Politicians and Language

"It depends on what the meaning of is, is."

                                          President Bill Clinton

                                                Testifying in the Monica Lewinski Scandal

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One of the hardest things about understanding politicians is that they use language designed to manipulate the electorate. Confusion and misdirection are their weapons of choice. 

"Income Distribution":  A Liberal Favorite

Tomorrow we see an increase in the federally mandated Minimum Wage.  You will see a lot of talk about the unfair income "distribution" in America.  Use of the word distribution implies that the society and the government make top-down choices on how to "distribute" income to the people.  Let's be completely accurate in the language here... Income is not distributed...

Income is EARNED!  The lack of emphasis on earning and the focus on distribution removes all responsibility from the individual.

Obama's Vocabulary

For Senator Obama, his grand speeches are rich in second and third order definitions and connotations.  For example, the Senator loves to talk about his plan to "INVEST" in our country.  How can anyone be against "investment?  Hold on... his "investment" is spending close to a trillion dollars on new programs.  This is simply a redeployment of capital from the private sector (your family) to the Federal Government.    

There is no new investment.  Most Americans would consider investment something the private sector does.  Government simply "spends" taxpayer money, "redistributes" taxpayer money or both.  To consistently use "invest" is to confuse what is really happening.... but it sounds nice.

Democrats: the partial pro-choice party

I want to take this point in a different direction than normal.  Rather than pointing out the obvious importance for Democrats of keeping the words "baby" and "kill" out of any sentence they utter, I want you to consider the fact that the Democrats are only pro-choice in the narrowest possible sense.

• Democrats are not pro-choice when it comes to letting women decide where they can send their children to school. (No school choice)
• Democrats are not pro-choice when it comes to allowing women to opt out of Social Security and choose their own investments for retirement. (No retirement choice)
• Democrats are not pro-choice when it comes to whether women, who usually live longer than their husbands,  can leave all of their estate to their children.  They want the government to be able to decide where half goes... to them. 
• Democrats are not even pro-choice if women want to cut, color and style hair for a living.  They want to license/regulate both the stylists and the business. ---- Whew, good thing the government has ramped up to protect us from bad haircuts. ----
• ... and the list goes on and on...
  

Let's be completely clear and objective... no matter what their language is...the Democrats are only the party of pro-abortion choice... nothing else.  In everything else, they want to be your nanny.

President Bush's Strange Republican Lexicon

No, I am not going to make fun of the President for butchering words and sentences.  My point is regarding the President's contorted use of the word "conservative."  While we can argue about whether the President's foreign policy and view of Presidential power is truly conservative, there can be little argument about this fact:  

- In Reagan's first 3 years in office.... non-defense discretionary spending decreased 14%.

- In Bush's first 3 years in office.........non-defense discretionary spending increased 21%.

By no definition, is spending like a drunken Democrat... conservative. 

In this  and every political season, you have to...

 listen carefully 

and 

think critically.

Byron Smith Blog