Speech Codes are Thought Codes

I caught a bit of Rush's Weekend in Review, and he was playing excerpts of some guy on msnbc, can't remember his name, who was breaking down the conservative counterattacks responding to the left's assaults on Herman Cain.

In a picture-perfect example of psychological projection, this young man with one name succinctly and brilliantly accused the right of employing the politically-correct left's favorite tactic:  Marginalize your ideological opponents, putting them beyond the societal pale, so you do not have to engage them in debate.

That's what a charge of racism is all about.  Rightwing tea partiers are all racists, so their ideas can all be ignored.  They're not worthy of a response.  It's a convenient dodge employed by the ideologically indoctrinated and the intellectually bereft.

"Those who control the language control the debate."

Imposing speech codes, placing certain words off-limits, and declaring as "hate speech" the legitimate criticism of certain protected groups and programs are common contemporary versions of the age-old tactics Orwell warned us of so many years ago. 

He expounded upon Oceania's peculiar language, Newspeak, in a short essay, The Principles of Newspeak:

The purpose of Newspeak was [...] to make all other modes of thought impossible.

This involved "stripping" words of "unorthodox meanings," "eliminating undesirable words" and reducing the vocabulary.

Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other languages in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought.

In our own day, "racist" is a lazy epithet to be flung only at white conservatives.  Employ it in any other fashion not authorized by the cognoscenti, and the author will be met with either puzzlement or scorn.  You may as well call a cockroach a house slipper.  People of color (and the guilty white liberals who encourage such dangerous linguistic abuse) cannot.  Be.  Racist.  Period.

In the same vein, the word fascism cannot be used without causing an indignant uproar, even if the one using it can provide ten reasons and examples showing why the word is apt.  And God forbid you should criticize the collapsing panoply of federally-funded social services that have ushered us to the brink of bankruptcy.  That would make you a hater of minorities, the poor, and old people.

Thought corrupts language, language corrupts thought

In his essay, Politics and the English Language, Orwell observes...

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

[...]  But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely.

Successful speech codes create a self-censoring feedback loop.  Taking away words is the removal of the building blocks of thought, impoverishing it, which in turn further impoverishes our speech, which further impoverishes our thoughts...

We can break this cycle of language abuse by refusing to obey speech codes and fighting their implementation at every level.  Laughing in the faces of hollow ideologues spouting the latest liberal meme won't stop it, but it will break the spell and attract critical attention that is the antidote to pseudo-intellectual claptrap designed to quash critical thought and free speech.

* - I found the "control the debate" quote in Google Books - Disciplining Dissent - Bruneau & Turk

It’s Because He’s Black

James Baskett as the beloved Uncle Remus

I try to stay away from racial issues, but when I get called a racist, or when I see others become the target of such noxious stink bomb attacks from the left, I just can’t let it pass

Racism is contemptuous, so by implying that we on the right are racist, the progressive social engineers are declaring us contemptible. It is an insult, but it doesn’t surprise me. The sleazy slimy left has shown over the past 100 years that there are no depths to which it will not sink to advance its dehumanizing agenda.

Ho Hum... Another Charge of "Racist!" Against Those Racist Republicans

DeWayne Wickham at USA Today is the latest lefty to reach for the tattered pack of race cards. His article accusing Republicans of racism towards our president is so exploitative and so completely over the top, I can’t believe I read it in USA Today. It’s more fit for the Daily Kook or the Democratic Underground Sewer.

First, he goes after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

“Even then, two years out from the next presidential election, the Alabama-born senator said the top goal of GOP lawmakers to oust Obama.”

Get the implication? McConnell was born with a silver slave whip in his hand down in Old Alabamy. He surely owns a flame-ready cross, itching to plant it on the white house lawn and set it ablaze at the drop of a pointy white hat.

He next turns his attention to Majority Leader Cantor, who should be admired for not busting out in laughter at naïve Obama’s tactical blunder blast, “Eric, don’t call my bluff!” Anyway, Wickham insists that Cantor dissed the president all because he's black...

He attacked this first African-American president with a palpable disrespect not only for Obama personally, but also for his esteemed office.

...the House majority leader complained that the president had cut short the meeting and stormed out of the room. "He shoved back and said, 'I'll see you tomorrow' and walked out," Cantor snidely told reporters— as though the president needs his permission to end a White House gathering. (USA Today – DeWayne Wickham)

Never! Never in the history of the United States has someone been so contemptuous of the president! I guess Wickham was on vacation during the Bush years, when loony lefties compared that president to Hitler, chimpanzees, and klansmen.  They even made a movie fantasizing about his assassination. That is palpable disrespect, as well as a disgusting disregard for one’s humanity.

DeWayne then shamelessly invokes Frederick Douglass in a historical non-sequitur that has nothing to do with the situation at hand.  The comments are so ignorant I don't want to stink up this forum with them.

A Congressional Tar Baby

In an unrelated racial incident, my Congressman, Doug Lamborn, used the term “tar baby” when talking about DC negotiations with the President and the Democrats, and the leftwing wackadoos are all over it like stink on a war protester.  Here is what Congressman Lamborn said:

"Even if some people say, 'Well, the Republicans should have done this or should have done that,' they will hold the president responsible," Lamborn said. "Now, I don't even want to be associated with him. It's like touching a, a tar baby and you get it . . . you know you're stuck, and you're part of the problem now, and you can't get away."

Poor choice of words, but not the personal racial attack some of the nuttier libtards are making it out to be, some going so far as to accuse Lamborn of calling the president a tar baby. No doubt hoping to fan the flames and turn this into a conflagration. Anything to keep hatred’s fires burning.

Fear and smear are all the intellectually bereft left has left

Finally, a lefty commenter at a lefty blog again accused me of opposing Obama because of his race. Instead of flaming her, I simply replied: “Prove it.” Because she can’t. And that is the staunch attitude I’ve been seeing from my fellow tea partiers.

The left has cried “Racist!” one too many times -- the charge has lost its sting

We see such outraged screams for what they really are: The last desperate gasps of a deflated, discredited movement, drained of all but its hatred. The American Left has bankrupted the nation and poisoned our culture, and they won’t go down without expending every last dirty trick in their arsenal of lies and slander.

The Obama presidency is a colossal failure

He’s surpassed the dreaded George Bush in debt racked up, people unemployed, inflation, dollar devalued, taxpayer money given to bankers and corporations, gas prices raised and Pakistanis killed. So why does the left still insist Obama is an improvement over Bush?

He has shown himself to be so woefully unprepared and incapable, he makes Jimmy Carter look good. At this point in the Carter presidency, liberals were already jumping ship, or at least no longer attempting to defend the indefensible. Why not now?

I can only conclude that liberals are only defending President Obama because he is black.