There was a term,
an expression, back when I was growing up to describe the
type of behavior that we see today in Barack Obama. It
described a person who had come into a cash windfall through
little or no effort of his own and spent it foolishly rather
than investing it wisely or saving it for a time of need.
This expression fell out of popular use with the advent of
"political correctness" and has never been replaced with a
politically correct term. We would have described him then
as being "n****-rich". As hard as I've tried, I have
been unable to find a replacement for that term till
recently. Now, we are faced with a slightly different
variation of that situation. We have people who find
themselves with a windfall of OPM (other peoples money) who
spend it foolishly, etc... I suggest that we adopt a
new, but more politically correct term "obama-rich" to
describe these people.
Politicians
on the left have become masters of semantics. The most recent
example to illustrate the use of semantics to deflect
attention from an issue is the term "birther". It
refers to the people who dare to ask questions rather
than to the real issue which is Barack Obama himself and his
constitutional eligibility, or lack thereof, to serve
as President. The people on the left see this as the "birther
issue" rather than the "eligibility issue". In other words,
the problem is not the naked emperor, but the kid who
doesn't see his clothes. Even our esteemed radio talk
masters have stuck their heads into this verbal bear trap
and now use the term "birther". This is VERY
annoying.
Also annoying is
the current dehumanizing use of the word "that" where the
word "who" should be. I hear it everywhere, every day.
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"People THAT
do this or that" instead of the correct "People WHO do this
or that". It's just a grammatical error, but it is one that
works subconsciously to dehumanize people. It has
recently fallen into common use by people who speak
professionally on radio and TV.
The point of all
this is that we must not allow the left to define the terms.
For the sake of clarity, not to mention reality and sanity,
we need to pay attention to the language used by the left.
They often give themselves away and tell us exactly what
they are up to by their manipulation of semantics. It
is not always easy to recognize this tactic, and it is often
very easy to fall into their traps.
I suspect that most of
the tacticians on the left have read the books of S. I.
Hayakawa, Wendell Johnson, or even Alfred Korzybski (not an
easy read, though there are a number of good books of
excerpts from his "Science and Sanity").
I wish that our
talk masters would read and learn more on general semantics
since words are the tools of their trade. I would recommend
any book by Wendell Johnson (my introduction to general
semantics in the '60s), S. I. Hayakawa, Rappaport,
or the more recent, "Drive Yourself Sane" by Susan and Bruce
Kodish. Although it was Alfred Korzybski who first
introduced us in the '30s to General Semantics and non-Aristotelian
thought systems, I would recommend saving this read,
"Science and Sanity", for
last.
To really
understand how the left works, how every mind works, some
understanding of general semantics is a must. It's a
fascinating subject and an addicting one for the curious
mind. Korzybski theorized in the 40's that an understanding
of this subject could lead to world peace. Today however,
sadly it is helping the left to attempt world dominance.
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