No Socrates, Not Yet
A Canadian acquaintance of mine wrote to me after my last Blog, that he felt my oblique form of criticizing Trump was too obtuse. His words were, “. . . isn’t it time to stop all this teasing and call a shovel a spade?” He added: “Maybe you’re not ready to be Socrates quite yet. We all know how that ended.”
While I understand his sentiment, I feel called upon to substantiate that I have never in any fashion ever considered myself on the same intellectual level as Socrates. Nevertheless, he has a point.
Mr. Trump’s intellectual stature is certainly nothing exceptional. Oh, he has some sort of indefinable (he keeps the real details hidden, you notice) knack for money. But, when it comes to serious issues, his grey matter has distinct limitations.
The New York Times, which Mr. Trump despises for its allegedly “Fake News,” reported yesterday in its Sunday Editorial Pages about the tens of thousands of homeless veterans. It also mentioned those who, often due to service related health problems, including ptsd, had incured military legal infractions that create for them less than honorable discharges, which thereby make them ineligible for VA medical assistance.
Fortunately, the Times reported further that the VA finally has created a form of emergency health care for these veterans. However, one wonders whether Mr. T will personally address his attention to this venture. Such nuances rarely show up in his personal Twitterings, unless he can count enough votes – or dollars – in them to excite his interest.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but to appease my Canadian chum’s criticism about my vaguely expressed opinion of Mr. T, let me for the record testify I do not anticipate history will judge him an admirable character.
I suspect, except for all those who end up making money in his era, that the social expense of his doings will be costing us for decades in tangible human suffering. It is already happening. And with little justification but greed and intellectual drowsiness.
I don’t care what politicians of the extreme rightist persuasion may call it, but I detect no meaningful over-all politically or socially authentic benefits emerging from the shabby havoc his fevered intellect has so far produced.
There, my Canadian friend. Is that, at least, a beginning of what you would like to hear? And if so, should the Hemlock be presented to me, will you fault me if I don’t take it and, rather, debark for Canada or some other safe haven?
PS: Having now warmed to the subject, I propose you keep an eye out. I’ll work on some more of the same in the future, quite certainly sharpening the point of my digital pen in search of a few drops of humanely warm blood. If there is indeed some to be discovered.