On the verge of swooning over Hillary Clinton’s performance at her Senate confirmation hearing, The New York Times said the Secretary of State-designate “outlined a muscular view of American foreign policy.”
Regarding the alleged foreign policy of her husband (which we’re told Hillary helped to shape), the word that comes to mind isn’t muscular but flaccid. He refused a Sudanese offer to turn over Osama bin Laden – twice. When it came to meeting international challenges, William Jefferson Clinton threatened to make Jimmy Carter look like Teddy Roosevelt.
Discussing coming budget cuts at the state and federal levels, an advocate for public education urged us “not to take it out on the kids” – by which she meant, don’t take it out on the teachers unions and education bureaucrats. Whatever happens, we must never, under any circumstances, reduce funding for the little edu-piggies who run our government illiteracy factories.
This is a variation of “we’re doing it for the children” the motto of striking teachers everywhere trying to extort more money from taxpayers. Presumably, if they don’t get what they want, they’ll “take it out on the kids.”
The foregoing got me thinking about lib-speak, and how we’ll be hearing a lot more of it in the Age of Obama. Catch phrases old and new will pile up like a compost heap of political correctness.
Here are a few of my favorites:
• Alternative lifestyles – Those would be the “lifestyles” that don’t actually generate life but which result in extraordinary levels of sexually transmitted diseases and other social pathologies. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2007, men who have sex with men (MSM) – AKA, homosexuals – comprised 64% of syphilis cases. In 2006, syphilis among MSM rose 14%. Alternative lifestyles offer an alternative to the family, Judeo-Christian morality, health and longevity.
• Same-sex unions – A euphemism for homosexual "marriage", otherwise known as state-sanctioned sodomy. Here’s a piece of paper that says two individuals committing acts formerly called unnatural, and sharing three rooms and a bath, are the same as husband and wife, united by faith and tradition, doing society’s essential work of procreation and child-rearing. The left (which has made homosexuals the new blacks) is determined to have this, notwithstanding that everywhere it’s appeared on the ballot (in 30 states) voters have enacted marriage amendments to their state constitutions. Can’t let a little thing like democracy stand in the way of liberalism’s quest for the end of the rainbow – where a group of men dressed like Judy Garland are promising to love, honor and obey.
• Cohabitation – I inhabit. You inhabit. Together we cohabit. It used to be called shacking up or living in sin. A majority of births in France are now the result of such ad hoc arrangements, which tend to be transient. The sin is camouflaged with sociological jargon. Cohabiting couples is less jarring than long-term fornicators.
• Sexually Active – Promiscuous is too judgmental. We wouldn’t want to imply that there’s anything wrong with a woman or man who has multiple “partners” (euphemism) in the same week. Thus, those who are busy sexually, are “active” – as opposed to slutty, horny, licentious or wanton. Note the term is never applied to married couples (who, apparently, are inert in the bedroom). It’s only the unmarried – who used to be expected to keep their fly zipped or their legs crossed – to whom the exculpatory phrase is applied.
• Safe Sex – Also known as keeping a layer of latex between you and your loved-one du jour. It’s the sexual equivalent of buckle-up for safety. Forget morality or the emotional turmoil, feelings of betrayal or sense of exploitation that frequently accompany transient liaisons. The only question that matters is: Got condoms? In schools across the land, children are taught the proper method of putting on prophylactics, not intangibles like honor, virtue and decency. Given the condom failure rate, safe sex really isn’t – unlike abstinence, which works every single time. At a conference of sexologists, the following question was posed: “If you could have sex with the man or woman of your dreams, knowing they were HIV-positive, with a condom for protection, would you?” Not one hand went up.
• Single mothers – Otherwise known as child abusers. As Ann Coulter explains in her new book, “Guilty: liberal victims and their assault on America,” women who choose to have children solo (as opposed to the divorced or widowed) are starting them off in life with the greatest handicap a loving parent can bestow. Being raised in a single-parent home is the most important indicator of future social pathology – including criminality, promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty and mental illness. Single mothers cost taxpayers $112 billion a year. (When moms aren’t married, Uncle Sugar is the daddy.) Coulter notes, “Seventy-two percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single-mother homes.” Still, the culture can’t pass judgment (which is reserved for smokers, SUV drivers and gun owners). So, we celebrate, coddle and coo over the single mother by choice. What once was a mark of shame is now the Croix de Guerre of the culture war. As a result, the number of children born out-of-wedlock (formerly illegitimate) rose from 600,000 in 1979 to 1.5 million in 2003.
• The Homeless – They used to be bums, vagrants, tramps, derelicts and street people. Along with single moms, the packing case crowd is another of the left’s sanctified victim groups (particularly when a Republican is in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue). At least two-thirds of the habitation-deprived (reputed victims of a heartless, capitalistic society) are chronic alcoholics, addicts, mentally ill, or a combination thereof. The majority of the homeless with children are – come on, you can guess – single mothers.
• Undocumented Workers – Some are sans habitation, others lack documentation. What happened to their papers? Did they lose them wading across the Rio Grande? “Undocumented workers” is non-judgmental. The term “illegal immigrant” implies wrongdoing – like violating our immigration laws and refusing to go through the same process as millions of legal immigrants. Taxpayers, who shoulder the burden for our uninvited guests, do have documents – called 1040 forms. Being an undocumented worker also gives you the right to march in the streets with your national flag, demand an amnesty, call those who resist the move “racists,” and tell them that this is your land, anyway. Along with undocumented workers there are undocumented criminals, undocumented welfare recipients, undocumented drug dealers, the undocumented who commit vehicular homicides and undocumented gang members.
• Fairness Doctrine – Based on one of the left’s guiding principles – What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours I’ll eventually get with a little help from my friends in DC. The establishment left currently has a death-grip on major-circulation newspapers, network news departments (except for FOX), Hollywood, public education, academia and other idea-generators. The exceptions are the Internet and talk radio. Congressional censors are eager to correct that by resurrecting a doctrine introduced in 1949 (when radio consisted of weather forecasts and crop reports), abolished in 1987, and applying it specifically to talk radio. Thus, for every hour of conservative programming (which is popular and profitable), stations would have to provide an hour of liberal talk, which tends to draw audiences the size of a Dennis Kucinich campaign rally (minus Mrs. Kucinich) or Lindsay Lohan playing King Lear. The idea is to drive conservatives off the airwaves, denying them one of the few forums they have. If it could figure out a way, the left would regulate how often the public could think about conservative ideas.
• Income Redistribution – Highly recommended by President Barack Obama during the campaign – otherwise known as stealing. Sadly, income is not evenly distributed across the social landscape – due to insignificant factors like talent, hard work, sacrifice and ingenuity. There are lumps of it in some places. In others, it’s spread thin. It’s up to Washington – wise and benevolent – to even things out. Politicians take from the haves (who have a work ethic, an ability to plan for the future and a knack for generating jobs and wealth) and give to those who have not – while siphoning off whatever they can for the political elite and bureaucracy. Since that income is distributed to those less inclined to work, invest and generate employment, this is also known as spreading the poverty – a technique favored by communists, socialists and liberals.
• Paying Your Fair Share of Taxes – A term that’s never defined, but based on the assumption that the “rich” (also undefined), oil companies and large corporations generally aren’t paying an equitable amount – notwithstanding that the federal income tax is progressive (the more you earn, the greater the percentage of your income is looted). According to the Tax Foundation, in 2006, the top 1% of taxpayers earned 22.1% of adjusted gross income, but paid 39.9% of all federal income taxes. The bottom 50% paid 2.9% of taxes. Apparently this fiscal rape isn’t fair enough for the neo-Marxists in Congress and liberal interest groups.
• Antiquated and Crumbling Infrastructure – Liberals are genetically incapable of saying “infrastructure” without the modifiers “crumbling and antiquated.” It’s a wonderful way to push increased spending during a recession. After all, who wants to drive on highways and bridges that might crumble under your vehicle. We’re not supposed to ask the obvious question: Exactly how much will it cost to get infrastructure that isn’t dilapidated and deteriorating? The gas tax (state and federal), tolls, and general revenue are supposed to go to infrastructure upkeep. (According to the American Petroleum Institute, the average state gas tax is 30 cents a gallon, with the feds taking an additional 18.4 cents a gallon) How much is enough? Will we ever reach the point where spendaholics say: That’s it; the infrastructure is in fabulous shape. Current allocations are sufficient. Not in this life.
• Islamaphobe – A bigoted, hatemongering, racist who refuses to ignore the fact that the overwhelmingly majority of terrorist acts are committed by adherents of the religion-of-peace, that terrorist groups have names like jihad-this and Islamic-that, that those urging indiscriminate slaughter often have titles like imam, sheikh and mullah, and that the Koran espouses anti-Semitism and calls for unending war on infidels until they are annihilated or subjugated. The closer an individual or a nation adheres to Islam, the more likely they are to go for the jugular. Interestingly, those who throw around the charge Islamaphobe so casually would never choose to live in Libya, Syria, Iran, the Sudan or Gaza – where they could show their solidarity with the victims of Islamaphobia.
• Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza – There was a humanitarian crisis in Germany and Japan during World War II. More than 1.5 million German and 580,000 Japanese civilians died as the result of aerial bombing by the Allies. Others were without shelter, food and medical care. Dresden was firebombed, Berlin reduced to rubble, Tokyo incinerated, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki disappeared in mushroom clouds. On the other hand, the Nazis came to power democratically. Most Germans enthusiastically supported them until almost the bitter end. Likewise, the Gazans (a particularly virulent species of the genus Palestinian), elected Hamas to govern Gaza. Given a choice between eating their own children and renouncing their allegiance to Murder Inkoranated, most Gazans would reach for a bib and a bottle of A-1 steak sauce. It’s difficult to empathize with the plight of humans who created their own crisis – which is another way of saying: They asked for it.
• Carbon Footprint – According to The Nature Conservancy’s Carbon Footprint Calculator (which uses the same advanced technology as Mr. Peabody’s Way-Back Machine), if there are four people in your family, and you’re living in a detached, single-family house in the Northeast, you and yours are producing 45 tons of CO2 a year – roughly equivalent to the super-heated air generated by Al Gore every time he opens his mouth. “Carbon footprint” is an ingenious device of the environmentalist left to make us feel guilty for being alive. It’s also a way to rationalize population control. (“What, you want to bring another human being into the world – which may be the tipping-point that melts the icecaps and sends the polar bears south on surf boards, wearing Hawaiian shirts?”) “Carbon Foot Print” is a fraud based on another fraud, Global Warming – the dogma that the earth is getting warmer due to carbon dioxide emissions from cars, factories and your toaster. (Like, it has nothing to do with the cycle of solar activity.) It’s all the fault wicked man’s greedy propensity to muck-up the environment by burning huge amounts of fossil fuels and pumping lethal levels of CO2 into the atmosphere, in turn thinning the ozone layer and sending penguins running to the store for sunscreen. Astrology, phrenology and Rosie O’Donnell’s lectures on metallurgy are more scientific.
• Alternative Energy – The kind which can only be developed with massive government subsidies, because they make no sense economically. Beloved of whacko environmentalists and Democratic office holders, it’s a futile quest to power an industrial nation with sunshine (not the metaphoric kind blown you know where), wind and chicken droppings. It’s a way to keep a gullible public from demanding domestic energy exploration and production and expanded use of nuclear power. (Could there be a fate worse than limiting our dependence on oil from terrorist-friendly states or inconveniencing caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?) Alternative energy is the myth that we can have it both ways – cut so-called greenhouse gas emissions substantially without significantly reducing our standard of living. It’s also the environmentalist equivalent of safe sex – in that it doesn’t work.
• Mean-Spirited – That would be me, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and anyone else who preaches personal responsibility, limited government and justice (not racial justice, social justice or gender equity – but plain old-fashioned justice). Mean-spirited is evangelical Christians, who give a disproportionate share of their income to the poor. Good-spirited is silver-spoon socialists like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore, who are tight as a new pair of shoes, but love to grandstand about government not doing enough for the poor. Mean-spirited is Ann Coulter, who used a bad word referring to John Edwards. Good-spirited is John Edwards – who gives speeches on fighting poverty at $50,000 a pop, turned his wife’s cancer into a campaign event, and later was caught cheating on her.
• Politics of Change – No one knows what it means. Was there ever a candidate who didn’t claim to be partial to change? (“I’m for the status quo.”) It was the media’s favorite catch phrase in the last campaign (much as “soccer moms” and “gender gap” were in campaigns past). Barack Obama rode the Change Express all the way to the White House. As Jonah Goldberg noted in his book, “Liberal Fascism,” “change” was a leitmotif of both National Socialism and Italian fascism. The Politics of Change probably comes down to: We’ll take the folding money. You can keep the change.
To be continued
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