During a morning walk to historic Fort Trumbull here in Connecticut, I noticed something I hadn’t paid attention to before. A stone lintel engraved with 1876 which is now blocked off. I quickly checked the history of the Fort but so far have not found a specific mention of that date, although it was the Centennial of the founding of America. The Fort itself was built earlier than that (and I will leave you with the amazing Wikipedia as well as the “Friends of Fort Trumbull” site to dig deeper). So much history that I don’t know. And the title of this morning’s stack describes three other things I know very little about.
After breakfast I spent some time researching the definitions of these forms of government, so I’m a little more informed about what could go wrong if we don’t stringently defend our current system. In a nutshell, autocracy vests absolute power in the ruler (usually one person but could be more); a plutocracy vests power in the wealthy but is not rooted in any political philosophy; and theocracy has one or more gods giving guidance to the rulers. And then we get into democracy, which also has many forms. A pure democracy would literally be without elected representatives. From Wikipedia I find the following: While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic.
And now I’m getting into the weeds: All of this morning’s musings were prefaced by an email I received before my walk. It is from a site called Rational Right with an email of daily@rationalright.org. Bold capital letters announce: WARNING: Liberal Elites & Big Tech Trying to Silence Truth Tellers, then the Editor refers me to a message below from their valued sponsor. A cute red elephant with what appears to be a blue scarf flying from its neck and the logo SAVE RED AMERICA, with the message requiring me to click on all kinds of links to reveal all the lies they are exposing (I have not done that yet). The final exhortation is “Let’s give ‘em hell and keep the truth alive! We’re all in this together—let’s FIGHT BACK with everything we’ve got.” Then the cute elephant logo again with the additional message “Liberals Want Your Money, Health, and Privacy. Discover the 10 Best Strategies to Stop them!”
Being an inveterate researcher, I decided to check out the Rational Right which gave 601 S. Federal Hwy. Boca Raton, FL 33432, United States at the bottom of the page. Going to their website and clicking on contact, I find that the information given is all in Latin (at least I think that’s what it is having been introduced to the language briefly in my schooling). I am not going to waste any more time attempting to translate any of it. Instead, I went back and clicked on the button to “get the full scoop” and I ended up inundated with products to purchase which gave me a good laugh anyway. Did you know that there is special patriot soap to protect your manhood?
I am going to end my Sunday post because I want to sit down and read the actual paper and enjoy my sanity—while it lasts!
A few years back I stumbled upon a website with a brief home page and all other internal links and tabs being pages filled with Latin. My wife, with some knowledge of Latin and Latin word roots, determined it was random words in Latin. We passed it by our pet pig and she confirmed it was not Pig Latin. A little research found that at one time a software company sold a web page development program that filled linked future pages with Latin word salad instead of blank pages of “page under development” or “Error 404 page not found”. The thinking was web search engines are more likely not to show a site with little or no content, so fill blank pages with gibberish.
Hopefully by the time you read this you have established a new email address and smashed all of your existing hardwired and wireless devices and replaced with new, promptly installed with antivirus software.
If a sequel is ever to be written to Lewis Carrol’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ it should be titled ‘Think Before You Click’.