I am a eighteen-year-old high school senior. Comments appreciated.
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To: Alec Mouhibian
read later
To: Alec Mouhibian
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.
3 posted on
03/03/2003 4:49:23 PM PST by
packrat01
(my $0.02)
To: Alec Mouhibian
Bombastic for an 18 year old. Like the man said, shorter essays will help, but keep it up. I admire your vocabulary.
5 posted on
03/03/2003 5:10:41 PM PST by
gcruse
(When choosing between two evils, pick the one you haven't tried yet.)
To: Alec Mouhibian
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.
7 posted on
03/03/2003 5:13:12 PM PST by
DensaMensa
(He who controls the definitions controls history.)
To: Alec Mouhibian
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 :)
To: Alec Mouhibian
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.
11 posted on
03/03/2003 5:19:44 PM PST by
sourcery
(The Oracle on Mount Doom)
To: Alec Mouhibian
I down III to go...very good so far. I will read the rest in the morning.
12 posted on
03/03/2003 5:25:25 PM PST by
PGalt
To: Alec Mouhibian; packrat01
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.
To: Alec Mouhibian
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.
20 posted on
03/03/2003 5:56:39 PM PST by
oldtimer
To: Alec Mouhibian
In a nutshell
"Thisas 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!
To: Alec Mouhibian
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
23 posted on
03/03/2003 6:14:41 PM PST by
Eaker
(64,999,987 firearm owners killed no one yesterday. Somehow, it didn't make the news.)
To: Alec Mouhibian
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.
To: Alec Mouhibian
Ping me when you release the "Reader's Digest" version! :-)
33 posted on
03/03/2003 9:28:49 PM PST by
JoeSixPack1
(POW/MIA - Bring 'em home, or send us back! Semper Fi)
To: Alec Mouhibian
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
35 posted on
03/03/2003 10:07:32 PM PST by
Lurker
(When I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you.)
To: Alec Mouhibian
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)
36 posted on
03/03/2003 11:26:27 PM PST by
VietVet
To: Alec Mouhibian
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.
37 posted on
03/04/2003 12:54:56 AM PST by
RLK
To: Alec Mouhibian
39 posted on
03/04/2003 2:38:31 AM PST by
metesky
(My retirement fund is holding steady @ $.05 a can)
To: Alec Mouhibian
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.
42 posted on
03/04/2003 3:23:51 AM PST by
listenhillary
(www.ejectejecteject.com)
To: Alec Mouhibian
Did you go to public school?? LOL Just kidding your vocabulary and writing are very good. You're leanings are correct, too!
44 posted on
03/04/2003 4:14:01 AM PST by
cardinal4
(The Senate Armed Services Comm; the Chinese pipeline into US secrets)
To: Alec Mouhibian
Bump for later.
45 posted on
03/04/2003 4:16:51 AM PST by
StriperSniper
(Frogs are for gigging)
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