Essential Political Maxims

“The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity.” G.K. Chesterton

“Almost nothing is as important as almost everything in Washington is made to appear.  And the importance of a Washington event is apt to be inversely proportional to the attention it receives.” George Will

“Being in politics is like being a football coach; you have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.” Eugene McCarthy

“All politics is actually based on the indifference of the majority.” John Reston

“Americans view politics with boredom and detachment.  For most of us, politics is increasingly abstract, a spectator sport barely worth watching. Since the average voter believes that politics will do little to improve his life or that of his community, he votes defensively, if at all.” E. J. Dionne

“The Constitution is not an instrument for government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government‑‑lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” Gouvenor Morris

“Liberty necessitates the diminutization of political ambition and concern.  Liberty necessitates concentration on other matters than mere civil governance.  Rather, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, freemen must think on these things.” Patrick Henry

“What frustrates many Americans about politics, I think, is that their hard-earned prosperity was supposed to produce widespread decency.  It didn’t.  And as a result, we’re mad.” James Q. Wilson

“Our national temper is sour, our attention span limited, our fuse short.  We yearn childishly, for a cowboy in a white hat to ride into town.  We are ripe for political disaster.” Simon Schama

“The voters think Washington is a whorehouse and every four years they get a chance to elect a new piano player.  They would rather burn the whorehouse down.” Peggy Noonan

“We are perpetually being told that what is wanted is a strong man who will do things.  What is really wanted is a strong man who will undo things; and that will be the real test of strength.” G.K. Chesterton

P Logomorphs

Paedocide:  Taking care of the next generation by nipping it in the bud.

Phonesia: Dialing a phone number and then suddenly forgetting who you’ve just called.

Platitudinarianism:  The sentimentalizing of all issues and conflicts; the gospel of nice.

Pornodoxy:  A new standard of truth confirmed by a perversiarchy.

Pornutopia:  The end result of an ACLU lawsuit.

Pow-woo:  A carefully choreographed diplomatic photo-op; a political version of “less filling-tastes great.”

Pox Americana:  The process of inflicting the worst of American pop culture on the rest of the world.

Pseudocracy:  The false illusion of magistratal order and cogency.

Psychosophism:  The bizarre religious sophistry propounded by psychotherapists.

Pucknuckler: A fight at a hockey game.

Pundictatorship:  The absolute rule of a land by the media pundits.

More P Logomorphs

Paedophobia:  An oddly modern antipathy toward children.

Perversiarchy:  A reprobate society governed by those committed to concupiscence.

Peterpantheism:  An environmentalist dogma that refuses to face facts or to grow up.

Pharmer:  A drug lord.

Piccasso Porn:  The images from scrambled adult cable channels.

Pietoid:  An adherent of Pietism; the opposite of someone committed to true piety.

Pluriscuity:  The promiscuous vision of radical pluralism that claims an equal standing for truth and error.

Politism:  The ideology that places governmentalism at the center of all things.

Pornocracy:  A debauched culture ruled first and foremost by its sensual impulses.

Promise Peepers:  Men who attend evangelical rallies, conventions, and crusades just to see what is going on; ethical lurkers.

Psychoprattle:  The pop psychological chit-chat that passes for intelligent analysis in our day.

O Logomorphs

Obaminable: Declaring as right what is undeniably wrong; post-modern bully pulpit.

Obstropulous: Seeming to be helpful while really making things more difficult.

Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a big mistake, like accidentally sending a personal e-mail to everyone in the office.

Olibarky: Cranky, patronizing, and oh-so-pious sermonizing from the modern politically-correct elite.

OMG-iddy: Effusive enthusing on social networking sites.

Omnimoral:  The modern moralistic indifference to morality; Episcopalian ethics.

Onomatimusic: Music that actually is as bad as it sounds (with a tip of the hat to Wagner).

Oranter: The blurring of the distinction between oratory and a temper tantrum; a cable TV talk show host.

Oreosis: Eating the icing center of an Oreo before eating the cookie outside.

Osteopornosis: A disease of degeneracy.

Ozombied: Inhaling the rarefied air of the environmentalist ideologue.

N Logomorphs

Naftathoughts:  Lingering doubts about the economic and cultural benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreements.

Namenesia: Inexplicably forgetting the name of someone you know very well.

Nanachronym: Those instantly ubiquitous internet and texting abbreviations;

Narceclessia: A sleep disorder that afflicts modern Christians causing cultural detachment and irrelevance in times of grave societal danger; the church asleep in the light.

Nefariography: A biography of a notorious villain; the opposite of Hagiography.

Negalicious: Distasteful, nasty, and disgusting; the opposite of delicious and nutritious; American fast food.

Nehemiad: A bold declaration of encouragement, blessing, and optimism; the opposite of a woeful Jeremiad.

Nephitism: The bizarre historiographical and sociological claims of Mormonism that underlie its equally bizarre cultus.

Nerb: A noun misappropriated in a sentence as a verb.

Netnyet: A web search yielding only irrelevant and unrelated data; an information technology dead-end.

Newsertainment:  The reduction of broadcast and cable television news to mere entertainment.

M Logomorphs

Maastwrecked: The mess that the European Economic Community and the New World Order have made of Europe.

Machiavalium:  Political narcotics dispensed in an effort to control the people.

Macjob:  A mindless, tasteless, and valueless task undertaken merely for money.

Maledictaphobia:  A fear of saying anything offensive or negative even in the face of dire wickedness.

Mirthgirth: All that extra weight gained over the holidays.

Monkeythump: A bruise on a banana.

Monolatry:  A form of single-diety idolatry; the generic worship of the “Great Architect,” the “Divine Force,” or the “Big Guy Upstairs.”

Mopneutaxes: The current administration's economic plan in a nutshell.

Moscowrena:  The never-ending dance craze of totalitarian appeasement.

Multimediocrity:  The proliferation and diversification of brain candy in the media.

Mustbuster:  A cultural warrior specializing in the reversal of ethical necessities.

L Logomorphs

Legalossolalia:  The strangely unintelligable “tongues” spoken only by lawyers.

Libnet:  The symbiotic network of fringe-left media, academia, and government that infests Washington's corridors of power.

Limbaughtomy:  The surgical removal of welfare-state piffle, drivel, and swill; performed by transmitted airwaves.

Litegeist:  The substantivelessness of American pop culture.

Lithurgy:  The wholesale denigration of tradition, glory, and substance in modern evangelical worship; the malady of lethargic liturgy.

Loathesome Dove:  The confidential military designation for what one two-star general called its “gay-loving, pot-smoking, draft-dodging, womanizing commander-in-chief.”

Loglo:  The nighttime reflection of franchise signs along an urban American freeway.

Logogogues:  Politically-correct speech police.

Logomorph:  A neologism.

Logonutriphilos:  A consuming love for words.


Lugurgitation: Luggage popping out onto the baggage claim belt at the airport.

K Logomorphs

Kahootenany: Reposting un-Snopesed silliness on the internet.

Kanoodledoodle: Whiling the hours away on sundry social media sites.

Kantankerosity: The inclination to argue about anything, to snark about everything.

Kavorked: To be on the receiving end of legalized euthanasia.

Kerfufflefluffle: A fierce controversy over nothing; a mountain out of a molehill; majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors. 

Keypal: An internet friend; a thoroughly modern version of the penpal.

Kidnapkining: Grabbing too many napkins at a fast-food restaurant.

Klutzietgiest: An awkward, clumsy, and comic culture.

Knolltroll: An unrecalcitrant conspiratorialist. 

Kultursmog: The smothering uniformity of pop culture's amoral morals.

Kwanhanamas: Kwanza plus Hanukkah plus Christmas; thus, the politically correct “Happy Kwanhanamas!” 

J Logomorphs

Jabberjockey: Radio talk show host.

Jargonauts:  The elites who steer the course of our language; logogogues.

Jaundaucracy: A culture devoid of courage; a society led by men without chests.

Jeopardous: Risky business; hazardous behavior.

Jiggywidget: A faddish doo-dad or dig-bat or thingamajig.

Jiterati:  A subset of the cultural elite; the professional whiners and worriers.

Jocosiation: A ridiculous or hilarious assocation.

Journalying:  The tendency of modern journalists to tell their story the way the want to tell it, regardless of the facts.

Judicaricature: A mockery of justice.

Jurasic Lark:  The revival of social-democratic ideals and power; the primordial dream of liberal social planners to make every aspect of life subservient to government.

Jurisfaction: Preferential and divisive legal proceedings 

I Logomorphs

Ideolatry:  The idolatrous worship of ideology.

Iducation:  The self-centered psychologicalization of modern secular education.

IMglish: The special abbreviated, acronymic language of instant messaging, sms, and texting: omg, lol, bff, btw, cya, galgal, igbok, etc.

Impuritan:  The modern ethical paradox: the new morality of immorality.

Indignatary:  A culturo-political celebrity who has built a career and a reputation on feigned moral outrage.

Infobahn:  The web’s information super-highway.

Intaxication: Gleeful celebration upon getting a tax refund--which only lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Intelligentry:  The shallow and insipid intellectual and cultural elite at American universities.

Iraqnaphobia:  An inordinate fear of third world tin-pot dictators.

Irritainment:  Deliberately distasteful and annoying entertainment.

iWant: The irresistible temptation that overcomes even the strongest constitution whenever Apple releases a new iGadget.

H Logomorphs

Heretickle:  Popular falsehoods that are happily accommodated for the sake of church growth.

Heterodoctor:  A thoroughly modern and politically-correct university professor.

Hillarious:  A silly, shallow, superfluous, and statisfucating worldview.

Histonarcolepsy:  Sleep-walking through history.

Historectomy:  The surgical removal of any historical perspective from contemporary discussions.

Hollywired:  The marriage of the computer and entertainment industries.

Homodoxy:  The new homosexual orthodoxy taught in America’s schools

Homophilia:  Trendy depravity.

Homotextuality:  The awkward and preposterous androgyny of the new gender-neutral literary style.

Hyphenectomy:  The removal of superfluous punctuation from the last names of the thoroughly modern.

Hypocritics:  Liberals who criticize conservatives who cave into the pluralistic pressure of liberals.

G Logomorphs

Gadaboutag: An orphan HTML tag that's misdirects your web searches.

Garpage:  The editorial page of virtually all daily metropolitan newspapers; often useful, however, for the bottoms of bird cages.

Generica:  The smothering uniformity of pop American culture.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high on a bridge or a building.

Gleemail: Those inspirational emails forwarded by a friend or coworker that may or may not bring joy to your inbox.

Glibido: The impulse of someone who is all talk and no action.

Gliterati:  The high-faluting cultural elite.

Gobweb:  A catch-all internet site.

Googlegänger: Some other person who shares your name and who shows up when you google yourself.

Governrants:  The frequent—and ever increasing—lectures from Big Brother.

Gynodoxy:  The fundamentalist creed of a modern feminist ideology.

F Logomorphs

Fascinate:  Enthusiasm for consolidating all of society and culture into the hands of Big Government and Big Business—the tell-tale signs of Mercantilism (aka National Socialism).

Fascindustrialism:  Cooperative monopolization between the public and private sectors; “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Fauxment:  An artificial controversy; the stock and trade of TV news.

Fauxpolitiks:  The dismal reduction of political discourse to the trite, the picayune, and the vapid.

Fawnics:  The most basic Washington posture of political celebrity adulation.

Fetalphobia:  Fear of children—often resulting in the “Disposable Tissue Syndrome,” or DTS.

Fiburnation:  The tactic of double-speak, reversals, and outright lying from our DC pals and pols.

Fictatation: Talking back to the TV.

Firmamentalist:  Someone gripped by the modern credulity complex; lost in the Post-Modernist cosmos of bad ideas and metaphysical monkeyshines.

Fornigate:  The latest in the never-ending string of Washington scandals.

Fraudian Slip:  A round-about admission of untruthfulness.

E Logomorphs

Ecclesiophobia:  An inordinate fear of anything and everything to do with the church or people from the church actually getting involved in our communities.

Ecnalubma: A rescue vehicle which can only be seen in the rearview mirror.

Ecologian:  A theologian whose worldview is dominated by the world.

Ecominous:  The doomsaying vision of pessimistic economists.

Econausea:  One possible side-effect of an over-exposure to sundry environmentalists' greenspeak and eco-babble scare tactics.

Econtrivance:  A manipulation of the economic mechanism for political ends.

Ecstatology:  The tendency of some Christians to allow ecstatic concern about the "End Times" to distract them from their responsibilities.

Eekonomics:  The frightening financial projections of doom-and-gloom economists.

Elbonics:  The sometimes not so subtle maneuvering of two people for one armrest in a on an airplane.

Elleceleration:  Pressing an elevator button over and over again in an attempt to make it arrive quicker.

Elvistibule:  A small shrine to the King of Rock and Roll—complete with velvet portrait and Avon commemorative collectibles.

Even More E Logomorphs

Empty-Vee:  The vapid contentlessness and valuelessness of current TV programming.

Environmentia:  A worldview dominated by whatever the latest ideological rant may be.

Errstats:  Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Establishmentality:  The inability to think beyond accepted institutional/ideological parameters.

Ethoplegic:  A malady that suddenly paralyzes the ethical scruples of elected  officials once they arrive in Washington.

Europa Nervosa:  A condition resulting from the geo-political instability of Europe.

Europhoria:  The ecstatic mirth that centralizing politicians exude over the possibility of saving the economies and bureaucracies of a united Europe.

Evangeneric:  The bland mainstream of American civil religion.

Evangerenity:  An ethically suspect mish-mash of Evangelical Christianity and Twelve-Step serenity pop-psycho-babble.

E-Vangelist:  A proselytizing internet enthusiast.

Exaspirin: A child-proof medicine bottle that proves to be very nearly adult-proof as well.

D Logomorphs

Datadiddling:  The digital manipulation of facts.

Deatherapy:  The medicalization of murder.

Demigraphics: A poorly composed, wretchedly distracting PowerPoint presentation.

Demockeracy:  Making a mockery of constitutional freedoms and liberties in the name of constitutional freedoms and liberties.

Designosaurs:  Perpetuators of bad, out-dated design.

Destinesia: Arriving at a destination but having forgotten why you went in the first place.

Dipsomanagerial:  The insatiable, often periodic craving of government functionaries to micro-manage rather than macro-lead in the face of a cultural crisis.

Disconfect:  To sterilize the piece of candy you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, somehow assuming this will remove all the germs.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of ridiculous ideas to gain currency simply because they are repeatedly, incessantly broadcast over the airwaves.

Dyspecia:  An anti-human bias among certain social scientists.

Dyspensensationalism:  A manically dystopic, feverishly sensational  eschatology.

C Logomorphs

Cacophantasy:  The noisome notions of mindless debauchery that pass for “having a good time” among the young and restless.

Celefeign:  Someone who is famous for being famous—a celebrity with no discernable talent.

Cleresy:  Religious error perpetrated under the cloak of respectible clerical authority.

Codependustry:  The therapeutic industry that has been built up around the specious notions of pop-psychology.

Compascism:  Coercive pseudo-compassion—another name for our failing and flailing welfare system.

Consciousness razing:  The curious practice of defiling young minds through modern educational innovations.

Copapathetic:  Blithe acceptance of the tragic and the pathetic.

Cornea Gumbo:  Topological or graphical gobbledy-gook—eye candy.

Correctigensia:  The self-appointed enforcers of Political Correctness—the mind-fashion police.

Cyberbarian:  A high tech barbarian.

Cyberpork:  Government subsidies of high tech industries.

B Logomorphs

Begathon:  Online, Cable TV, or Radio fund-raiser—a guilt and pity party.

Bitnik:  A hyper-hip computer nerd—the postmodern version of a beatnik.

Blandiose:  A grandiose blandness—a seemingly incurable malady that afflicts the minds of politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Blamestorming:  The modern rant of Facebook rants and talk radio call-in shows.

Bloatocratic:  The ever expanding bureaucracy in Washington.

Blockbluster:  The hype surrounding many a Hollywood dud.

Bloodba’ath:  The mode of political operation in the Middle East where Islamicists and Ba’athists scramble for absolute control.

Blurbonic Plague:  The static inclination of the media to edit down political sound-bites into even smaller nuggets for popular mass consumption.

Bozon:  an isolated example of stupidity—a single unit or particle of dim-wittedness.

Brutalitarianism:  A brutal regulatory governmental regime that interferes with virtually every aspect of life.

Bureausaurus:  Lifetime appointments to the professional federal ruling class.

A Logomorphs

Academentia: The pathogenic moral and intellectual epidemic that currently ravages most politically-correct campuses.

Accordionated: Being able to drive and refold a road map at the same time.

Adhocracy:  The modern tendency to govern on the basis of whim rather than on the basis of law—especially evident in the rulings of federally appointed judicial activists.

Affluential: To shamelessly utilize great wealth for personal political aggrandizement—all in the name of “the people” or “the owners of the country.”

Agoraphopolitica:  A fear of political involvement—a peculiar psychotic manifestation of the "evangelical ghetto" ethos.

Ambiguography:  The Washington and Hollywood puff-piece inclination to omit all salient questions of substance, qualification, and character in their hagiographical celebrity profiles.

Anthropocide:  An odd habit practiced by advanced societies to insure their ultimate extinction—the slaying of our progeny.

Anthropophobia:  An inveterate and consuming fear of all things human--despising the comforts and joys of civilization.

Anti-semantic:  The refusal of liberal humanists to define terms in any significant debate--cultural, political, moral, or economic.

Aquadextrous:  Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes.

Auldlanxiety:  The woe-begotten longing for fifties-style traditional values—as opposed to ageless Biblical values.