Bafflegab

Just the other day a friend of mine wrote an amusing editorial on what I like to call the "Blithering technique" of journalitics. It's not new. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if we were to read some of the vast store of cuneiform tablets that have come out of various hills and caves of the near east, we would find plenty of it all the way back to Nineveh's most recent municipal election.

It's pretty simple: Say a lot more words than you need to when you want to say something nasty.

John wrote:

Most abortionists are euphemists. By which I mean merely, to quote Chesterton, “that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing.”

If, for instance, you say to an abortionist, “The excessive burden upon the mother, particularly in light of the rights to autonomy, privacy and reproductive freedom, of an unplanned pregnancy precludes any ethical objections to surgically removing the products of pregnancy post-viability, but prior to completion of delivery,” a gentle, indeed a radiant smile will cross his face, and he will dose off as if to a lullaby.

Say, on the other hand, in a forceful, straight-forward way, “Crush the skulls and suck out the brains of your children!” and he will leap from his seat, startled and full of objections.

But the two sentences mean precisely the same thing.

Or, if you were to say, “An analysis of the cost-benefit ratio of carrying to term a fetus found via amniocentesis to have non-disjunction of the 23rd chromosome invariably leads to the conclusion that medical resources would be better allocated by discontinuing the pregnancy,” your average abortion supporter will sway like a child borne carelessly upon the waves of a warm summer sea.

But unapologetically bellow forth the declaration, “Save money! Kill all the disabled kids!” and you will get a very different reaction indeed. But, once again, cold logic says that the two propositions propose precisely the same thing.

So, for a quick little exercise try to figure out what this man is saying and translate:

The reasons behind this difficult decision, which we did not make lightly, the note reads, can be drawn back to the a close examination of the maze of laws and the possible clashing between State and Regional authorities. Basically, the research we have done lead us to think that it is probable that, if we offer Mrs (sic) Englaro a place according to the planned procedure, the Minister might take on plans, which, however valid temporarily as regards the specific authority of the institutions involved, would put the workability of the structure at risk,

Hint: he's the director of the nursing care home that offered a place to Eluana Englaro so her father's fond wish that she be dehydrated to death could be carried out.

He's recently withdrawn the offer.

Faced with this particular, concrete future, the care home was therefore obliged to turn down its conceived offer of care which had as its only aim the logistic support necessary for Mr Beppino Englaro to carry out the wishes of his daughter.

Too much paper work involved, I suppose, in turning your old-folks home into a death camp.