Word: foolishly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rather than possessing consistencies, it is their consistencies that possess them; and they probably are less in control of themselves than more erratic and volatile spirits. To maintain an unshakable view Thus the face of contrary evidence is to maintain a fiction. Thus a consistency need not be specifically "foolish," as Emerson declared, to be diminishing. Any consistency opposed to experience is bound to be foolish in the long run, and to make a liar of its practitioner, however noble his intentions...
...sublime consistency, which, instead of delimiting the truth enhances it - the consistency of an Ella Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Alec Guinness or Isaac Stern. But then, life itself has been inconsistent in producing such consistent pleasures. And once in a while, a consistency comes forward that is both sublime and foolish, that of Don Quixote, for instance, who mounted his premise and stayed the course, eventually proving less mad than inspired...
...most people the life of a foolish punk like Rutledge does not count for much. He is defective. His death would not be unbearably sad, but his destruction by the state of Alabama would be: not a large tragedy, not final proof that the U.S. is barbaric, but still better left undone. Executing Rutledge would be a waste, not so much of his diminished humanity, but of society's moral capital. The gunslinging heroes of corny adventure fiction had it right: there are guys not worth killing. Let Rutledge sit and stew...
...most disquieting thing about the scofflaw spirit is its extreme infectiousness. Only a terminally foolish society would sit still and allow it to spread indefinitely...
...lethal injection or hanging. A dozen other states have rejected similar changes, but Massachusetts is now close to adopting such a provision. "Technology has come a long way since the electric chair," says State Senator Edward Kirby. "Because an injection is less painful and less offensive it would be foolish...