“Situation hopeless but not serious” has never really entered my verbal repertoire, but I’m reminded of it by John at Notes from a Common-place Book in Monday’s The End of Endism.
Given the triumphalist idea he’s responding to – the “accepted belief of Western leaders –that our liberal democratic institutions are the end-result of history–‘the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government'” – I’m inclined to agree, as this seems to me an hubristic Western transposition of American Exceptionalism.
Pride cometh before a fall.
We too often settle for cheap substitutes – e.g., eros instead of agape, sex instead of friendship. But to have friendship, there needs to be someone ready to reciprocate, and it’s easier to find someone to reciprocate, er, eros.
But nobody ever hated themselves in the morning after a night of wild, unstrained friendship.
Singapore thinks morality and social values are a legitimate basis for law. (H/T Howard Friedman at Religion Clause; Opinion here; summary news story here)
It’s now an American myth, promulgated by our Supreme Court, that it’s not. I use “myth” in the fully deprecatory sense, for what is reflexive egalitarianism if not a moral and social value of sorts? Indeed, apart from mala prohibita like “Thou shalt not drive on the left side of the road in the United States,” what laws are not based on morality?
Pro Tip: When someone says “It’s just that simple,” it’s not.
“As simple as possible, but no simpler,” is in my verbal repertoire.
Count me among those who consider it a scandal that poor people serve decades in prison for conduct that get’s Lindsay Lohan another “rehab” and late-night TV interviews.
It’s a good thing that “Christ didn’t come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live.”The “bad men good” theory seems to lack empirical or anecdotal verification.
That’s all I’m sayin’, but I’m just sayin’.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 
The “situation hopeless but not serious” is a throw-away line from one of my favorite–and largely unknown–comedies, James Cagney’s 1962 “One, Two, Three.”