Let's stop warping words

Rhetoric often manipulates our understanding through bias-laden misuse of language. We all have encountered such examples. "Progressive" suggests innovative, visionary and benevolent. But most "progressive" policies merely regurgitate antiquated notions that were disproved decades ago. A principal contemporary example of outdated "progressive" policy would be the flurry of big-spending, big-government legislation being touted by this Administration, merely repeating the failed economic policies that worsened and prolonged the Great Depression.

Conversely, "conservative" has come to signify stingy and contrary. Actually, there are two distinct forms of conservatism: fiscal and social. Fiscal conservatives believe that spending should be restrained, not over-taxing the public, especially during this economic downturn. Conservative fiscal restraint limits government spending just as people must limit their home budgets. Social conservatives believe in traditional interpersonal values, such as integrity and responsibility.

"Benefits" implies improvement. Properly used, the word denotes the favorable outcome for which we must commit some expenditure of time and resources. When used by the government, though, some people expect the proverbial "free lunch" free for them, paid by someone else.

"Government-funded" has no meaning whatsoever. At any level, no government has any money except ours. Taxes and debt are the only sources of government funding. That is, WE pay for "government-funded" projects. If a politician promises to deliver yet more benefits (see above) at no additional cost, that money must then be taken from some already-funded program.

Impassioned rhetoric should instantly signal the need for wariness, carefully assaying the logic and validity of the speaker's or writer's words. Bias-laden buzz-words especially trigger our alarm bells, protecting us from their misleading damage.

Frank Rich: proof positive that the left doesn't get it

Frank Rich, the former NY Times drama critic turned left-wing opinion guru, has today written an opinion piece which provides a great window into how liberals view the world. Not surprisingly, they believe that only right-wing fascist nut-jobs are crazy enough to oppose their enlightened policies and programs. There is no rational, intellectual basis for why conservatives do anything -- except to roll the clock back to the dark days of back alley abortions and segregation.  Its a caricature worthy of a comic book. Rich sees the uproar over the New York 23rd Congressional district race as a sign that the Republicans are in a civil war between "reasonable moderate Republicans" and right-wing conservative ideologues of the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin school. And, predictably, he believes that it will show the nation that the Republican Party is lurching rightward, to a place of armed militias where "angry white men" stalk innocent women, children and minorities. Rich sees what has happened in New York as a "gift" to the Democrats -- and says that the Republican infighting will be "a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond." This view, of course, reflects a belief widely shared among liberals that the "rest of America" doesn't share the basic values that have spurred the pro-Doug Hoffman movement -- limited government, low taxes, and fealty to the Constitution.

According to Rich, such beliefs are "wacky and paranoid":

"The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true."

This is typical left-wing spin. The Republican Party in upstate New York hand selected a liberal Republican who fully supports the Obama stimulus and is both pro-choice and pro gay marriage -- a candidate who is clearly out of step with the conservative demographics of the district. The uproar was created not because of a cabal of "wacky cultists" but because conservatives want a candidate who is not on the Obama socialist bandwagon. That's hardly a radical position. Rich makes it seem -- as liberals often do -- that if you aren't for abortion-on-demand and deficit busting spending you are some right-wing zealot. They are so certain of the moral rightness of their positions that anyone who disagrees is crazy, stupid or both. It is the height of arrogance.

"The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes. Writing in 1964 of that era’s equivalent to today’s tea party cells, the historian Richard Hofstadter observed that the John Birch Society’s “ruthless prosecution” of its own ideological war often mimicked the tactics of its Communist enemies.

The same could be said of Beck, Palin and their acolytes. Though they constantly liken the president to various totalitarian dictators, it is they who are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode. They drove out Arlen Specter, and now want to “melt Snowe” (as the blog Red State put it). The same Republicans who once deplored Democrats for refusing to let an anti-abortion dissident, Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, speak at the 1992 Clinton convention now routinely banish any dissenters in their own camp."

Rich's misread of what is going on here is just staggering. Fortunately for conservatives, Rich's view of the summer tea parties and the conservative awakening is typical of the liberal establishment, which believes that its 2008 election victory marked a fundamental shift in America's politics from center-right to center-left.

The Democrats just don't get what has happened in the 9 months since Obama took office and began his naked power grab. The mood of the country has changed -- and the Congressional race in New York is a reflection of the level of frustration that conservatives have over what is taking place in this country. The more dismissive Rich is, the better it will be for those who want to take back the country in 2010 and 2012. Its a freight train coming, and the left remains deaf and blind to it.

Shhhh...let's not tell them the truth, ok?

Window into mind of the left

"Help America survive Republicans"? An odd crusade for the left to launch, just when Dems control everything and the GOP is sidelined. On the other hand, financial derivatives for good or ill are big right now, so why not a fourth-order polemical derivative? The first order was Paul Simon's sardonic '70s ballad, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover." The second, a humorless book by two Colorado lefties called "50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America." So I tagged along (your editor, John Andrews) with an Oct. 11 column in the Denver Post, "50 Ways to Help America Survive Obama." Now comes Post reader Kathy Graybill with her riff on my riff on their riff on Simon's overriffed original.

Give Kathy one thing: unlike many liberals with their handout mentality, this gal has a parodizing parasitic work ethic that won't quit. She labored away at countering my list of 50, to the full measure of her own two-score and ten, and only then did she put down her pen. Having no Nobel Prize to confer, I can at least reward her with publication here.

50 Ways You Can Help America Survive Republicans

By Kathy Graybill * kgraybill@frii.com

*Cleave to the Constitution (there’s nothing in it about capitalism being the economic system of America)

*Dust off the Declaration (“promote the general welfare” not promote only MY welfare).

*Work harder for social justice.

*Save more, borrow less.

*Pray.

*Be Jesus-like and help (financially, emotionally, etc.) those couples not as fortunate as you in order to help them to avoid the divorce epidemic.

*Read!

*Listen to NPR.

*Tithe to open, caring, affirming church groups and charities.

*Question authority in a critical, thoughtful manner – judges (Clarence Thomas as well as Sonia Sotomayor), lawyers (lawyers of mega-corporations as well as ACLU lawyers).

*Distrust the mean-spirited, entertainment news channels.

*Strive to show through our actions our country’s goodness, not by empty gestures and words.

*Gird against all types of radical, dogmatic beliefs that pose harm to others.

*Accept the unbelievably horrendous mistakes that were made by the Bush administration that have left us in Iraq and Afghanistan after so many years and start to pull out.

*Negotiate firmly with Iran while at the same time promote good will with the democracy-loving Iranian people.

*Militarily defend Israel like we would any other ally but don’t defend them if they present an obstacle to making a compromise with the Palestinians.

*Revive NATO.

*Suspect all dictatorial countries - Saudi Arabia as well as Russia.

*See the United Nations as an imperfect institution yet the best one we have to keep countries communicating.

*Secure the borders from companies outsourcing jobs to countries where they can pay workers less.

*Keep our country armed intelligently and geared to the 21st century problems.

*Work for a color-blind community.

*Reject the race card and strive to eradicate all racism.

*Boycott Wall Street.

*Support quality education for all students, not just the ones whose parents have the resources to get them into the schools of choice.

*Be mindful that non-parent taxpayers are paying for your children to be educated.

*Be thankful that we have a socialist public education system so your children can receive an education at a cheap price to you.

*Require that charter schools put ALL of the kids in the district into the enrollment lottery (or better yet, only the poor, disadvantaged, homeless, English language learners; only those with behavior problems, dysfunctional families, inattentive parents -the at risk students) to make our education system equal for all students.

*Be sure that colleges get the funding they require.

*Demand all types of diversity.

*Reject an exclusive society.

*Encourage the working and stay-at-home mom.

*Give to organizations that provide medical and counseling services to all pregnant women in all areas of the country.

*Support the criminalization and shaming of murderers of medical personnel who perform legal procedures.

*Get arrested protesting the war in Iraq that has caused an untold number of deaths and injuries and suffering, (how many abortions we have “performed” on women who didn’t want one is anybody’s guess; talk about death panels for the elderly!).

*Dare the rich CEOs of companies to put themselves on only Social Security for retirement and only Medicare for health care and forego any bonuses.

*Get arrested demonstrating for a timeline to pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

*Rally for the right of workers to get paid a decent salary.

*Organize for protecting the environment.

*Sit in for renewable energy research.

*Call for breaking our dependence on oil.

*Demand that quality health care is a right for everybody, not a privilege.

*Ridicule those who still believe that global warming is not a danger.

*Tell Cheney jokes.

*Circulate the rape exclusionary clause in the Halliburton employee contracts and demand that not one more cent of taxpayer money go to them.

*Start a Michael Moore club.

*Retire Boehner and Cantor.

*Draft somebody, anybody, that is mature, decent and thoughtful and who believes in the values of average Americans to run against Michele Bachmann in 2010.

*Get active as a Republican and elect at least a few responsible, critical thinking Republicans.

*Or get active as a Democrat – not because Democrats are so much better than Republicans, but because intelligent opposition is liberty’s lifeblood, not mean-spirited screaming.

GWB is gone and the U.S.A will survive in spite of his mean-spirited, ignorant, fascist regime. But at what cost? He ruined our economy (but, to be fair, only the little, regular people are suffering, not Bush’s friends and colleagues - see New Orleans) and killed tens of thousands of people in an unnecessary, poorly conducted war (but, to be fair, most of these people were poor, foreigners and not the God-sent people like Bush and his family and friends). As Bush revved the motor for change (huge tax cuts for the wealthy, non-regulation for Wall Street, two poorly-handled wars), somebody should have hit the brakes for thoughtful deliberation. I didn’t want our kids inheriting a country a rookie, shallow-thinking, uncompassionate rich kid wrecked. But they have.

Why Democrats call their critics liars

In their public statements on health insurance reform, Democratic spokesmen have consistently dismissed those with objections to government health care as liars. In emails from the Democratic National Committee (which I have been receiving regularly ever since I asked a question) Republicans such as Reps. John Boehner of Ohio and Michelle Bachman of Minnesota and others have been singled out for this charge. Yes, I know that Republican congressman Joe Wilson from South Carolina shouted "liar" at President Barack Obama in a speech to Congress when he denied that illegal aliens would receive medical care under the Democrats’ health reform bill. But several times during his speech Obama repeated the line that he and other members of his party have put forth that critics are lying.

This has gone so far as government agencies ordering health insurance companies to cease informing their clients that costs will go up under government health care, congressional committees demanding access to records of companies who are critical, and most recently Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi chastising those firms for their bad "behavior" that points up the need for a "public option."

So seldom do liberal Democrats make the case for their policies on the merits, I have concluded that they believe that no legitimate reason can justify opposition. Their longest-standing device has been to denounce their critics as "special interests" who are utterly indifferent or downright hostile to the common good or the rights of others.

Insurance and drug companies, doctors and hospitals may not be public office holders, but they have as much right to express their opinion on legislation as anyone else. They are involved in commerce, which is hardly a crime, and they represent thousands of employees and millions of consumers who depend on them for their efforts. All ad hominem attacks on opposing arguments are not only fallacious but a bad reflection on the perpetrators of them.

There is a fundamental reason why so-called progressives habitually dismiss their critics so summarily. It is, I believe, because the now one-century old progressive movement, led by such stalwarts and Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow, concluded that the U.S. Constitution was an antiquated document that stood in the way of regulation of the modern corporation and of the alleged ideal of equality of condition.

Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution can be honestly interpreted to support equality of condition. The former declares that we all possess the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by nature, and the latter only secures those rights. In the marketplace in which millions of Americans participate every day, government’s role is to make uniform rules to ensure fair treatment, not to redistribute income from one person or entity to another.

Roosevelt, Wilson and their followers over the years in both political parties believed that something they call an historical process or evolution is moving mankind toward greater and greater equality of condition, and their role as statesmen is to lead their fellow citizens (who don’t always share their enthusiasm) toward the "glorious future" awaiting them.

Not our human nature but history unbound by nature is the basis for human progress, a position with which Obama and his fellow Democrats are in full agreement. As avatars of benefits yet to come, progressives have little patience with those of a different mind.

If this weren’t enough, those who have attended colleges and universities have been taught by professors in the social sciences and humanities that human beings are not governed by reason but entirely by passions such as greed (economic) and lust (sexual). Of course, routinely teachers of this doctrine exempt themselves from it as they claim to possess "value free" objectivity. The practical effect of this teaching is to stigmatize those who disagree with it and to license "enlightened" people to indulge any desires they wish.

Republicans, businessmen, middle class homeowners, Caucasians, males and heterosexuals have all been stigmatized for years, and they are expected meekly to accept their reduction to second-class citizenship. That so many Americans have spoken up at tea parties, town hall meetings, in letters to the editor, on talk radio and the internet is extremely inconvenient for those who believe that growing government to seize incomes and manage our daily lives is inevitable.

As ever, we are free to chart our own future which, for a growing number of us, does not include unconstitutional government. That is the truth that progressives must continue to deny.

Constitution? What's that?

We all know that Barack Obama doesn't think much of the Constitution.  And he certainly won't let it get in the way of the government takeover of health care.Courtesy of  Kim Strassel at the WSJ today comes some insightful commentary about what we can now expect from Obama and the merry leftists in Congress. The Baucus Bill has been subject to Congress' death panel and is DOA. Baucus attempted to craft a bipartisan bill that would enjoy a modicum of Republican support, but he ultimately caved to enough liberal demands that it got sufficiently watered down to appeal to precisely nobody. The Republicans find it too costly and pernicious in its penalties and taxes, and the left finds it far to soft on the insurance companies and other villains of the health care industry. Max tried, but in the end he truly made "mischief of one kind...or another" and got promptly "eaten up".

In any event, Strassel makes the very good point that we should all prepare ourselves for a renewed leftward turn in the health care debate as our President caves to the demands of his leftist base:

...Our bipartisan White House grew weary of the bipartisan process and pressured Mr. Baucus to produce. He jettisoned his colleagues and pushed out a product that Messrs. Grassley and Enzi promptly condemned. The White House did such a good job of suggesting that Ms. Snowe was its GOP patsy—a Republican who'd vote for a ham sandwich, if only they asked—that even the miffed Maine senator has stepped back.

The result is two-fold. With no, or little, GOP support, the only way Mr. Baucus can pry his bill out of committee is to allow the left to have its way. The White House knows this, which is why the president—despite seizing on the Baucus legislation in his speech last week—is already abandoning the finance chief and his bill to the tender mercies of West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller and New York's Chuck Schumer. The White House wants a bill, any bill, and this bloc now holds all the votes in committee. Pity Mr. Baucus, who just got used.

Into the hands of Rockefeller and Schumer we fall. And you can bet that what comes now is a highly partisan bill that will attempt the "public option" in one form or another, and a price tag that will be (conservatively) in the Trillion Dollar range. Worse yet, it will be couched in all sorts of creative accounting and political double speak that the public will think its getting steak when it is really horse meat with lots of sauce on it. Those who were gullible enough to elect Mr. Obama may likely be gullible enough to take his latest sleight of hand at face value.

Worse yet, it is apparent that Obama wants a bill -- any bill -- and will do whatever is necessary to force it through, even if it involves using the reconciliation tool that requires just 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to overcome an inevitable Republican filibuster.

What has changed is Mr. Obama's determination to push a bill through, regardless of what his party, or the public, thinks. The White House will make the case to waverers that the political fallout of a health-care failure will be worse than backlash that comes with voting for a bill. Maybe. Behind that is the further threat that Dems will go this alone, via 50-vote reconciliation, if necessary.

Reconciliation was meant to be used only for finance bills, not for momentous, life-altering legislation like major health care reform. The Framers of the Constitution created a system where major political initiatives such as this would be subject to the normal process of debate, with the rights of the minority (in the form of the filibuster) in place. The system of checks and balances was put into place for a reason -- to slow down the system so that radical change would be difficult and would require the support of the minority party.

But no matter. In the power play now going on in Washington, the left wants its way no matter who gets trampled. Obama is already on record as saying that the Constitution "is an imperfect document", and this might as well apply to the rules around health care legislation as well. He, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and the others know best, after all -- and they clearly don't care what the people think or want.

We are in for a rough ride. Keep up the pressure on your local Congressional delegation. The only chance we have is that those in Congress will care more about getting elected than actually reforming health care.

Let's make it clear that an "aye" will result in a "nay" next November.