When Words Lose Their Meanings
I happened to catch some of the Rush Limbaugh show today. Normally, I’m never in the car when he’s on and I find him to be an obnoxious blowhard, but he said something today that I just had to comment on. Now because I was in the car, I didn’t get where this particular survey happened to be so I’m just throwing it out as heresay according to Rush, but he said that according to a recent survey, more than 50% of Americans, and in particular a majority of independents in America, identify themselves as “conservatives”. He then goes on to say that proves that the Republican part is somehow great and other Rushoid stupidity.
What he doesn’t say, and probably on purpose, is that the Republican party isn’t conservative. The modern Republican party doesn’t hold to any of the traditional conservative values like fiscal responsibility, small government and keeping the government out of people’s lives. The reason for this is obvious, you have to look at who makes up the core of the modern Republican party today. That’s right, it’s expatriate Southern Democrats who abandoned the party in the 60s and 70s over civil rights and abortion issues. Those people invaded the Republican party and over a number of decades, took over. Much of the current Republican platform is just a modification of old-time Democratic politics. Instead of tax-and-spend, they borrow-and-spend. Both parties spend money like a drunken sailor. Both parties have their social agenda, neither of them wants Americans to be free without government intervention. Both parties have runaway bureaucracy, the size of government has grown dramatically under both parties in the past 20 years. There’s nothing particularly “conservative” about the so-called conservative Republicans.
So why do they use the term? Because they know that they’ll get votes by misleading people. There are lots of voters out there who will vote for the “conservative” candidate, even if the candidate doesn’t act in any way conservative. Plenty of voters don’t think about their votes, they just vote for the party or the position they have always voted for.
However, in the case of this survey, from what I gather from listening to Rush boast, they simply gave people an opportunity to choose between “liberal” and “conservative”. If that’s the case, then it’s an absurd survey because the neo-conservatives are using the word “conservative” in a manner inconsistent with it’s meaning. Using that to then claim that the Republican party has a wide appeal is ludicrous. There are tons of Libertarians who follow many of the tenets of classic conservatism: small government, fiscal responsibility, etc., who would never support the brand of neo-conservatism espoused by the Republican party. By the same token, there are Constitution Party members who would claim to be very conservative but who likewise would never support a Republican candidate.
This is the problem when anyone can call themselves anything they want and ignore the accepted meaning. It’s often done for political gain, as in this case, or to hide your subjugation of a position. Unless these surveys actually ask what the individual means by “conservative”, there’s no way to conclude how many actually support any particular version of the word.
It doesn’t surprise me that Rush will trumpet this kind of nonsense, he doesn’t understand what the word “conservative” means any more than the core of the Republican Party does. It’s all word games designed to get them votes. Maybe they ought to try putting up candidates worth voting for and a platform worth supporting in the first place.
4 Comments to “When Words Lose Their Meanings”
Sure thing, welcome aboard. I'm trying to have a good mix of religious and non-religious information, sometimes it skews to one side depending on circumstances, but it gets boring just talking about one thing all the time like a lot of people do. Hope you stick around and let me know if there's something you want to see more of or less of, I'm always looking for feedback.
Thanks again!
I can't even tell you how happy I am to have found you. As an atheist I feel alienated enough. But this! All this political talk you have is great. I was happy to tell my husband someone else is out there. Thanks for your posts.
I could make the same claim about liberals. There's nothing backwards or dangerous about true conservatism, just what the Republican party and the former Southern Democrats who run it have tried to turn it into.
Republicans are literally fascists, not conservatives. However, that doesn't mean we should forget that conservatism is a backwards and dangerous world view.
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