Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan) has resigned. In May, McCotter failed spectacularly to qualify for the Republican primary in his district by turning in only a fraction of the required valid signatures along with a forest of fraudulent ones. He dropped out of the race and has asked the state to investigate what went wrong.
You can read McCotter's full statement about resigning on his Facebook page. Your challenge is to diagram just this one McCotter sentence:
"Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must 'strike another match, go start anew' by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen."
A few notes: The sentence is too long to fit in the Reed-Kellogg diagrammer, so you'll have to do this one by hand. McCotter is quoting from a Dylan song, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." And yes, he just promoted himself to sovereign citizen.
Drop responses to this challenge in the comments or upload them here. UPDATE: First beautiful responses here.
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Crazy is as crazy does..Whew!
I live in Mi, and this is only a small example of our illustrious legislators. It will get more pronounced, as "fracking" gets up to speed and we can begin to set our wet hair on fire!
Sarah Palin went to the same school of non-stop nonsense.
Now, as a Preacher, I know St Paul was the master of the run on sentence, but this guy takes the cake! Sovereign citizen? Of where, exactly...Crazyville?
Dear Preacher, this was NOT a run-on sentence, which involves stacking independent clause on independent clause sans proper punctuation. It was merely a LONG and RAMBLING sentence, which contained some oxymorons, such as "promotion back." Now about "sovereign citizen," I'll have to get back to you.
Too true about St. Paul! At least McCotter uses commas.
:( Cozumeldeb... I was going to call firsties... :,(
I can't diagram. I think my mind exploded.
This is so dumb it makes my head hurt. Sorry, no diagram from me.
Even with Palin palling around and Bachmann backtracking (okay, I stretched on that one), this is a whole new level of crazy. Also, *snort* couldn't get enough signatures to get on a ballot and committed voter fraud as the incumbent. lol
Is this really a sentence, or just a bunch of random words strung together?
There is a term for random words strung together. It is called "word salad" and is an indication of the thoughts being confused. I have an ethical question or existential dilemna...should media report these clear examples of such confusion? It is a sign of very extreme stress...just sayin'. I couldn't grasp what that sentence meant, but go the overall message b/c I work with people who have trouble with their thinking.
Just sayin'...it's not a good sign.
Please post the diagraming results. I want to see the efforts.
Wasn't McCotter a presidential candidate too? He never could get an invitation to a debate though.
Unless he has a health problem (mental included), leaving his constituents without a representative at this point in his term is selfish.
How can you diagram stupidity? Seems a lot of these GOP'ers speak this gibberish. Palin, Haley and Romney come to mind. They can say more about nothing and think we don't see right through them.
Say Whaaaaat???? How about just go.
Oh no does this qualify for voter fraud?? Of course not he's a Republican. But wait, weren't they Republicans in Maryland that just got convicted of voter fraud??
Or the republican in Indiana - oh wait, do I see a pattern - republicans get caught doing voter fraud, so it must be the voters likely to vote democrat who are doing the fraud - must stop them even if you disenfranchise thousands of American citizens from voting
Is there some kind of state penalty for voter fraud? Enforce it.
Talk about bloviating ignoramuses.
He must use Trump's speech writer! It is like they all speak from the same script. Gibberish!
There are not too too many sovereign citizens? I'll be there one day.
Or, in other words, "I screwed up and will retire to save my family further embarrassment."
Nattering nabobs of nonsensitude!
The gist "Woe is me".
You couldn't even use block, cycle, cluster, ladder, network, round, spiral, timeline, tree AND triangular diagrams combined to accurately portray the one sentence, let alone the whole statement.
And Venn also rolled over in his grave.
Nice for him to also confirm that you are, apparently, NOT a citizen while in office and that public service is a demotion from such.
You might be able to work out something in a Feynman diagram, but it would be difficult to verify the results until the Large Hadron Collider gets up to full power next year.
I don't think I care enough to try - really. Normally I'm up for that stuff but it's too darn HOT! :)
What it really means is...... Since I cheated and couldn't win......... You fill in the blanks.
I believe it translates roughly as "I am a pretentious nitwit"
As a Social Worker, diagramming the sentence is less important to me than questioning mental health status. Fortunately, there ARE medications for that.
Mary, He's already taking all those things. Also, as a social worker, you should realize that there is no medication out there that does not make problems worse.
As a recovering addict I recommend a drug screen.
As someone with Bipolar 1 Rapid Cycling who is now about as stable as one who has the rapid cycling form of the disease I must beg to differ with Andrew Middleman. The medications I presently take have made my life immensely better. Yes, there are side effects, but at least now I no longer want to die on a regular basis.
Forget your high society, I'm soakin' it in Kerosene Light ‘em up and watch them burn, teach ‘em what they need to learn, ha Dirty hands ain't made for shakin', ain't a rule that ain't worth breakin' Well I'm givin' up on love ‘cause love's given up on me
Read more: MIRANDA LAMBERT - KEROSENE LYRICS http://www.metrolyrics.com/kerosene-lyrics-miranda-lambert.html#ixzz1zspY3hJL
Copied from MetroLyrics.com
it i so obvious he was having "a dark and stormy night"
"I" is the subject.
Did he go to school with Sarah Palin?
My very first thought was that he must have gone to the Sarah Palin School of Public Speaking <LOL> I just want to know if he wrote this gem on his hand
Even Chomsky just turned over in his grave. But perhaps this response is a creative new form of American grammar. I am seeing 3D diagrams!
Yes, the sentence is just not grammatical without being modified. However, please note that Chomsky is still alive at age 83.
I'm reminded of Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina, who, when asked "Why can't one fifth of Americans locate the USA on a world map?" replied...
"I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and I believe that our education like such as South Africa, and the Iraq, everywhere like, such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., or should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for our children."
Isn't our public,(and parochial, charter, whatever), school system great?
While it would have been sad had he experienced a stroke during this press conference, his words and their meaning would, at the very least, have been more coherent than this pile of poo.
Miss Teen South Carolina is all I needed to know
That's it...he's a beauty pageant contestant in disguise!
I see a smoldering fire, and POOF, going out of his House office space as it goes up in a blaze and somehow, I wonder if he follows the fire crews at home and I recall that movie with Drew Barrymore, 'The Firestarter..." And off in the distance, the Raven quoth, " Thandeus Nevermore..."