Finely Minced Words
Words are tricky things. Their definitions are not the results of repeatable physical phenomenon, like a temperature or velocity, requiring particular characteristics to be the same. You can change the definitions of some words by simply distributing your particular definition to a population more often than other definitions. This works a good percentage of the time because the human mind acts as a probability calculator; it hard codes your associations to particular information which you interact with repeatedly. This is why you have a particular location in your brain for the identity of a friend or relative as well as Brad Pitt or your car. Burning repeated information into the hardware of your brain means that you can respond to that information faster. Speaking from the context of evolution, such a capability promotes the survival of that gene line by giving that line a faster response to a known quantity. This feature of our neuroscience is why practice makes perfect, and why you should do your homework—to reinforce and expedite good behaviors. If a word is associated to a definition enough, then it will become that new definition in your mind unless you already have strongly reinforced association with that word that would cause resistance. I've studied political science and history for years raising my resistance against the new definitions and the parsing of some words recently proclaimed in critical arenas.
Words have power. If you don't believe that and you're a U.S. Citizen, then you don't understand how your government functions. Of all the sites in Washington, D.C., the one that should be visited by all citizens is the National Archive. In there lies one of the most critical documents in the history of the world. The Constitution of the United States of America is a fixed reference point from which all parts of our government came to be. It is written such that it is adaptable to the needs of a growing nation, and it empowers individuals in specific ways such that their control cannot become so great as to invalidate that framework. This document does all of this by reason alone, no claims of divinity, to establish a government of reasoned debate, the representation of diverse opinions and the denial of absolute control by any one individual. The nation as we see it today was all started by a string of characters, the will of citizens, and the support of generations. But now I fear that other strings of characters are reasons for concern for the nation as a whole.
If there's one word that's been thrown around a lot it's “freedom.” We have to ask ourselves what freedom is and how is it distributed. Why? Well, the Constitution is the framework upon which our freedom is based, but it does this by NOT allowing us to be totally free. The Constitution is a document that actually guarantees specific rights to citizens by limiting other specific rights of those same people. Citizens can't blatantly break the laws their representatives create, but they can elect new representative to change the laws to be in their favor. The alternate, absolute freedom, is anarchy. The results of this are never good. Consider Iraq in the days immediately following the conclusion of the major combat operations. Those people had no law enforcement at all causing all hell to break loose. The same is true in Western Societies that are struck with disasters—-recall the shoot-to-kill order declared against looters in New Orleans. To guarantee freedom as we know it in the United States is to guarantee order, which must come from an agreement on the limitations of rights. This discussion requires the assembly of a diverse set of people who can at least agree to disagree. Their agreement must be fixed so that an organization can grow to support and enforce that agreement. Liberalism is the clearest solution to establishing this freedom, and it is also one of the words being redefined.
We hear much about “liberals” and how they are driving our country to ruin. “Liberals” are those who want to cave to special interests by wasting our national wealth on government programs, liberally spending your hard earned tax dollars on wasteful welfare programs and other Washington spending. This is what their opposition would like you to believe, even though, ideologically, this isn't really the meaning of liberalism. The fundamental definition of liberalism is a belief that promotes individual liberty by trying to guarantee equality of opportunity within a tolerant society. Much like any political ideology, there are different types of liberalism including welfare liberals which would more properly fit the “wasteful liberal” model that some speak of, but that is not the entirety of liberalism. To make such broad statements that all of liberalism is the same as one distinct group is irresponsible and hazardous to a liberal democracy such as the United States.
Liberalism is the core of representative systems. Equality in a tolerant society is established by creating a system in which all of societies members have a chance to be represented so that none of them would be oppressed. This is the theoretical ideal that is never fully realized, but it works to that end much better than the Monarchies and Empires which predated it; the entire reason our founding fathers established such a system-- oppression decreases when you must vie for the votes of a good swath of the population. This form of government, ours, is also dependent on the use of reason as I have already stated. Staunch dogmatic positions rarely result in your bill getting past because dogma cannot compromise. The technical reality is perhaps the best position to reason from, but no theory ever truly results in its ideal. Finally, a liberal democracy requires that you always question the decisions of your representative. If all individuals are to be considered equally, they should all be open to equal criticism and analysis. As Thomas Jefferson said “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” This also helps the government stand together because such analysis should weed out the bad representatives. Looking at these criterion for a liberal democracy, we can build a definition for an ideology which opposes it. It would be one based on dogma and irrationality, elitist inequality, and staunch unwavering support of the leadership. There is a term for it, and it happens to be another of the words in play, “fascism.”
The latest term in the political ethers is “Islamic Fascism.” It is a phrase used to describe the political ideology which the terrorists are trying to institute through their actions. From what we can understand from the news and events, terrorism can be executed by almost any radical group: the IRA, Al Qaeda, or the KKK. Their methods are more a result of logistical asymmetry than their particular ideology. Islam itself is not a monolithic organization. It involves separate schools of thought and alignments. There is no pope-like structure, something which their beliefs reject. Some of these groups are strictly dogmatic to their own interpretation and obviously would likely try to implement something that would be like a fascist governing architecture if they had the opportunity and strategic capability, but what dogmatic institution wouldn't? For a liberal democracy, the “Islamic” qualifier isn't necessary when discussing the threats to the United States. It is an unusual qualifier for an ideology that, no matter the adjective, is a threat to our form of government. While Mussolini is most appropriately associated with fascism, Hitler also gets this label despite his socialist banner. Goebbel's propaganda is rife with anti-liberal statements. This is because fascism is best understood as a political ideology that works to erode the representative system from the inside to put into place a dictatorship. The starting point--socialist, Islamic, Bozo-the-clownism-- is irrelevant, so long as the aim is to undermine the free exercise of liberal democracy.
While seemingly unconscious, the new use of these terms raise the flags of concern. By generally attacking an ideology which defines the government, liberalism, and being overly specific in attacks on an ideology which in all cases opposes that government, fascism, dangerous associative paths are started in the brains of those who don't know any better. These paths can lead to misunderstanding, broader confusion and a road to a formerly unthinkable futures.
Words have power. If you don't believe that and you're a U.S. Citizen, then you don't understand how your government functions. Of all the sites in Washington, D.C., the one that should be visited by all citizens is the National Archive. In there lies one of the most critical documents in the history of the world. The Constitution of the United States of America is a fixed reference point from which all parts of our government came to be. It is written such that it is adaptable to the needs of a growing nation, and it empowers individuals in specific ways such that their control cannot become so great as to invalidate that framework. This document does all of this by reason alone, no claims of divinity, to establish a government of reasoned debate, the representation of diverse opinions and the denial of absolute control by any one individual. The nation as we see it today was all started by a string of characters, the will of citizens, and the support of generations. But now I fear that other strings of characters are reasons for concern for the nation as a whole.If there's one word that's been thrown around a lot it's “freedom.” We have to ask ourselves what freedom is and how is it distributed. Why? Well, the Constitution is the framework upon which our freedom is based, but it does this by NOT allowing us to be totally free. The Constitution is a document that actually guarantees specific rights to citizens by limiting other specific rights of those same people. Citizens can't blatantly break the laws their representatives create, but they can elect new representative to change the laws to be in their favor. The alternate, absolute freedom, is anarchy. The results of this are never good. Consider Iraq in the days immediately following the conclusion of the major combat operations. Those people had no law enforcement at all causing all hell to break loose. The same is true in Western Societies that are struck with disasters—-recall the shoot-to-kill order declared against looters in New Orleans. To guarantee freedom as we know it in the United States is to guarantee order, which must come from an agreement on the limitations of rights. This discussion requires the assembly of a diverse set of people who can at least agree to disagree. Their agreement must be fixed so that an organization can grow to support and enforce that agreement. Liberalism is the clearest solution to establishing this freedom, and it is also one of the words being redefined.
We hear much about “liberals” and how they are driving our country to ruin. “Liberals” are those who want to cave to special interests by wasting our national wealth on government programs, liberally spending your hard earned tax dollars on wasteful welfare programs and other Washington spending. This is what their opposition would like you to believe, even though, ideologically, this isn't really the meaning of liberalism. The fundamental definition of liberalism is a belief that promotes individual liberty by trying to guarantee equality of opportunity within a tolerant society. Much like any political ideology, there are different types of liberalism including welfare liberals which would more properly fit the “wasteful liberal” model that some speak of, but that is not the entirety of liberalism. To make such broad statements that all of liberalism is the same as one distinct group is irresponsible and hazardous to a liberal democracy such as the United States.
Liberalism is the core of representative systems. Equality in a tolerant society is established by creating a system in which all of societies members have a chance to be represented so that none of them would be oppressed. This is the theoretical ideal that is never fully realized, but it works to that end much better than the Monarchies and Empires which predated it; the entire reason our founding fathers established such a system-- oppression decreases when you must vie for the votes of a good swath of the population. This form of government, ours, is also dependent on the use of reason as I have already stated. Staunch dogmatic positions rarely result in your bill getting past because dogma cannot compromise. The technical reality is perhaps the best position to reason from, but no theory ever truly results in its ideal. Finally, a liberal democracy requires that you always question the decisions of your representative. If all individuals are to be considered equally, they should all be open to equal criticism and analysis. As Thomas Jefferson said “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” This also helps the government stand together because such analysis should weed out the bad representatives. Looking at these criterion for a liberal democracy, we can build a definition for an ideology which opposes it. It would be one based on dogma and irrationality, elitist inequality, and staunch unwavering support of the leadership. There is a term for it, and it happens to be another of the words in play, “fascism.”
The latest term in the political ethers is “Islamic Fascism.” It is a phrase used to describe the political ideology which the terrorists are trying to institute through their actions. From what we can understand from the news and events, terrorism can be executed by almost any radical group: the IRA, Al Qaeda, or the KKK. Their methods are more a result of logistical asymmetry than their particular ideology. Islam itself is not a monolithic organization. It involves separate schools of thought and alignments. There is no pope-like structure, something which their beliefs reject. Some of these groups are strictly dogmatic to their own interpretation and obviously would likely try to implement something that would be like a fascist governing architecture if they had the opportunity and strategic capability, but what dogmatic institution wouldn't? For a liberal democracy, the “Islamic” qualifier isn't necessary when discussing the threats to the United States. It is an unusual qualifier for an ideology that, no matter the adjective, is a threat to our form of government. While Mussolini is most appropriately associated with fascism, Hitler also gets this label despite his socialist banner. Goebbel's propaganda is rife with anti-liberal statements. This is because fascism is best understood as a political ideology that works to erode the representative system from the inside to put into place a dictatorship. The starting point--socialist, Islamic, Bozo-the-clownism-- is irrelevant, so long as the aim is to undermine the free exercise of liberal democracy.
While seemingly unconscious, the new use of these terms raise the flags of concern. By generally attacking an ideology which defines the government, liberalism, and being overly specific in attacks on an ideology which in all cases opposes that government, fascism, dangerous associative paths are started in the brains of those who don't know any better. These paths can lead to misunderstanding, broader confusion and a road to a formerly unthinkable futures.
posted by bob at 6.9.06
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