Woke Is Broke — Part 601 February 3, 2023 Check out Nick Kristoff’s latest. We all have good intentions, but bending over backwards not to refer to “the poor” as “the poor” — because it somehow dehumanizes them — well, read the column. It’s amusing, a bit horrifying — and important. A snippet: . . . The American Medical Association put out a 54-page guide on language as a way to address social problems — oops, it suggests instead using the “equity-focused” term “social injustice.” The A.M.A. objects to referring to “vulnerable” groups and “underrepresented minority” and instead advises alternatives such as “oppressed” and “historically minoritized.” Hmm. If the A.M.A. actually cared about “equity-focused” outcomes in the United States, it could simply end its opposition to single-payer health care. . . . As for my friends who are homeless, what they yearn for isn’t to be called houseless; they want housing. Because if we really want to do right by the oppressed, we won’t play into the hands of those who want, instead, to cut taxes for the rich. And who tried 52 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And sought to block creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which recently returned billions to consumers). And who cherish an 18-year-old’s right to buy assault weapons. Without background checks. (Are you getting my drift?) We do that by taking the undeniably good intentions of “wokeness” too far. My bad for not posting about this each time I get the urge to (which must be more than 600 times by now). One of the times that I did: Woke Is Broke. We need to get rid of cancel culture. And — while doing all we can to embody the values of respect and love and compassion and fair play — we need to give people a little space not to have to walk on egg shells . . . and not to have to vote Republican because they feel we’ve given them no choice. Thanks to Glenn Sonnenberg for this quote, which may apply: Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties…. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. – Justice Louis Brandeis (Whitney v. California) UPDATES APE (per Thursday’s post) is now nearly a triple. But so long as it’s selling for less than half the price of AMC, into which it will be converted, I’m in no rush to sell. PRKR had Thursday’s jury selection pushed to this Monday morning because of the severe Texas weather and power outages. But so far as I know, the trial could wrap up as early as this coming Friday, as scheduled. Is there a hand surgeon in the house? That’s how tightly crossed my fingers are. Have a great weekend.