Letters to the Editor
Frankly, my dear, ...
Published Letters: 579
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More important,
[Read the article: Megan McArdle and Dan Drezner's defense of the media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The most important historical figure who should be introduced to all Americans as soon as possible is Justice Robert Jackson.
— DirigoThe entire proceedings of the Nuremberg Tribunal should be required reading (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm). It wouldn't hurt to forcefeed Joseph Goebbels' major speeches to them either (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goebmain.htm) just so they recognize the technique when they hear what "the people" want on the radio or see it on the TV:
That is the important thing about the big historic events of the past year. The people did not waver during the difficult tensions that were involved, and had to be involved. The broad masses of the people have a primitive and incorruptible ability to believe that everything is possible and reachable if one devotes one's full energies and fights with a strong and courageous heart.
This ability to believe is rather weak in some circles, above all in those with money and education. They may trust more in pure cold reason than a glowing idealistic heart. Our so-called intellectuals do not like to hear this, but it is true anyway. They know so much that in the end they do not know what to do with their wisdom. They can see the past, but not much of the present, and nothing at all of the future. Their imagination is insufficient to deal with a distant goal in a way such that one already thinks it achieved.
That is why their carping criticisms generally focus on laughable trivialities. Whenever some unavoidable difficulty pops up, the kind of thing that always happens, they are immediately inclined to doubt everything and to throw the baby out with the bath water. To them difficulties are not there to be mastered, but rather to be surrendered to.
The people want nothing to do with these intellectual complainers. The year 1938 was filled with great and sometimes unnerving tension. But they are delighted at the close of this year with the Führer's great historical successes.
This people are once more happy about life. Never before has there been such a happy Christmas as that of a week ago, and never before have we looked forward with so much confidence and courage to a new year as we do to 1939.
— Joseph Goebbels 1938/39 New Year's speech
Good times. Add 70 years and it sounds just like Anonymoose.
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zero relative pronoun
[Read the article: Megan McArdle and Dan Drezner's defense of the media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A relative clause without a relative pronoun is generally known as a "contact clause". The zero relative pronoun is quite grammatical and unremarkable in English. See <http://uwp.edu/~canary/grammar_text/75-zerorel.html>. The construction began to appear in Middle English when omissions became much less constrained than in Old English. It can only be used when the relative pronoun is not the subject of the relative clause:
The man I saw was lame.
I read the book Glenn wrote.
Glenn wrote the book I read.All these are quite grammatical English sentences. Occasionally, however, a contact clause, while still grammatical, can cause difficulties in comprehension:
The horse raced past the barn fell.
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Too technical
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Asher: the parts about the President not being bound by the Convention Against Torture, are a little too technical for many people to follow or care about."
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or PunishmentPart I
Article 2
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, ..., may be invoked as a justification of torture.Just what part of "no circumstances whatsoever" is too technical for you?