“It’s better to be silent and appear dumb than to speak and remove all doubt” is a familiar quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Then, there is the Mark Twain version, ‘It’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.’
It really just depends on which source one prefers but here’s the kicker: No one really knows the exact origin of the quote, but boy is it relevant today!
The examples abound.
Take Cadet Bonespurs, for example. He actually said to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that June 6 (D-Day) “WAS NOT A PLEASANT DAY FOR YOU.”
Bear in mind, if you will, that the man who uttered that nonsense is the supposed leader of the most powerful nation on Earth. But Merz replied, “In the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from a Nazi dictator.” Merz – 1, Tub-A-Lardo – 0 (or 15-love, if you’re scoring in tennis).
That’s (liberating a nation from Nazi influence, that is) something that Agent Orange appears incapable of accomplishing in this country.
Here’s another: David Richardson, the acting head (and acting is a generous description) of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), now claims (or at least his mouthpiece does) that he was “joking” when he allowed that he DID NOT KNOW there was a hurricane season which those of us along the Gulf (of Mexico) coast know all too well runs from June 1 through Nov. 30 every year.
With no background in crisis management, he appears about as qualified as another notorious head of FEMA, Michael D. Brown who came to the agency from his previous post as a rules enforcer for the INTERNATIONAL ARABIAN HORSE ASSOCIATION. Brown had been appointed by another Repugnantcan president, Geore W. (“You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie”) Bush and quickly turned the management of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath into its own disaster, though by no means a “natural” one.
It was Brown, you may remember, who whined that he needed to find a DOG-SITTER even as tens of thousands of Katrina victims were going without shelter, food or water.
And now we have the most recent outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease.
U.S. Rep. MARY MILLER (R-Illinois) induced nearly everyone’s gag reflex when she crammed her foot into her mouth all the way to her kneecap (at least) by posting (and then quickly correcting and finally deleting altogether) her criticism of permitting Giani Singh, a Sikh Granthi from southern New Jersey to deliver the Hous’s morning prayer.
First of all, this judgmental “Christian” incorrectly identified Singh as a Muslim before someone must have enlightened her about the difference between the Sikh and Islamic faiths and she corrected her blunder with yet another blunder before then deleting her post altogether (oops! Too late, you’re already made a complete ass of yourself, Mary).
She also erroneously claimed in her post that “America was founded as a Christian nation…” before saying she found it “deeply troubling” and said that the opening prayer by someone of that faith offering the opening prayer “should never have been allowed.”
Somewhere in the Bible is something about letting the one without sin cast the first stone (John 8:7, to be precise) but the tolerance practiced by many of the evangelical right these days isn’t so easily recognized or acknowledged these days. So much for the Golden Rule.
It’s just this kind of “Christian tolerance” that led to the 2012 MASSACRE of seven Sikh worshipers who were gunned down by a white supremacist in a Sikh temple has they held Sunday religious services in Wisconsin in 2012.
But here’s a novel idea that I believe would go a long way to ease the tensions and strife that seems to have a strangle-hold on America, especially among our elected leaders:
If you can’t justify your thoughts and beliefs, if you can back up your words with facts and data and if your words don’t result in a productive exchange of ideas, then by all means, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND YOUR JUDGMENTS TO YOURSELF.
(And yes, that goes for yours truly, as well. I’m not exempt to letting my alligator mouth overload my jaybird butt and neither are most of you. We could all benefit from toning down the rhetoric.)
Louisiana Voice 
I agree we could all do with toning down the rhetoric. But it takes two to tango. A couple of days after this post Trump commandeers the California National Guard to disperse citizens protesting his Gestapo tactics and threatens to unleash the US military on the American people. Is it rhetoric to call that an abuse of power? Is it rhetoric to call that unconstitutional? Is it rhetoric to label those who support a lawless authoritarian despot as fascists? Because I can’t tone that down and still be honest about what I think of it all.
Agree with Mr. Spillman, it is not rhetoric, but our duty to recognize and speak up, and now we can use the Fword!