{"id":1172,"date":"2014-10-23T22:16:04","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T02:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2014-10-23T22:16:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T02:16:04","slug":"losing-the-language-how-the-gop-undermines-itself-and-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/10\/losing-the-language-how-the-gop-undermines-itself-and-liberty.html","title":{"rendered":"Losing the Language: How the GOP Undermines Itself–and Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the mid-term elections approach, it\u2019s high time for Republican commentators to walk the walk.<\/p>\n

Just the other morning, Mark Steyn, busily promoting his new book, made an appearance on Bill Bennett\u2019s radio program. The latter agreed enthusiastically with the former that in order for conservatives to prevail culturally, <\/em>it is imperative for them to prevent the left from assuming control of the language.<\/p>\n

Newsflash for Bill and Mark: That ship has long since sailed beyond the horizon.<\/p>\n

From at least the time that neoconservatives came to dominate the Republican Party\u2014and perhaps even earlier\u2014so-called \u201cconservatives\u201d have been ceding the language to the left. This, in all fairness, may have not a little to do with the fact that, intellectually and ideologically, neoconservatives are the products of leftist traditions themselves.\u00a0 But the point remains:<\/p>\n

Courtesy of GOP-friendly commentators like Bennett and Steyn (and countless others), the left has achieved nothing less than a monopoly on our language.<\/p>\n

Examples of this phenomenon are too plentiful to recount here, but a select list should suffice to make the point.<\/p>\n

(1)GOP mouthpieces routinely decry \u201cmulticulturalism\u201d while insisting that \u201cwe are all <\/em>Americans,\u201d and yet they never cease to describe, say, blacks <\/em>and Hispanics <\/em>as \u201cAfrican-Americans\u201d and \u201cLatino Americans,\u201d respectively.<\/p>\n

(2)While paying lip service to the need to secure America\u2019s borders, so-called \u201cconservatives\u201d either advocate on behalf of \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d\u2014i.e. amnesty\u2014<\/em>or, if they do not <\/em>explicitly call for this, they nonetheless tirelessly proclaim their support for legal <\/em>immigration\u2014regardless of the Third World from which it originates.<\/p>\n

(3)In championing immigration, Republican media figures can be relied upon to echo the leftist mantra that \u201cAmerica is a nation of immigrants.\u201d Few leftist sound bites are as idiotic as this one.\u00a0 And few are as instrumental to the \u201cfundamental transformation\u201d\u2014the destruction\u2014of the country.<\/p>\n

(4)GOP talking heads are just as ready to cry \u201cracism\u201d as are their leftist counterparts. Thus, they legitimize the Big Lie that (white) \u201cracism\u201d is an omnipresent threat to everything that Americans hold sacred.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t just that this is a bold-faced lie; more so than any other device, it is a lie that the left has exploited in the service of facilitating its \u201cprogressive\u201d\u2014i.e. its socialist-totalitarian\u2014agenda.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s even worse is that self-declared \u201cconservatives\u201d don\u2019t just <\/em>accuse those to their left<\/em> of being the real <\/em>\u201cracists.\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019re at least as eager to throw one another<\/em> under the bus at the first sign that one of their own may have made a remark that could<\/em> be construed as \u201cracist.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for those to their<\/em> right\u2014<\/em>libertarians and genuine or traditional conservatives\u2014our \u201cconservatives\u201d reserve unmitigated contempt.<\/p>\n

(5)What\u2019s true of \u201cracism\u201d is no less true of \u201csexism\u201d: neoconservative Republicans, far from debunking it, actually legitimize<\/em> the notion that there is a \u201cwar\u201d on women.<\/p>\n

Just this week, Rick Santorum was a guest on Michael Medved\u2019s radio show. Santorum\u2019s rejoinder to the charge that Republicans war against women is a familiar one: It is actually the left, <\/em>with its detestation of traditional sexual mores and avid support for abortion and the like, that really <\/em>hates women.<\/p>\n

Again, rather than mock or dismiss the language of the left, faux conservatives accept its terms.<\/p>\n

(6) \u201cConservative\u201d Republicans remain intent upon invoking the idiom of \u201crights\u201d when discussing every moral issue\u2014even though this idiom has long been the left\u2019s preferred manner of speaking about morality. Leftists know well that abstractions like \u201chuman rights\u201d are ready-made to grow government while coercing society into serving their agenda.<\/p>\n

In accepting the idea of universal rights (whether they\u2019re called \u201cnatural,\u201d \u201cmoral,\u201d or \u201chuman\u201d), Republicans sanction the moral machinery underwriting the Big Government program of the left.<\/p>\n

(7)Republicans ache for leaders <\/em>in Washington behind whom they can rally.\u00a0 However, the idea that politicians\u2014government<\/em> office-holders\u2014should be leaders <\/em>is a staple of leftist thought.\u00a0 Just the firing of a few neurons goes some distance in seeing why this is so.<\/p>\n

First, and most obviously, leaders are expected to, well, lead. <\/em>But lead who, <\/em>and lead where<\/em>?\u00a0 If politicians<\/em>\u2014those with a monopoly<\/em> on both the authority to coerce the citizenry into doing their bidding as well as the power to insure that it does so\u2014are expected to be leaders, then it is to some imagined political promised land or other that they are supposed to \u201clead\u201d the rest of us.<\/p>\n

What this in turn means, though, is that to be effective leaders, politicians must be visionaries, <\/em>aggressive activists <\/em>who compel citizens to part with their property, time, and maybe even their very lives in the service of fulfilling the leader\u2019s plans<\/em> for a better tomorrow.<\/p>\n

In other words, there is no scheme that is more antithetical to individual liberty than one involving government office-holders who are leaders.<\/p>\n

Second, if politicians are expected to be leaders, then the left is right and politics <\/em>trump all other considerations.\u00a0 Culture is secondary to politics.\u00a0 Politics make the world go round, for all that is needed is that we elect real <\/em>leaders.<\/p>\n

These are just some examples of how \u201cconservatives\u201d have indeed relinquished the language to the left.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the mid-term elections approach, it\u2019s high time for Republican commentators to walk the walk. Just the other morning, Mark Steyn, busily promoting his new book, made an appearance on Bill Bennett\u2019s radio program. 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