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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

What is "Chutzpah"?

Because I'm feeling extra cranky tonight (and have for the past 24 hours or so)...

"Chutzpah" is a Yiddish word meaning "shameless audacity". It's an olden Hebrew term that in his book The Joys of Yiddish author Leo Rosten describes as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to."

So what fits in the category of "chutzpah"?

One example of chutzpah is the child who kills both of his parents, and then throws himself down on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan.

Another example of chutzpah is the "evangelist" who routinely rails against a television station for "promoting dancing, R-rated movies" as being somehow sinful behavior, yet is apparently not bothered by the fact that he gives more than a million dollars of his congregation's money to buy airtime at another television station whose general manager not only promotes the same stuff and worse... but is also a bisexual who regularly gets his jollies by enticing viewers to call in and talk about their sex lives (while never mentioning his own). That would be plenty of chutzpah too.

But right now at this moment, what comes most to mind when I think of chutzpah is the revelation that Congress has voted to impose Obamacare on everyone but NOT those who wrote the #@$%-ing law!

From the article at The New Ledger...

For as long as the political fight took over the past year, the abbreviated review process on the health care legislation currently pending on President Obama’s desk is unquestionably going to result in some surprises — as happens with any piece of mashed-up legislation — both for the congressmen who voted for it and for the American people.

One such surprise is found on page 158 of the legislation, which appears to create a carveout for senior staff members in the leadership offices and on congressional committees, essentially exempting those senior Democrat staffers who wrote the bill from being forced to purchase health care plans in the same way as other Americans.

There is much, much more in Ben Domenech's eyeball-popping writeup at the above link, dear readers.

I guess Orwell had it right: some people are more equal than others.

2 comments:

Danny de Gracia II said...

You're absolutely right. It just goes to show that these guys really believe that they are gods and that whatever they say is law. Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned about this kind of thing when he talked about a decline of moral courage. It's not so much the people who "support" this stuff that disturb me, but rather those who failed to oppose this.

The good news is, do stay tuned! I can't go into details but you may see a legal challenge against this coming from ... Hawaii! I'll keep you posted on this as we get closer to the press release, I think when you find out the legal angle we're taking you'll be very excited.

Danny de Gracia, II said...

Chris, an update ... I can't blog about this because of where I am right now, but perhaps as a favor, could you do an update and maybe talk about it in detail? As it turns out, Texas is going to exercise their Tenth Amendment right and they are going to nullify/interpose the healthcare bill. I just got the press release and the petition of their State Legislature. Wow. I'm excited. As a former Texan I can't tell you how proud this makes me. Check it out:

Letter to Attorney General:
http://www.txcc.org/files/AGHealthCareLetter3.22.10_0.pdf

Press Release:
http://www.txcc.org/files/ObamaCareRelease2010.pdf