Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Propaganda of Language, and How It Manipulates Public Opinion

By Douglas V. Gibbs

On CNN a roving New Year's Day reporter landed in the appropriately named Tick-Tock Cafe where a number of Washington DC college students were having lunch.  She walked around the place with her microphone to ask the diners their opinion over the fiscal cliff debates going on in Congress.  The first young woman complained about the inability of Congress to reach a deal due to partisanship.  The second young woman the reporter spoke to spewed off liberal rhetoric, revealing she was either a regular viewer of the Cable News Network, or an obedient participant in the indoctrination process of the American public educational system.

She accused the "right-wing extremist" republicans of standing in the way of a deal.  As far as she was concerned, the "partisan" bickering means that our government is broken, and that the republican refusal to compromise was going to effect us all.

Based on what she was saying, it sounded like the young lady was looking for a more efficient government that didn't debate to the point that laws the President desires didn't pass.  A lack of moderates in the GOP (a.k.a. liberals in the wrong party), from the point of view of the student, was allowing the more extreme right-wing conservatives of the Republican Party to stand in the way of things getting done.

The Founding Fathers valued debate, and did not want laws passing easily in Congress.  The whole idea was for there to be a heavy discussion, and for a law not to be passed unless it was in line with the law of the land (U.S. Constitution), and for it to be good enough that the majority of legislators were willing to agree upon it.

This is not to say that the efficient type of government the young woman was looking for does not exist.  There are governments out there where laws pass quickly, and the process meets up with few obstacles that may halt the political process.  Those kinds of governments are called "dictatorships."

The young woman speaking to the reporter sounded less like she was speaking from her own mind, and more like she was speaking what she had been taught to say - which happened to be typical liberal talking points.

Americans are a fickled group, easily guided by mere words.  Politicians have used the propaganda of language since the beginning of time, and in the United States, with the liberal control over the media the democrats entertain, the manipulation of public opinion through the simple usage of words has dang-near become an art form.

Raising taxes are no longer called raising taxes.  Now, they are calling it "raising revenue," even though that may not be the result of the tax hikes.  In Britain, when the tax rate for the rich was raised to 50%, the millionaires fled from the country, and it wound up costing the country £7 billion in lost tax revenue.

The language regarding the existing tax rate for the middle class is no longer "the existing tax rate," either.  In order to manipulate public opinion the current tax rate has been called, "Bush Tax Cuts."  It combines the hate the democrats have created for George W. Bush, with their ongoing campaign of class warfare.  If the tax rate goes up due to failure to avoid the expiration of those rates at the first of the year, then you are led to believe the Republicans were unwilling to give the average folk tax cuts, while extending tax cuts to those wealthy people who, as Vice President Joe Biden has reminded us often, can afford it.

After all, claims Obama, for the common good, we want the rich to pay their fair share. . . even though the tax burden is already primarily carried by the wealthiest Americans.

The threat of the "Bush Tax Cuts" expiring is being characterized as the "fiscal cliff."  We are not just being threatened by a tax hike, as the democrats have politically supported since the beginning of time, but for political reasons, this time, such a tax hike is a "fiscal cliff."  If it happens, we go splat.  And who's at fault, they are claiming, if it happens?  Well, the Republicans of course, for wanting to extend "tax cuts to the rich," while blocking "tax cuts to the middle class."

The debate in Congress over the future of our tax rates is a practice that goes all the way back to the Constitutional Convention.  Debate is healthy, and sometimes the deal-makers don't always succeed in finding a grand compromise.  The Republicans have offered a number of compromises, and the democrats have rejected each one, demanding that they either get everything they want, or there will be no compromise.  However, since no deal is being reached, the democrats are characterizing the GOP as being "partisan," and "The Party of No."  This makes the public believe it is the republicans that are refusing to work with the democrats, when it is the other way around.  And why would the republicans do this?  We are told because the party has been "hi-jacked" by "right wing extremists," even though the Republican Party has moved significantly to the left over the last twenty years, and the TEA Party members, who are being labeled as "right wing extremists" are closer to being traditional republicans, and like the Founding Fathers, than the remainder of the republican political establishment.

Conservatives, however, are quite dangerous, according to the wielders of liberal language propaganda.  To prove their point, the liberal left labels fundamental militant Muslim groups as being "conservative" (even though their goal is governmental control over the populace like the democrats), and the democrats call the anti-Jew protesters in Hungary "conservative," largely because in Europe the anti-Semitic fascism portrayed by Hitler's Nazis is considered "right-wing."

Nazism being called an ideology that leans to the right is fascinating in its own right, when one considers Hitler's party supported nationalized health care, gun control, and big government - like the democrats.

The leftist media calls opposition to gay marriage an attack on "sexual intimacy," when in truth it is all about whether or not a small group of sexual deviants should be able to change the definition of a religious institution, whether the religious community likes it, or not.

Abortion, considered by many to be the murder of the unborn, has become a "reproductive right," and "pro-choice," even though the choice to not abort is rejected by these people.

More government shoved down our throat is being labeled as for the common good, and a legislature that debates and doesn't rush into big government tyranny is being called broken.

I wonder if the language of the Constitution will ever cross these people's minds?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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