The Bell Tolls for Joe Sobran

The irreverent Joe Sobran, one of America's great conservative writers, has succumbed to complications of diabetes. He was just 64.

After years of stellar service at National Review, Sobran's opposition to the first Iraq war cost him his job, at the hands of CIA man William F. Buckley. It was Buckley who called him an anti-Semite, which prompted me to track down these entries from Joe's Dictionary:

anti-Semite: a person who’s hated by Jews

association, freedom of: discrimination

bigot: one who practices sociology without a license

bribe: an irregular transaction through which the citizen may get his
money’s worth of service from the government

civil rights: government power used in behalf of large groups

guilt: the deepest vested interest

isolationist: an American who thinks America should behave like other
countries

opinion polls: clever devices to make the hostages think they control
their captors

political correctness: the felt pressure of enlightened public
opinion, under which we sense that certain thoughts, though
technically legal now, are already destined to become taboo.

psychoanalysis: a form of aggression for humorless people

public opinion: what everyone thinks everyone else thinks

rich: politicians’ nickname for “other people” (as in “tax the rich”)

rights: authorizations for new areas of government control

rogue nation: a country that behaves like America

voting: trying to say something with a gag in your mouth

A big H/T to Joe, for contributing decades of principled articulate wit to the discussion.

Thank you, Sir, and Rest Peacefully...