Feedback from May 19 and Beyond 

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Empty Talk
I tuned into The Talk the other day. The hot button issue that afternoon? Should Kim Kardashian have worn Marilyn Monroe's iconic dress to the Met Gala this year, or was that wrong?

Friends, there are bigger moral issues at play in society today, but not according to the moguls of mediocrity with CBS who produce this show. According to a consensus of our betters, Monroe's dress is like the parchment of the Declaration of Independence—untouchable.

Forget world hunger, climate change, NATO expansion, Ukraine contraction, price inflation, intelligence deflation, the rise of autocracy and the evaporation of American democracy.

The 1% class is determined to dumb down Americans to the status of Roman plebeians, so we are as subservient to their wishes as common slaves.

But if "the dress" issue doesn't float your boat, maybe a new summer TV show will. Who is not looking forward to hot, nubile bodies finding love in the jungle without talking to each other? Now, that's some fire, brah. Almost as hot as best friend celebrities parading onto the stage of Ellen DeGeneres' final few shows with praises more inflated than meat prices.

I, for one, am not looking forward to America's final days, which will follow not long after Ellen's.
KIMBALL SHINKOSKEY
Woods Cross

Gun Violence 'Prompts' More of the Same
"Failed gun legislation is the norm," reads the headline at Axios, "after mass shootings like the Buffalo tragedy." Further down in the story, we read that an October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas "prompted fresh calls from lawmakers on both sides to pass gun control legislation."

Also relating to the Buffalo shooting, Pennsylvania's Daily Item reports that it "prompted GOP legislative leaders to call Monday for the reinstatement of New York's death penalty law for murders fueled by racism and hatred."

I read a lot of news stories each and every day, and I'm always surprised at how often I see various events characterized as "prompting" calls for action—the same calls, for the same actions, from the same people who were making exactly the same calls for exactly the same actions long before the events in question.

In context, use of the word "prompt" could be correct in the theatrical sense: A cue for an actor to read well-memorized lines at the most opportune time. But in context, most of these stories seem to use it in a different sense, per the 1913 edition of Webster's: "To instigate; to incite .... To suggest; to dictate."

That is, the stories would have us believe that the "prompted" politicians and activists weren't pushing for Policy X before Event Y, but are doing so now because of Event Y. They once were blind but now can see, see?

In reality, most of us don't change our minds very often, or about very many things. And politicians and activists resemble that remark on steroids. They got where they are by advocating for or against Policy X. Abandoning that advocacy isn't a sound job security move; doubling down on it is.

Politicians and activists genuinely changing their minds is extremely rare. When a politician even pretends to do so, it's usually at a glacial pace and in an effort to get more in step with his or her party or faction so as to receive promotions (for example, see the correlation between Joe Biden's presidential campaigns and his positions on abortion over the decades).

In most cases, claims of Event X "prompting" calls for Policy Y should be understood to mean "Supporters of Policy Y Seize Opportunity to Grandstand on Event X."
THOMAS L. KNAPP
The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism

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