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The Language of Politics: When Words Are Weapons, Part III

Posted by conservativedude on Monday, November 03, 2008 4:00:21 AM
This is the third and last post about words and language as political weapons (for now).
 
3.  Turning Positives to Negatives  or "The Glass-half-empty paradigm"
 
I want to touch on a recurring theme I've noticed, and that's how "positives" from one candidate have been turned around to appear as a "negative" or derogatory statement by the other candidate because it's not perceived as inclusive.

To touch on the examples from Part II, the codewords that the liberals take issue with like, "hockey mom" or "Joe six-pack" are victims of their campaign to turn positive, inclusive utterances into exclusionary, racist remarks.  Normal people don't make everything about race or gender oppression, so liberal politicians and commentators squeeze all the precious juice out of a conservative viewpoint so all that's left is the bitter rind---the calling card of a liberal. 

Because Governor Palin never implied any racism in her "hockey mom" comment, liberals quickly tossed her true intent aside and cried racism, thus turning a positive into a negative.  Celebrating a group, type, or activity is only valid when a minority is actively involved.  Unless a black person, for example, inititates the joyful moment, that moment is considered invalid because it unavoidably carries with it HATE and exclusionary discrimination.
 
As I described in Part II, I understood "hockey mom" to be any mother (or parent) who is actively involved in their children's lives, but apparently I'm being racist.  Liberals and the black community chose to segregate themselves from this inclusive comment that they deemed divisive.  I wonder what Rosa Parks would say about black people (or their liberal spokespeople) actively separating blacks from the rest of society---forcing them to the back of the bus?  Americans have to wake up and understand how inoffensive ideas are being subverted for the liberal agenda of perpetuating unrest and the social divide.
 
The same goes for "Joe Six-pack", an American who happens to like sports or beer and takes the weekends off.  Groupings like these are left open-ended so many people can easily associate with them.  Race is not a factor.  "Joe sixpack" does not mean "no black people".  It's ludicious, but the left continues to assault conservative viewpoints by making innocuous, uplifting personality types that we can all rally around and recognize seem like a coded brand of hate.
 
With this line of political discourse, it's clear if they are ever to be happy (if that's possible), every statement uttered must be as generic and inclusive as possible. (translation: politically correct!)  Replace "hockey moms" with people,  "Joe six-packs" with people, "community organizer" with secular saint, and "Joe the plumber" with fraud.  That should do it!
 
If you still have doubts as to their extreme agenda, many in the media took Palin's wearing of a white outfit at a rally as proof of her racism!  It's no longer safe to say innocent, positive comments, just as it's taboo to wear white.  I'd say they want us walking on egg shells, but I might get in trouble because most eggs are white.  Would it be worse though if they were brown?
 
*                                       *                                       *
 
It's not just Obama and his surrogates who enjoy twisting positives into negatives.  Near the end of the VP debate, Palin answered a question describing her experience.  First she talked about her political career and executive experience, then made a more personal appeal by adding:

But it wasn't just that experience tapped into, it was my connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills? About times and Todd and our marriage in our past where we didn't have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care? We've been there also so that connection was important.
 
The full transcript of the debate is here.
 
In response, Senator Biden started off on a good track, but eventually turned her positive (personal resume) against her, as if she was attacking him in her remarks, and not just making her case.  I guess the liberal opponents just think everything is about them.
 
He started by mentioning his decades in Washington, then ventured into personal resume territory too.  He talked about when some of his family tragically died in a crash and he worried if the others would pull through, and then the similar "kitchen table" worries that Governor Palin had articulated.  He continued:

I understand what it's like. I'm much better off than almost all Americans now. I get a good salary with the United States Senate. I live in a beautiful house that's my total investment that I have. So I -- I am much better off now.

But the notion that somehow, because I'm a man, I don't know what it's like to raise two kids alone, I don't know what it's like to have a child you're not sure is going to -- is going to make it -- I understand.

Now, I'm not going to question his emotions, especially when he got choked up at the end of this excerpt, but I feel that's the reason no one has called him out on his preceeding, angry retort about fatherhood and an imaginary (sexist?) attack by Palin.
 
At first it seemed like Biden was following the same playbook as Palin, when he outlined his personal experiences that make him a family man and someone everyone watching could relate to.  In effect, matching a "positive" from Palin, with his own "positive" comment.  But right before his most emotional moment of the debate, he forcefully responded to an imaginary threat against his fatherhood or manhood.
 
That's the central idea when it comes to turning postives into negatives--thinking everything the opponent says reflects negatively on you, even if they are just talking about themselves, especially in a positive light. 
 
Next time Barack Obama gets defensive after McCain describes his own love of America, take note of how Obama so craftily turns positive statements into attacks about him.  It makes you wonder when he hears positive comments from his opponents as they describe themselves, if he feels threatened by the weakness of his own positions and hollow convictions.
 
 
*                                       *                                       *
 
Perhaps all these attacks from the left are an attempt to distract us from all the back-peddling and denials wafting from Obama like stink lines from a cartoon outhouse. 

One language-based example is how Obama's sacrosanct "Fight the Smears" website made an interesting update regarding his involvement with ACORN, the community organizing group that is under FBI Investigations in a dozen states for voter registration fraud, and is partly responsible for the financial crisis we are now in by bullying banks to issue sub-prime loans. 

As archived by a blogger along with a photograph of Obama working with ACORN in 2004, a "fact" on his website used to be:
Fact: Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.

However, as the ACORN controversy grew, Team Obama changed the "facts" so they now say:
Fact: ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee.
 
If "never worked" for ACORN was not completely accurate and warranted 'change' (pun intended), that certainly implies that he did work for ACORN.  By saying that he was just "never hired" by ACORN doesn't mean he never worked for them (without pay).  It's a subtle but vital distinction.
 
 
The election is just two days away, and if Obama is elected it'll be thanks to his supporters (the mainstream media), and his surrogates who twisted words to make him sound like 'The One', while portraying McCain as the anti-Christ or President Bush (which is of course redundant if you actually listen to the mainstream media and kool-aid drinking hippies).  If Obama and Biden win, it'll be because of their many "rhetorical flourishes" and ability to sound eloquant while not really saying anything at all---other than 'spread the wealth'.
 
 
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Round One: "John" vs. "Senator Obama"

Posted by conservativedude on Monday, September 29, 2008 3:32:02 AM
After watching the debate live and now having had a couple days to fully absorb what was all too obvious that night: McCain won--oh, my mistake--John.
 
It's hard to not be partisan when saying who won--especially since each candidate did express their positions rather clearly, but I'll give it a shot.  I try to imagine what it would have been like if I'd just woken up from a coma, or had never heard of either candidate before.  What would I admire in each of them?  What are their strengths and weaknesses?  Are they smokers or non-smokers?
 
The most important answers McCain gave were those where he mentioned his years of service--of making decisions and getting his hands dirty, not always on the side of his party or president.  If I had never heard the hero's name before, I would have left that debate knowing he understands the system and has the experience required to make those tough decisions.  McCain's references to the scant number of days of Obama's senate tenure, how Obama has been running for president instead of traveling to war zones and talking with our generals, the "strategy" vs. "tactic" discussion, as well as the heated portion about interacting with unfriendly political adversaries, rightly should make Obama supporters nervous.  (I guess that explains the horrendously one-sided spoof of the debate on SNL that made McCain seem old, crazy and wrong to have wanted to do townhall meetings, while "Obama" breezed through the sketch acting as the sane anchor of the debate.) 
 
Unlike McCain's decisive victory in the foreign policy portion, the economic portion of the debate might seem like a draw merely because each candidate presented the two ideologically opposing positions.  Liberals love taxing the perceivedly "rich" and any koolaid drinkers love hearing "tax cuts for 95%" without thinking about all the billions of dollars of programs Obama wants (on top of the 700 billion dollar bail-out).  As a fellow boy scout said on a campout years ago, "dinner doesn't cook itself," so we'll have to lace up those aprons after all under Obama's plan.
 
Still, considering the coma scenario, I am positive McCain would have appeared as the intelligent, savvy, gutsy leader with the solutions to our problems.  Next to war hero McCain, Obama looked like a tweed-wearing professor of public speaking, who has spent his life pontificating, instead of getting his hands dirty in the trenches.
 
I'd say that we should all try and proudly earn F's in Professor Obama's class, however he doesn't believe in grades.  He merely marks his students as "present".
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