[Alec Mouhibian]

I am a eighteen-year-old high school senior. Comments appreciated.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[packrat01]

You're not a product of a public skool ejukashun, are you? I didn't read the whole thing. Skipped through, and caught a few paragraphs throughout. A few thoughts:

Post shorter essays more often.

Focus on one topic per post.

Sometimes, use two or more short words in place of one large word.

Let your audience deduce your intelligence; don't beat 'em with it. You'll gain a host of intelectual peers, and a few superiors.

Offer a one sentence synopsis of monosyllabic words, that the liberals may know you're making fun of them.

[gcruse]

Bombastic for an 18 year old. Like the man said, shorter essays will help, but keep it up. I admire your vocabulary.

[DensaMensa]

Your tome prints out at about 17 pages. Go back and create a 2 page version, with a link to this tome for those few who might be interested enough to plow through all your detail.

There is a reason why many employers will not read a resume longer than 1 page. It has to do with the applicants ability to distinguish between what is more important and what is less important. If applicants with a lifetime worth of experience can make their points in one page, you can make yours in two.

[CheneyChick]

How do you define ?one?? Or the question should be: Is one really one?

Sorry, Hon, I only got as far as the third paragraph and read the above line. It gave me Clintonian shudders so I had to stop. I'm still trying to figure out if I know what is is, or was.

Cheers, CC :)

[sourcery]

For a screed of this length, an abstract and/or executive summary is mandatory. I haven't read your article yet, although I will--but only because you're 18, and I remember liking some earlier work of yours.

[PGalt]

I down III to go...very good so far. I will read the rest in the morning.

[johniegrad]

Alec, I read the first paragraph and that's all I could handle. Too much emphasis on the thesaurus.

I spent 4 years in a private men's school, 4 years in a private medical school, 4 years in a residency training program and 16 years in an academic, multispecialty group medical practice.

Well educated people spend far less time trying to impress people with vocabulary. Your message is lost in your attempts to convince others of how intelligent you are. Don't get me wrong, I think you're probably a reasonably smart guy. However, simplify your language. I've had a lot more education than you have and gave up after your first paragraph, not because it was too difficult to read but because you were trying too hard.

Clarify your message. Try to convince people of how simple what you have to say can be. It will go a lot further in promoting your ideas.

[oldtimer]

I think you did a great job!

If you have a chance with your "instructors" you should get a 100.

Keep up the good work.

jhoffa was all screwed up with his comments.

[Young Werther]

In a nutshell

"This—as philosopher Ayn Rand knew so well and analyzed so timelessly when, over four decades ago, she wrote: “There never has been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine that attacked (or ‘limited’) reason, which did not also preach submission to the power of some authority…Power-seekers have always known that if men are to be made submissive, the obstacle is not their feelings, their wishes or their ‘instincts,’ but their minds;

...if men are to be ruled, then the enemy is reason.

It is reported that HG Wells died a broken man because WWII brought all that was bad, warfare, inequity, the A-Bomb, emotion rather than reason which he had written of and preached about in his books and essays. He was a noted Socialist who had grown up in and experienced the English Classed Society and Industrial Revolution of the late 19th Century. He was contemporaneous to Marx and Engles. In 1931 he even visited Stalin and came away "disappointed".

If reason is "their" enemy then, here at Free Republic, it is our ally.

Keep reading, pondering and questioning. It's that, or the darkness promised by the dictators of the world. Especially the dictators of the DNC!

[Eaker]

Read Ronald Reagan's book, "In His Own Hand". Take some pointers.

I didn't even bother reading it as I am not here to read a novel. I am here for the news.

Eaker

[Old Professer]

Tighten it up.

The part about LBJ and his initials along with the "69" reference are cute but gratuitous; you simply must condense it and pick a single focus - say, the contrast of attitudes among the intellectuals and the common understanding of the phrase, "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer."

Your title is inapt; the "New Stupidity" is made all the more clear the same old stupidity by the examples you cite.

You fail to provide a convincing motive for the reader to accept a collusion among the various nefarians you quote; it may well be that members of social classes simply conform by habit.

[JoeSixPack1]

Ping me when you release the "Reader's Digest" version! :-)

[Lurker]

This is without doubt one of the finest things I've seen posted around in here in a long time.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,

L

[VietVet]

Well, I did take the time to read it all.

This was a paper for a class in history or civics, I take it?

You should get a high grade on it, unless your professor is one of those collectivists you chastise. As other critics on this forum have pointed out, there were places where your point could have been made more concisely. Moreover, you have to consider that there are many times and situations when most people conclude that collective action is desirable, and even preferable to individual action.

But on the whole, an excellent effort.

VietVet
(Who wishes the students he tutors could write as well)

[RLK]

Any of the frequently professed additional “rights,” which are the entitlement of certain people to violate the property rights of others, essentially constitutes the right to enslave, and is therefore the opposite and gruesome contradiction of individual rights.

-----------------------------

This is much of the key to the whole thing. Personal prosperity or support is disconnected from personal responsibility and the responsibility or effort of others is to be confiscated to produce a world of entitlement to material goods without responsibility or disciplined effort.

If this is your work, it shows thought and study far more than typical of someone your age. You have a future as an analyst/writer. The length is not a hindrance of content is good. My own articles run up to 75 pages and I have more demand for my work than I have time to satisfy. You will, however need a special forum and need to cultivate a readership to publish articles of this length.

All in all, I would say this is a good early effort.

[metesky]

Good effort, young man, but entirely too verbose.

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr.

When in doubt edit, edit, edit.

Don't worry, practice makes perfect and you seem to have good ideas.

[listenhillary]

You are an exeptional individual. I hope there are more 17 and 18 year olds like you out there.

This should be broken up into a number of different essays. Then edit, edit, edit and edit some more. Slash the fluff. When a simple word will do, use it.

[cardinal4]

Did you go to public school?? LOL Just kidding your vocabulary and writing are very good. You're leanings are correct, too!

[StriperSniper]

Bump for later.