The Meaning of Words

By Sam Huntington

Not long after the conclusion of French national elections, an American journalist asked a random citizen, “What do you think of the election of a socialist?” The older man replied, “I do not care; I refused to vote.”

The journalist persisted, “Why didn’t you vote?” The man replied, “Because both candidates are imbeciles.”


It is a refreshing insight, is it not? And thanks to the campaign rhetoric of François Hollandé, we understand the mental acuity of those who favor socialism over human liberty. Responding to a journalists question how Monsieur Hollandé’s growth agenda will strengthen the economy of France, he said, “By increasing taxes, of course.”

Of course.

What politicians mean to say depends on the manner in which they craft their words. It isn’t so much what you think the words mean, but rather what politicians think they mean, and the context used providing “deniability” at some later point. Or, perhaps, a later claim the politician was simply misunderstood. We now also know, this is an international phenomenon.

I recall that during the last election, Chicago thug and Obama campaign chair David Axelrod responded to a Romney campaign ad by asserting, “… we must not return to failed economic policies; America cannot afford more tax cuts.” Naturally, those educated in American public schools stood on their chairs and ripped out their hair from absolute ecstasy.

A reasonable person might conclude that Mr. Axelrod is smoking funny cigarettes again, but a more sophisticated analysis is that he is merely playing the lawyer’s game. Lawyers are wordsmiths. It is part of their vocation to use words in various ways to communicate different meanings. In this sense, lawyers are “tricksters.” They use words to trick people into believing one thing, when in fact the lawyers mean something entirely different. They often seek to circulate disinformation and obfuscate issues. And by the way, this is intentional, supporting two agendas. In the first scenario, if they can trick citizens into voting for them without using outright lies, they stand to win elections. In the longer-term, they seek to frustrate citizens so that they will eventually lose faith and choose not to vote. Rather than displaying any interest in what the liars in Congress are saying, they’ll flip over to another channel and watch something really stimulating, such as the Learning Channel’s True Adventures of Honey Boo Boo.

But here is a good example of political obfuscation is, “America cannot afford more tax cuts.”

Axelrod offers the proposition that all Americans must pay more in taxes so that government can continue ruinous spending. In this sense, Axelrod is correct. We cannot afford more tax cuts if most Americans think we should continue spending money that no one has, driving future generations into despair and dependency upon more government. Undeterred by American values, Axelrod and Obama propose that once government spends every penny we have —when the national treasury is defunct— government will continue to bribe voters with even more entitlements by borrowing from foreign governments. More than two-hundred years ago, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville warned us when he said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

That day arrived 80 years ago.

Conservatives have a different proposition. America can afford more tax cuts. What America cannot afford is more deficit spending. This bears repeating: a free-market loving country CANNOT sustain shortfall spending. I seriously doubt that this concept has occurred to anyone who wants Obama to launch an attack upon the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. What is the per-unit cost of a cruise missile?

While the law assesses penalties whenever individuals write bad checks, there is no prohibition for the federal or state governments. They just continue writing bad checks because they realize that eventually, the American people will have to make good on those bad checks. Do politicians feel bad about this?

Don’t be silly; of course they don’t feel bad about this. Besides, we geniuses went to the voting precinct and elected them, right? They have a mandate from heaven, right? By the way, does anyone realize that we are still paying the debt accumulated by Lyndon Johnson (1963—1969)?

Making good on debt in the near term means that all of us may have to do with less “free stuff” until we can reduce the national debt. What I mean by this is that all of us except those who qualify for an Obama Phone may have to do with less. By the way, 40% of everyone who has an Obama Phone isn’t entitled to one.

Looming once more is this nauseous debate about the debt ceiling. What must we do? Not that I think there is a snowball’s chance in hell that Congress will do the proper thing —the right thing, but what they should do is curtail all nonessential spending. Nonessential spending is any spending that is not specifically authorized by the United States Constitution. We can begin by scraping Obama Care and proceed to the Department of Health and Human Services. Health and Human Services is a state function.

Making good on debt in the long term will force our citizens to pay exorbitant sums of money in interest to nations who hold our debt. Some of these nations are dangerous to our future, China being one of these. Again, unless each of us share some portion of Hank Johnson’s DNA, why should we be willing to do that?

People such as David Axelrod and Barack Obama should worry us. They have no hesitance pandering to people who aren’t very bright —who don’t know what words mean, to achieve their socialist agenda. Most high school graduates today don’t even know what socialism is, so here’s the short version. The effect of socialism is more government, less personal liberty. More government bureaucracy making decisions, less individuals making decisions on matters that affect them, and their families. American socialism means trusting government to do the right thing when every thinking American knows government isn’t trustworthy.

Okay, America—I’m done for now. You can go back to watching The Real Housewives of Hoboken.