At War with Words

We need to watch our words and how we use them. George Lakoff in “Don't think of an elephant” gives excellent lessons on this and how to fight back against people who manipulate and twist words.

This came to my mind as I was reading the Sunday Buffalo News article called “Right's call public education in Kansas 'government schools.'”

In their ever continuing war against a government that they can not and do not control, conservatives are using the ever unpopular word “government” on programs that they dislike. It's a case of Alice in Wonderland where they want to be able to define the words that are used in public discourse and everyone has to go by their definition rather than a definition based in reality.

In reality, the schools are public schools. We own them. We pay for them with our taxes. Plain and simple there.

The fact of the matter is that the conservatives (avoid calling them anything that uses the word “right” because that word has a second dangerous “subliminal definition” - that being “correct.” ) forces are going by the libertarian Grover Norquist idea of shrinking government down to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub.

We need to be armed and ready on this issue. We need to remind the conservatives that President (sic) GW Bush is responsible for all the testing that we have in schools today. No Child Left Behind is the government law that Bush signed that mandated yearly testing in Language Arts and Math from grades 3-8 and other testing in grades 9-12. So all this testing is a creation of conservatives in Texas. (Remind them that GW Bush is a Republican and that NCLB is based on his legislation as Governor (sic) of Texas.)

Sick of Common Core and all that over reach by President Obama? Repeal NCLB and Obama's agenda goes out the door with it.

While we're at it – since the government is overtaxing us – an often heard complaint of the fiscal tightwad conservatives – I shouldn't have to pay school taxes. I don't have any children that attend the local school, so why am I paying school taxes? Let the people who are sending their children to school foot the bill for the education of their children. Now, I understand that because of the cutoff of funds programs like extracurricular sports is going to be eliminated. That's correct. No more football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, etc. But those are luxuries and not necessities. We need to ask the real purpose of education and address funding that, not having college educated people playing overpriced babysitters. (Please read and say that with a note of sarcasm.)

And at that – private education, like charter schools and religious schools, should never be receiving our tax dollars. They are private and it is not the responsibility of the taxpayer to guarantee their profitability and survival. (This is the government really overstepping its bounds.)  After all, they are private institutions. Remember – capitalism is premised on survival of the fittest and the government is supposed to keep its nose out of private institutions. These private schools are exactly that – private and need to find their own funding. 

And while we are attacking the government, there are other notable government failures that we need to discuss and de-fund.

Let's talk about government policy in the Middle East. The government has failed, in a dramatic way, to create any form of a stable government in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Furthermore, government policy is literally giving arms to ISIS – know those people that are supposedly attacking us with assault weapons in bars and at rallies? Guess who's training them and giving them weapons? Our government. We need to totally cut the government aid to those countries and get out of the Middle East.

And did you know that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the two largest supporters (both with money and weapons) of Islamic terrorist organizations? We need to stop giving them money too. That's our tax dollars being used by those countries to indoctrinate and arm terrorists to attack us. In fact, Saudi Arabia is the largest funder of ISIS. Seriously, we need to look at the failure of government policy in the Middle East. (They hate it when I bring all this up.)

And while we are talking about government spending – did you know that the F-35 is over budget, behind schedule, and still can't be used in combat? And that much less expensive Chinese and Russian fighters can get the best of it in combat? Seems to me that's a ton of wasted money. 

 We need to eliminate all these government weapon systems that are over budget, behind schedule, and fail to work as advertised. The littoral combat ships fall into that line as well. So does the “Star Wars” anti-missile system. It can't even hit a missile and even if it did, it can't stop the warhead from detonating. Oops.

Did you know that the “Stealth” bomber and fighter can be detected with weather satellites and FM radios? Billions of dollars spent on weapon systems that an be located with free and cheap technology. (Avoid the use of the word defense at all costs – Defense is a positive word.)

And then there are those state governments that are trying to stick their nose into women's health care. These “big government” types want to stick their noses into a private conversation (private is always a positive word in conservatives' eyes) between a woman and her doctor about her choice of medical treatment. Remember President Obama's government “death panels?” This is the same thing where the government is overstepping its bounds in a woman's health care choices and we need to get the states to honor a woman's right to choose. (Choose is always a positive word for some reason. Avoid the word abortion. Negative and one of their push buttons.)

Your homework? Tax subsidies for private businesses. Public-Private partnerships. And what else can you think of that is sacred to fiscal and social conservatives? (LBGTQ marriage is too easy but way fun. Are we going to put a policeman in every bedroom? Who is going to pay for that? Or are we gong to put in cameras? Government mandated porn?)

The Edward Sowden, Chelsea Manning revelations about the security state and the total failure of the military to defend us on 9-11 and the NSA's total failure to detect, let alone stop how many attacks in the US? Seems like government surveillance isn't doing what it claimed it can. We'll have to cut its funding.

Seems like the conservative government can't do anything right.

I'll settle for a walk in my public park to calm myself down.