Far-Right Conservatives Invent New Language
September 2, 2012
By
John Viall
I don’t know about anyone else, but
I’ve been having trouble figuring out what many conservatives are saying lately.
In one breath they tell me President Obama is a Muslim. The next moment they
nod grimly and warn: “He’s a communist.” Occasionally, they insists that he’s
both at once; and on the nutty fringes it’s not hard to find those who say the
president is a Nazi, a communist, a socialist, a fascist and the Antichrist all
wrapped up in one.
My confusion only deepened when Rep.
Allen West, a Florida Republican, was asked at a recent town hall meeting how
many “card-carrying Marxists” he thought there were in Congress.
West hardly missed a beat, telling
his stunned audience that there were eighty.
When pressed to clarify such
statements later, Mr. West backed off slightly, but his campaign manager, Tim
Edson, insisted when speaking with reporters that labels weren’t the point. And
by that, I believe he meant “words in an actual dictionary.” Maybe none of the
Democrats in Congress were actually card-carrying commies. So what?
“We can quibble about the
terminology used to describe them,” Edson grumbled, “but it’s clear. Whatever
you call people that oppose capitalism and free markets and individual economic
freedom —maybe it’s ‘socialist,’ maybe it’s ’communist’ —but that’s the point
the congressman was making, and he stands by the words.”
It struck me, on reading Edson’s
response, that he would have been just as happy if his boss had called
Democrats in Congress toaster ovens or card-carrying poltergeists. And that’s
when it finally hit me. For fringe conservatives, at least, labels no longer
meant what they meant in the English language.
You could call the president or any
liberal a communist, a curmudgeon, or a cucumber. It wouldn’t make an ounce of
difference.
I DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO ACT and started
trying to put together a new right-wing lexicon. Here’s what I have so far:
Kenya: an island in the Hawaiian
chain where President Obama was born.
Bush tax cuts: magic legislation
guaranteed to create jobs; passed in June 2001 when unemployment stood at 4.5%.
Additional cuts in May 2003. Still in effect when U. S. economy crashed in
2008; still in effect in October 2009 when unemployment hit 10%. Cannot be
repealed under any circumstances because this will cause a rise in
unemployment.
Free enterprise: it’s just what
patriots (see below) do; includes the right of British Petroleum to pollute the
Gulf of Mexico without government regulation, the right of Wal-Mart to bribe
officials of Mexico and drive out competition and the right of Rupert Murdoch’s
people bribe police and hack into private cell phone and email accounts of
citizens.
Fox News: the last bastion of truth
where free enterprise is always worshiped.
Patriot: any American who listens
exclusively to Fox News, who agrees that taxes on billionaires can never be
raised because it will make them sad, or something; a person who feels it is
better to deny health care to other Americans, because, well, if you love
America, you don’t want poor Americans to love America and be healthy, too; may
also be an American who supports family values and would love to die for his or
her country, except when they might want to commit adultery, personally, or
actually have the chance to enlist and get shot at by real enemies of the
United States. (See: Cheney, Gingrich, Romney, etc.)
Patriotism: what a billionaire or
millionaire feels when he or she sees other people’s children sent off to fight
to protect his or her freedom, while simultaneously keeping tax rates low (flag
pin displayed in your lapel proves your patriotism, but serving in the military
under the actual real flag does not if you’d like to marry your same-sex
partner).
Unplugging granny: the act of
disconnecting an elderly American from a life support system; inevitable result
when godless, secular, humanist liberals (who are really Nazis) try to extend
health care to millions of other Americans who can’t afford to be connected in
the first place.
Red-blooded American: often, a
grumpy older individual, predominantly white and Christian, but not always; may
own several guns and tote a Bible. Fears Big Government, because government is
the problem not the solution, especially when government might curtail in any
way government-provided health care benefits. The opposite of liberal Americans
(also known as Fascists) who believe all Americans should have access to
affordable health care. (See: socialized medicine, following.)
Socialized medicine: any attempt to
extend health care coverage to a 38-year old stay-at-home mother who suddenly
develops multiple sclerosis, a 27-year-old type-1 diabetic who has just been
denied coverage because of preexisting conditions and a 53-year-old factory
worker who has lost his coverage after his company (see free enterprise, above)
in Wisconsin closed operations and moved all assembly operations to China.
Job creator: any business person who
can figure out how to avoid paying taxes to the government he or she purports
to love (often seen wearing a flag pin) by hiding profits in the Cayman Islands
and simultaneously closing American factories and shipping jobs to India.
Public sector workers (also union
thug, below): men and women who undermine individual economic freedoms and pose
an insidious threat to free markets because their jobs cannot be outsourced to
Mexico or Honduras.
Religion, freedom of: one of the
most important rights granted to us through the wisdom of the Founding Fathers;
any attempt to require a Catholic institution to offer birth control coverage
to female employees is an “attack on religion.”
Speech, freedom of; petition, right
to; assembly, right of: what conservatives do when they gather to hear Sarah
Palin speak. Not to be confused the right of the Dixie Chicks to criticize the
president or with the Occupy Wall Street movement, since those people look
funny and according to Fox News don’t bathe often enough, and even if they did
it wouldn’t matter because they’re communists, anyway. Conservatives know that
the U. S. Constitution was intended originally to protect only red-blooded
Americans (see above), which includes those who agree with every syllable Glenn
Beck ever uttered, including any babbling he did when he was still a baby.
Terrorist cell: any group of Muslim
Americans who might wish to exercise their religion, freedom of (see above) by
building a mosque, pretty much anywhere in America.
Judicial activist: a liberal judge
who might vote, for example, to overturn The Defense of Marriage Act.
A strict constructionist: a
conservative judge who might vote, for example, to overthrow the health care
law; also a judge who might vote to overthrow the decision of a state supreme
court and award an election to a conservative candidate. A strict
constructionist understands that the Founding Fathers (see below) who wrote the
U. S. Constitution intended corporations to be considered persons so they might
speak their institutional minds and dump their tens of millions into all
elections.
Slut: a young college-age woman who
disagrees with Rush Limbaugh and can’t imagine why anyone would sleep with that
fat bag of puddings.
Union thug: any worker who organizes
along with others to try to win the slightest improvement in wages or benefits;
includes 22-year-old first-year female teacher, 5′ 3″ and 125 pounds, waving
grade book in menacing fashion; also 58-year-old social worker, and
grandmother, who hopes to safeguard her retirement (not to be confused with an
unplugged granny.)
Founding Fathers: the fifty-five men
who wrote the U. S. Constitution; who knew corporations were people, while also
believing that an absolute commitment to freedom meant women, blacks and poor,
white men didn’t actually need the right to vote; this group includes Alexander
Hamilton, who originally argued in favor of monarchy.
Bill of Rights: list of inviolable
rights, meant to protect angry conservatives who want to carry concealed
weapons into bars, saunas, day care facilities and funeral parlors. Does not
protect Americans who don’t want to be strip-searched when arrested for crimes
as inconsequential as failing to carry a pooper scooper. Also: Muslims and
others who look “different” are not covered.
liberal (also known as Nazi,
fascist, socialist, communist): any person who has ever spoken out about any of
the abuses of any large corporation, even when talking in his or her sleep;
anyone who believes the average working-class American might be getting
screwed; anyone a red-blooded American doesn’t agree with on any topic,
including NASCAR; and anyone who denies that Charles and David Koch are
captains of industry and infallible job creators.
I’M STILL WORKING on my lexicon, but
if good and honest liberals and good and sensible conservatives will only
define their terms, we might get somewhere in the end.
