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mikkyT
2003-03-03, 05:14 AM
This aint a polictical statement by me, its just damn funny!

""A letter to the London Observer from Terry Jones (of Monty Python).
Letter to the Observer, Sunday 26 January 2003


I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for bombing Iraq: he's running out of patience. And so am I! For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what.


I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden. That's how devious he is. As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know - from very good sources that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by one. Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why don't I go to the police? But that's simply ridiculous. The police will say that they need evidence of a crime with which to charge my neighbours.


They'll come up with endless red tape and quibbling about the rights and wrongs of a pre-emptive strike and all the while Mr Johnson will be finalising his plans to do terrible things to me, while Mr Patel will be secretly murdering people. Since I'm the only one in the street with a decent range of automatic firearms, I reckon it's up to me to keep the peace. But until recently that's been a little difficult. Now, however, George W. Bush has made it clear that all I need ! to! do is run out of patience, and then I can wade in and do whatever I want!


And let's face it, Mr Bush's carefully thought-out policy towards Iraq is the only way to bring about international peace and security. The one certain way to stop Muslim fundamentalist suicide bombers targeting the US or the UK is to bomb a few Muslim countries that have never threatened us.


That's why I want to blow up Mr Johnson's garage and kill his wife and children. Strike first! That'll teach him a lesson. Then he'll leave us in peace and stop peering at me in that totally unacceptable way. Mr Bush makes it clear that all he needs to know before bombing Iraq is that Saddam is a really nasty man and that he has weapons of mass destruction - even if no one can find them. I'm certain I've just as much justification for killing Mr Johnson's wife and children as Mr Bush has for bombing Iraq. Mr Bush's long-term aim is to make the world a safer place by eliminating 'rogue states' and 'terrorism'. It's such a clever long-term aim because how can you ever know when you've achieved it?


How will Mr Bush know when he's wiped out all terrorists? When every single terrorist is dead? But then a terrorist is only a terrorist once he's committed an act of terror. What about would-be terrorists? These are the ones you really want to eliminate, since most of the known terrorists, being suicide bombers, have already eliminated themselves. Perhaps Mr Bush needs to wipe out everyone who could possibly be a future terrorist? Maybe he can't be sure he's achieved his objective until every Muslim fundamentalist is dead? But then some moderate Muslims might convert to fundamentalism. Maybe the only really safe thing to do would be for Mr Bush to eliminate all Muslims?


It's the same in my street. Mr Johnson and Mr Patel are just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of other people in the street who I don't like and who - quite frankly - look at me in odd ways. No one will be really safe until I've wiped them all out. My wife says I might be going too far but I tell her I'm simply using the same logic as the President of the United States. That shuts her up.


Like Mr Bush, I've run out of patience, and if that's a good enough reason for the President, it's good enough for me. I'm going to give the whole street two weeks - no, 10 days - to come out in the open and hand over all aliens and interplanetary hijackers, galactic outlaws and interstellar terrorist masterminds, and if they don't hand them over nicely and say 'Thank you', I'm going to bomb the entire street to kingdom come. It's just as sane as what George W. Bush is proposing and, in contrast to what he's intending, my policy will destroy only one street.


Terry Jones""

Zatrais
2003-03-03, 06:22 AM
hehe

CockRoach
2003-03-03, 02:45 PM
he got a point there, i still think bush should bomg iraq tho

ABRAXAAS
2003-03-03, 02:50 PM
Thats some funny shit :D

Lexington_Steele
2003-03-03, 08:32 PM
This does pose an interesting question though. If you know someone commited a crime, you know that they are going to commit a crime against you and you family, but you have no conviction worthy evidence that you can present to authorities, what is the right thing to do? Stay within the law? Protect the interests of yourself and your family?

You might as well do your best to convince the authorities to do something. In the end, if the authorities are not willing to help you, is protecting the interests of you and your family so horrible, even if you are breaking the law?

Confectrix
2003-03-03, 08:35 PM
CockRoach

Just noticed your signature.

Question.

Human supidity is infinite as you say. Humans are finite. How can a finite being exhibit an infinite amount of anything?

Your quote is illogical.

Thought you'd like to know.

Yours,

Fire_Monkey
2003-03-03, 08:50 PM
:rofl:

Confectrix
2003-03-03, 09:11 PM
What's really crazy is how can a human being think of the infinite being only finite himself?

How can a finite being think of the infinite and seek to understand it [espically in mathematical equations]?

How can the infinite exist without the finite. Therefore, does this presuppose the true existance of the infinite?

To study such things strikes at the root of all knowlege. To study such things is to study philosophy.

Try it sometime.

And not that Marxist garbage.

Derv
2003-03-03, 09:31 PM
Wow Confectrix, you like to flame a lot.... I found that letter to be quite humorous and took it as the way it was supposed to be taken. It seems to me that "somebody" didn't find it so funny. And I agree that this does bring up some important questions, that everyone should consider, maybe even the President himself.

Maybe what Bush is doing goes against the laws and the Constitution itself? It seems to me to be a subjective balance between "safety" and "evidence." Although some people say that we are acting to prevent the mistake that we and many other countries made before WWII, which was to try to prevent war from occurring for as long as possible, I don't think that Saddam has crossed the line that Hitler did.

Confectrix
2003-03-03, 09:33 PM
Blah.

Flame. No. I'm not on that often, but when I am, I like to be on and let me voice be heard.

I don't care if the letter is funny.

It matters not.

Yours,

Lexington_Steele
2003-03-03, 09:44 PM
Not everything has to be philosophy. It seemed more to be commentary on human behavior rather then philosophy.

That which is not logical often works for humor or literary purposes.

I am not sure how that was Marxist. (It very well could relate to Marxism, I just didn't make the connection)

CockRoach, I think your sig is just fine.

Confectrix
2003-03-03, 09:48 PM
Lex:

This is my last post since my hour internet time is over.

Everything is philosophy. To be or not to be, that is the question. Speak with Shakespeare on this one.

Logic is often intertwined in humor. It makes it more sensible; and less chaotic. Real humor cleverly hides the logic.

I didn't say his letter was Marxist. No, it probably wasn't. I was encouraging the reading of philosophy, but not the readin of marxist philosophy. My last post here had nothing to do with the letter. Call it spam if you will.

Cockroach's sig is fine; but illogical. Illogical is fine.

Farewell unto farewell Lex:

Lexington_Steele
2003-03-03, 10:14 PM
I saw it as a logical use of the word infinitely.

Can you rewrite the quote without the uses of the word infinately (or a similar word describing something without limits) without ruining the humor that was attached to the statement?

If there was no other way to make the same statement with the same effect, then there was a clear logic to the statement.

Bighoss
2003-03-03, 11:27 PM
Originally posted by Confectrix
CockRoach

Just noticed your signature.

Question.

Human supidity is infinite as you say. Humans are finite. How can a finite being exhibit an infinite amount of anything?

Your quote is illogical.

Thought you'd like to know.

Yours,

I think its an expression that he made up as a joke or he got that from the Darwin award. You just here so many stupid deaths that perhaps human stupidy in the most infinite thing we know of today because we actually can't even picture infinity were too stupid sadly:(

Sputty
2003-03-04, 01:44 AM
...Right...anyway..The amazing philosophical discussion is revving up :p JK. BTW, I hate most quotes. PSU's are good as they are funny and original but most people quoting scientists are idiots spewing info they don't understand. Although..the thinig you said wasnt so much info as an idea...Anyway..BAH!

Confectrix
2003-03-04, 09:03 PM
Lex:

The instrinsic logic of the statement was false. The very sentence is illogical.

You are correct in saying that it follows a certain logic of humor.

But in itself; it is illogical.

That is all I am saying.

Also, what is the humor in insinuating that humanity is infinitly stupid?

The decadence of our being is quite common...and troubling.

Yours,

Lexington_Steele
2003-03-05, 03:08 PM
The purpose of the statement was not to create a logical argument. It was to create a pseudological argument for the purposes of humor.

From top to bottom every word in the quote attempts to serves a specific purpose and successfully fulfills that purpose. There is a logic behind the use of every word. Whether or not humans really are infinitely stupid does not effect whether or not the purpose of the statement is achieved. Is see that as logical statement. Trying to make a mathematically logical argument there would have been illogical.

As far as trying to argue that humans are not infinitely stupid, that is tough to do. Where do you put the boundaries on human stupidity where every type or example of human stupidity would fall into.

As for why it is funny, who know where humor comes from.

Why is a chicken crossing the road funny?

People often make fun of other people and we call them jokes. People laugh at the darwin awards.

I maintain that it is a good signature :)

Confectrix
2003-03-05, 05:03 PM
Lex, maybe you didn't read what I said. Let me restate here for you to reread again:

"You are correct in saying that it follows a certain logic of humor."

Humans are not infinitly stupid because they are a finite being. Elementry logic. Really 6th grade logic.

I'm done with this one.

Squeeky is cracking down.

Lexington_Steele
2003-03-05, 05:12 PM
Why can't a finite creature contain something that is infinite?

Is your imagination finite?

Is there a finite amount of music that can be written?

Camping Carl
2003-03-05, 05:44 PM
Trin Tragula-for that was his name-was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosipher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.

"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day. And so he built the total perspective vortex-just to show her.

And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.

To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

-Quote from The Restuarant at The End of The Universe
Douglas Adams 1980

Destroyeron
2003-03-05, 06:19 PM
:confused:

Confectrix
2003-03-05, 10:26 PM
Thanks camping. I really needed that.