The Language Is Why We Keep Losing [Reader Post]

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If this last election taught us anything, it’s that the left has achieved a mastery of manipulating the English language to make stances that are unappealing to most Americans seem reasonable. We saw this in full display as throughout the 2012 presidential campaign where whatever talking points the left used to describe their causes were dutifully amplified in the mainstream press. It really is a clever tactic to automatically start the conversation by seemingly placing themselves in the reasonable position while painting any opposition to debates framed as “war” or “rights” as the irrational or bigoted side. Here are a few examples of terms we’ve seen used by the left and their true meaning:

Reproductive Freedom – A 30 year old future one percenter who does not want to pay for condoms feels you that should be forced to buy her birth control pills and/or abortions, and create a dishonest talking point that is in reality insulting to women

Equal Pay for Women – Accomplishing nothing more than taking existing anti-discrimination laws and extending the statute of limitations as a bone to trial lawyers, and create a dishonest talking point that is in reality insulting to women

Women’s Issues – Any issues that only pertain to birth control paid for someone else or abortions. Basically the sexist notion that women can’t think beyond their “lady parts” and should leave those other issues for the men to handle

Marriage Equality – Gay marriage

Economic Patriotism – Raising taxes on somebody other than you

Voter Suppression – Insisting that voters be required to form the same level of ID needed to board a plane, buy alcohol, cash a check, etc. Basically, disenfranchisement of people backing the other party who are only allowed to vote once.

The Wealthy – Someone who makes more money than you

Increased Revenues – Higher tax rates (Not higher actual revenues collected, just rates)

Revenue Enhancements – Higher tax rates (Not higher actual revenues collected, just rates)

Fair Share of Tax Burden – Higher tax rates (Not higher actual revenues collected, just rates)

Energy Independence – Forcing the American people to ignore inexpensive, job creating domestic energy sources and to use expensive, government subsidized inefficient energy sources that rely on imported rare-earth metals

Investment – Government spending 

Investment in the Energy Technologies of Tomorrow – Federal Government spending on solar and wind energy companies who contributed to the Obama campaign

Investment in Education – Federal government throwing money at the states to give to teachers’ unions rather than renegotiate unsustainable contracts.

Investment in the cars of tomorrow – Federal government throwing money at various auto makers to give to the UAW rather than renegotiate unsustainable contracts.

Extremist – Any viewpoint that contradicts leftist dogma

Moderate – Leftist, or any Republican who criticizes conservative principles

Sensible – Leftist

Partisan – Any disagreement with an opinion held by President Obama

Protecting Our Nation’s Children – Restricting law abiding parents’ ability to protect their children

Tax Increases on Working Class Families- The money not collected by someone wealthier than you somehow equates an expense the middle class has to pay (It seems that there are no accountants on the left who understand the difference between income and expenses)

Ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid as We Know It – How to criticize anyone who brings that biased, partisan concept known as mathematics into any discussion of entitlement reform, other than raising taxes on the wealthy of course.

And it hasn’t stopped just because the election is over. One morning after the shootings in Newtown I tuned in to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” leftist round table where one of the members suggested that “We need to change the language of this argument! Instead of Gun Rights we should be calling it Gun Sense!”

After I started writing this Victor David Hanson wrote a great piece on the need for Republican Populism to explain why conservative policies are ultimately better for society as a whole. Unfortunately in the leftist echo chamber of the mainstream media rather than look at the realities that Hanson outlines these leftist phrases get repeated constantly, and sadly there are no “journalists” or conservative leaders who are willing to challenge these distorting statements. Since I doubt anyone on the right is ready to take up the fight over these terms, I thought I’d offer a few for conservatives to start using to do their part to improve the accuracy of the conversation:

Repeal of the Clinton tax Increases: The Bush tax cuts

Weather: Climate Change

Energy Independence – Relying on our nation’s natural resources, and maybe Canada’s as well, while allowing the religious folks who like inexpensive, inefficient energy to still choose to use it.

Locally Grown Energy: Natural gas, coal, offshore oil, and any other energy produced in the United States. I can’t remember the person on Twitter to attribute this to, but the tweet said something to the effect of, “Why is buying local good with everything but energy?” And that is a very good question.

Fiscal Reality – This is what we had been calling the Fiscal Cliff/ Sequester. All that the FC did was advance our date with reality, so why couldn’t we discuss it as such?

Economic Patriotism – Passing a budget and explaining to the American people how any deficits are going to realistically get paid, and who will end up paying them. Or, in the case of our current administration, educating oneself as to the concept of what a budget actually is for starters.

Too Big to Fail – Our government. Any discussion attacking a specific business or industry should immediately be redirected to the government bodies that enable them, and are most likely far bigger than the business that said government is enabling.

Ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid as We Know It – Assuming that our entitlement programs can survive unchanged and labeling anybody who calls fo reform a partisan ideologue

Legal Discrimination – Any sort of diversity initiative, affirmative action or quota system that is designed to reward members of one group and punish another based on some superficial element, such as gender or skin color.

Paid Lobbyists for the DNC Superpac – Most members of the mainstream press. Hey, if they’re not willing to even try to be objective why give them the title of “journalist”? And out of fairness I’m fine with throwing the same label on the good folks over at Fox News supporting the RNC.

Investment – Private individuals choosing to put money into something with the expectation of gain, usually over a longer term. (OK, that’s the textbook definition. But it has gotten so abused by the left they’ve forgotten the term’s real meaning)

Women’s Issues – The Economy, Foreign Policy, Environmental Law, Education, Health Care, Taxes, Energy – wait a minute… These are the same issues that men care about! What a bizarre notion that men and women should be treated equally!

Racist – Anyone who spent eight years screaming about how terrible the Bush economy was who now blindly praises the Obama economy. Assuming that someone is less capable or intelligent and holding them to lower standards based only on that person’s skin color is insulting at best and disgusting at worst.

Thousand Billion – One trillion. A trillion sounds too simple. If we start repeating that President Obama has added four thousand billion to our debt the magnitude might start to sink in. I can’t remember who the proper citation is for this one – might have been Victor Davis Hanson, although I remember G. Gordon Liddy dropping that terminology back when I’d occasionally listen to his radio show back in the day.

Middle Class and Lower Class Tax Increases – Carbon taxes. Any tax on a good or service that takes a larger percentage out of the incomes of the poor accomplishes this, and at least we can be honest about who would be hit the hardest by such a tax scheme.

Deferred Tax Increases – This is the second most important term that needs to become part of our vernacular. A while back one of the writers at Cafe Hayek defined our current deficits and debt as nothing more that deferred tax increases. This seems to be pretty common sense, since any money that the government spends comes in some form of taxation. Debt is nothing more than a tax increase for which we refuse to assign a payee to at this time. It’s time to stop talking in terms of debt and deficits, as those phrases don’t truly reflect what our federal debt actually is.

Generational Theft – What we are committing against the young people in this country by running up debt that they will be forced to pay.

Protecting the Nation’s Children – Passing a budget and responsibly spending taxpayer money so they don’t have to be economically punished for the debts we’ve amassed.

Sustainable Government – The granddaddy of them all. The Left loves the word sustainable when discussing any issues that they perceive as environmental, but it stops there. Why not use it to discuss our federal debt? Any household that that makes $21,000 per year and spends $38,000 while already having $160,000 in debt isn’t going to consider foregoing $800 per year in increased spending in any way sustainable. So why do we? Stick a few zeroes on the end of each of those numbers and you’re looking at our federal debt. We need to start evaluating what it is we want from our government and how we are going to pay for it.

Is trying to frame the debate in language of your own choosing somewhat obnoxious? Why yes, as a matter of fact it is. But the left has no problem doing it, and it helped them win a critical presidential election. And unless we want the way things are now to become the new normal we’d better start making some changes too.

I threw out my ideas here, and I’m sure you have some too. I know my lefty pals will have some as well, and I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Cross Posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

I threw out my ideas here, and I’m sure you have some too. I know my lefty pals will have some as well, and I’d love to hear them in the comments!

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