with. Nothing helps you understand your own position better than being able to honestly argue for the opposite viewpoint. The Wokitarians aren’t capable of this which demonstrates their fraudulent ignorance.
Amen to that!
I taught HS speech (small school, so no debate). MLK's Dream speech was the exemplar for powerful persuasion and rhetoric.
Thank you for teaching!
I am out of the academy and formal education now, but once a teacher, always a teacher!
Obama was good at speeches and little else. We believed him sincere at the time but it was deeply cynical manipulation in light of his actions.
I remember one comment thread where a poster said he reminded her of her ex, a silver-tongued snake oil salesman.
Who "believed him sincere"? I learned who he was from his supposedly classic speech after his association with Jeremiah Wright came out. (I only heard it a few months later, after the election.) The whole content was "I can't get away with denying any of this, but doesn't everybody do it?"
All his campaign speeches in 2008 had him repeating the same empty line about how "amazing" it was that a (50% or less) Black man was running for President. Would he have been as excited if it was (100% Black) Allen West? And he kept misconstruing the Constitution's phrase about "a more perfect union" as if it meant some kind of total collectivization of society. And how about the way he kept mentioning God in every speech in that campaign, and stopped as soon as he was elected?
The guy is an obvious clown and demagogue. (There also was a long essay claiming that his pattern of pauses in his speech was designed to hypnotize. I have no idea if this is credible, but it would fit his personality.)
Obama is pure evil. He was groomed and placed in power to destroy America, and he did it well by building a bureaucracy full of demons and liers throughout America. Satan’s Lieutenant along with partner Nancy and others. I’m so grateful I am not them when they die and meet our Almighty God face to face., Hope they like burning heat for eternity because it’s real.
I hope they don't like it.
Any speech Neil Oliver made on GBN during Covid! He had me ready to storm the walls from my phone!
Now that is a true Scottish brogue.
Briliant article! The Roberts speech was genius - never read or heard it before.
Meanwhile, I never bought into Lira. Boodica piece today is interesting...
https://open.substack.com/pub/francesleader/p/goodbye-gonzalo-lira?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=b7m4j
Very few orators live the words they speak. Kudos to Chief Justice Roberts for living up to his words by betraying our country, unfairly denying the persecuted a hearing, ignoring the stolen 2020 election as if it was just bad luck, and demonstrating loyalty with the cover-up of the leak of the Dobbs decision that originated from his staff.
As to removing the hyphen... if your point is to make us all more connected as American citizens than I believe the current word order works best towards that objective. “Asian American” (hyphen free) makes ‘Asian’ the adjective that best describes ‘American’ the noun.
Great piece. Here's my favorite speech (from Bluto in Animal House):
https://youtu.be/q7vtWB4owdE?feature=shared
I LOVE that whole movie. The millennials, and 'Gens" would never understand or appreciate that movie. Most Boomers KNOW someone like each of those characters. I grew up with them.
Thanks for the laugh this morning. ❤️
Thank you very much for that Yuri.
Why does President Eisenhower sound like a Wizard-King from a fantasy realm a thousand years ago? My father could have heard that speech live.
As a Boomer-American, I agree with removing the hyphen. I'd much rather be called an American of Greatest Generation descent - and wow, did we descend.
Gonna nominate Churchill for his “Finest Hour” speech. Hard to beat a genuine call to action in the face of invasion and ruin.
Now there was a wordsmith! 👏🏼
James Lindsay, almost anything from his mouth, especially when he gets riled (spicy)!
The Bard’s Henry V speech facing insurmountable odds just before the Battle of Agincourt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yZNMWFqvM&pp=ygUYaGVucnkgdiBhZ2luY291cnQgc3BlZWNo
A subverter might want to start using Ike's preferred nomenclature MICC which was for Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.
Because congressmen benefiting with votes and donations for the military bases and/or defense factories they approved for their district was the ugliest leg of the corrupt triangle he realized existed.
His aides convinced him that maybe it was best not to directly insult Congress in his farewell speech to Congress, so he crossed off a word.
Often overlooked is his warning about government funding of science and technology - "we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
I have a different political ideology than you, but you do know how speechifying should be done.
Perhaps that's the point of chaining kids to their phones--to prevent them from learning the powers and skills that come only through human speech.
One of my favorite movie speeches...you are right that most good speeches are in movies nowadays.
https://laowai.substack.com/p/for-the-american-football-fans-out?r=o10gj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web