Our favorite part of the Christian Bible is the letter from James who draws an important distinction between words and acts.
“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” James wrote. “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Lately the news has been filled with stories of words.
First there was Clive Bundy’s ill put racially tinged rant about the welfare state destruction of the African American family.
Then there was Los Angeles soon to be ex-own Richard Stirling overtly racist rant about bringing black people to his basketball games.
With apologies to the great Yeats they were both offensive yet meaningless words.
Whatever his beliefs Cliven Bundy is not and was not going to don a white sheet and go out and terrorize poor black folk and neither was Stirling going to ban rich black folk from his games.
They were just words bad offensive words but words nonetheless.
Its the deeds the bother us.
The deeds of the BLM ninjas who actually did terrorize Bundy’s family and supporters really bother us.
The fines leveled at Stirling by the NBA and the lifetime ban not so much, well maybe just a little bit. As a man he is kind of disgusting but disgusting is not against the law. And if we were to fine anyone who said something offensive we would lose our shirts by the end of every dinner party we went to.
The great Lenny Bruce once suggested that we all should use words like nigger and kike and wop everyday because after a while they would lose their ability to hurt.
But then there are other words.
Like those strung together by our erstwhile president and his even more erstwhile secretary of state.
Lofty grand words condemning the genocide in Darfur. It still goes on.
Noble words bemoaning the murder of Syria. It still goes on.
The dismemberment of the Ukraine. It still goes on.
The rape of Libya. It still goes on.
The decline of the American middle class. It still goes on.
And the enrichment of the elites. They are still getting richer.
The speeches are nice but we have long since tuned them out.
They are meaningless words.
Or as our friend James would have said.
SHUT UP OR DO SOMETHING!!!!