PONS ASINORUM

by Professor Revilo P. Oliver (Liberty Bell, August 1991)

In Mediaeval schools, the fifth proposition in Euclid was used to weed out dunces. It was regarded as a narrow bridge from the first four self-evident propositions to the beginning of real geometry, and clumsy minds of only quadruped intelligence fell from it and were a good riddance.

Christian News, 3 April 1991, contains an article entitled "Religion Increasingly an Ally, not Enemy, of State in U.S.S.R."

The events there recorded have inspired joy among professionals in the salvation-business, who have been given a new means of extracting dollars from suckers, (1) and amazement among self-styled 'Kremlinologists,' who are so surprised they can only gabble about an epochal "end of Communism."
 
 

(1. One remembers the highly profitable milking of suckers in the late 1950s by dervishes who solicited funds to float Bibles on balloons (against the prevailing winds) into Soviet territory.)
 
 

Persons who are at all surprised by the news or think it an indication of a fundamental change confess they have been totally ignorant of the nature of Communism and Soviet rule, i.e., have not gone beyond the drivel in their newspapers. But if they have professed to have made a special study of those subjects, they now demonstrate that they are mentally incompetent to deal with topics that require a modicum of critical intelligence.
 
 

This article originally appeared in Liberty Bell magazine, published monthly by George P. Dietz from September 1973 to February 1999. For reprint information please write to Liberty Bell Publications, Post Office Box 21, Reedy WV 25270 USA.

Copyright ©1999 Kevin Alfred Strom.  Back to Revilo P. Oliver Index