Saturday, April 08, 2017
Oxymoron of the Day
I don't believe the Russians had any effect on our voting for President 5 months ago and I don't believe that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in any way regarding the election. But I'm willing to change my mind and I follow from time to time lefty leaning writers who insist that both things actually happened.
Like today here, titled: Of Course there's Evidence Trump Colluded with Russian Intelligence.
There are three authors of the article but the only one with a bio near the article is Jordan Brunner, a summa cum grad of ASU now a second year law student there (and that's a problem. Second years at most have about 40% of a complete legal education but they generally think they know everything at least based on my personal history). Anyway he promises evidence of collusion and I dived in.
But then I hit this partial sentence:
Tacit collaboration? Wouldn't that be collaboration with only one side doing anything? That is not collaboration at all as that word is used by rational people?
And the evidence of this "tacit collaboration"?
Not collaboration. If talking about and repeating the leaked e-mails etc. is collaboration then all the news networks collaborated with the Russians; all the ordinary people who talked about or repeated the leaked e-mails, etc. collaborated with the Russians. Indeed, Mr. Brunner collaborated with the Russians here. Of course, merely repeating leaked material is not collaboration as that word is used by rational people. But according to Mr. Brunner, a large portion of the American people collaborated with the Russians. Tacitly. What a maroon!
Let me use a simple example from outside the political sphere. I don't collaborate with Pink Floyd every time I play a cut from Dark Side of the Moon. I'm merely a consumer of Pink Floyd's artistic output. They don't know me from Adam.
And the rest of the supporting "evidence" is Trump talking about the Wikileaks document dumps. That's it.
There is no such thing as tacit collaboration. Indeed, since mutual active (read verbal) commitment is the sine qua non for collaboration, that term is an oxymoron, emphasis here on the moron.
Like today here, titled: Of Course there's Evidence Trump Colluded with Russian Intelligence.
There are three authors of the article but the only one with a bio near the article is Jordan Brunner, a summa cum grad of ASU now a second year law student there (and that's a problem. Second years at most have about 40% of a complete legal education but they generally think they know everything at least based on my personal history). Anyway he promises evidence of collusion and I dived in.
But then I hit this partial sentence:
There is, in fact, copious evidence of at least tacit collaboration between the Russians and the Trump campaign....
Tacit collaboration? Wouldn't that be collaboration with only one side doing anything? That is not collaboration at all as that word is used by rational people?
And the evidence of this "tacit collaboration"?
It included open encouragement of the Russians to hack Democratic targets; denial that they had done so; encouragement of Wikileaks, which was publicly known to be effectively a publishing arm of the Russian operation, in publishing the fruits of the hacks; and publicly trumpeting the contents of stolen emails.
Not collaboration. If talking about and repeating the leaked e-mails etc. is collaboration then all the news networks collaborated with the Russians; all the ordinary people who talked about or repeated the leaked e-mails, etc. collaborated with the Russians. Indeed, Mr. Brunner collaborated with the Russians here. Of course, merely repeating leaked material is not collaboration as that word is used by rational people. But according to Mr. Brunner, a large portion of the American people collaborated with the Russians. Tacitly. What a maroon!
Let me use a simple example from outside the political sphere. I don't collaborate with Pink Floyd every time I play a cut from Dark Side of the Moon. I'm merely a consumer of Pink Floyd's artistic output. They don't know me from Adam.
Most notoriously, on July 27, Trump stated during a news conference: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”I know most lefties are completely humorless, but even some of them are savvy enough to know that this was humor from the President. He was making a joke at Hillary Clinton's expense not actually encouraging the Russians to hack accounts or reveal past collections of hacked accounts. Not the best evidence of "tacit collaboration" whatever that term actually means.
And the rest of the supporting "evidence" is Trump talking about the Wikileaks document dumps. That's it.
There is no such thing as tacit collaboration. Indeed, since mutual active (read verbal) commitment is the sine qua non for collaboration, that term is an oxymoron, emphasis here on the moron.
Labels: Oxymoron: Tacit Collaboration; Jordan Brunner: Doing Violence to the English Language
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 11:39 AM 
