The "Double Speak" of the Far Right

A column at The Bilerico Project by Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld, an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Iowa State University in Ames Iowa, looks at a phenomenon that I've long noticed: the use of words and phrases by the far right that if implemented in the form of Christianist/GOP policies would actually result in the exact opposite of what the phrases suggest. A classic and among the most disingenuous is the Christianist cry for "religious freedom." It sounds good, but in reality translates to the imposition of Christianist religious views on all citizens and fourth class status - if not criminalization - for LGBT Americans. Here are some highlights from Professor Blumenfeld's piece:

As I walked through the extensive crowd [at the Ames Straw Poll], this virtual sea of White faces -- old, young, and in between -- and as I saw the staffs of a relatively large group of presidential hopefuls lobbying my Iowa neighbors for their votes, I was conscious of a unanimity of message, a virtual lock-step thought and expression of ideas.

And I was particularly reminded of the notion of "doublespeak": that language of deliberate distortion and contradiction in the meaning of words.

Leaders on the political and theocratic right use terms like "liberty" and "freedom" to advance their agendas, which include such tenets as shrinking the size of government and giving more control to state and local governments; ending governmental regulation of the private sector; privatization of state and federal governmental services, industries, and institutions including schools; permanent incorporation of across-the-board non-progressive marginal tax rates; market driven unfettered "free market" economies, which ultimately, they argue, will ensure individuals' autonomy.

But will their agenda enhance personal and national "liberty" and "freedom," or rather, are they engaging in mere doublespeak? Doublespeak? Yes indeed!

And the terms "freedom" and "liberty"? How "free" are we as individuals when the upper ten percent of our population controls approximately 80-90 percent of the accumulated wealth and 85 percent of the stocks and bonds, and the Right's agenda will only increase this enormous imbalance?

How "free" are we as individuals when corporate executives currently pay lower tax rates than their secretaries as the Right fights to maintain these advantages for the super rich?

How "free" are we as individuals when 50 million people in our country go uninsured and their only form of health care is the hospital emergency room that the remainder of the population must pay for because our government will not provide a single-payer health care system, but instead, we all must accept the exorbitant profit-motive insurance premium rates of private health care insurers?

How "free" are we all when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are denied their basic human and civil rights, and when they are vilified and scapegoated?

How "free" are we really when the political and theocratic right push for school vouchers to funnel money into their parochial institutions at the expense of public education, and when forces are gathering to reintroduce prayer into the public schools, and when the lines between religion and government are increasingly blurred?

Unfortunately, many people from middle and working class backgrounds are succumbing to the politics of doublespeak. By supporting these conservative and ultra-conservative politicians and agendas, they are, in actuality, operating against and undermining their own economic self-interests and others within the middle and working classes. We all must, therefore, expose the language for with it is: Doublespeak!