Lex Anteinternet: Word de Jour

Showing posts with label Word de Jour. Show all posts

Sunday, April 2, 2023

Weaponizing

One of my coworkers weaponizes his lunch (which contains approximately the same caloric quantities as the amount which sustained the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War) every day with Frank's Hot Sauce. I've never had it, but it stinks.

Any long term student of politics and the American media knows that at any one time there's a World de Jour. Some catchphrase that everyone is incorporating into their speech.

A few years ago, it was "vette", as to vette, or vett, someone. John McCain was accused of not adequately "vetting" Sarah Palin, and then things were off and rolling. You couldn't listen to anything without there being commentary on somebody or something needing to be vetted.

After that, it was "double down". It took off and became simply absurd. People didn't back off a bad idea, they "doubled down". Everyone you went people were doubling down, like you were in a Los Vegas casino on amateur night. It was really out of control.

Now it's "weaponizing".

Everything is being weaponized. Justice, laws, whatever.

Of course, the question is whether or not they're being misused. Whatever the answer to that is, they certainly aren't being turned into Predator drones or something.

None the less, everyone is using the term. Right now, I fully expect to have this conversation at a Burger King soon.

I'll have the Whopper with fries please.
Would you like to weaponize that by adding jalapeños?

It's out of control.

FWIW, the "weaponizing", or misuse, of the justice system as a concept had its origin in my view in the Enron prosecutions in which, effectively, Enron executives, while they were in violation of the law, were made sacrificial lambs for the economy. That really opened the door to an Athenian concept of democracy, in which people are prosecuted for failure. Following that, it went ballistic with the rabid GOP reaction to the Benghazi embassy attacks, following which there was all sorts of nonsense about needing to prosecute somebody. It was pure political theater and nothing more.

At least since 2016 the concept has been rampaging in the far left and far right, with Republicans in the 2016 election wanting to prosecute Clinton. Now nobody can be a sitting President without cries of "impeach" and investigations into everything.

Which is not to say Trump shouldn't pay for any crimes he committed. Any President should.

Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

We hope you'll feel moved to comment as well. While we moderate every comment, so as to weed out Spam, we greatly appreciate the comments where they are offered, and hope to see more.

Thank you for stopping in!