All Abuzz About Buzzwords — Steve Farrell

The Moral Liberal with Steve Farrell

A senior Senator a few weeks back complained that Tea Party Conservatives were apt to use a particular buzz word … “socialism.” He was angry because his re-electability ratings were dangerously low and, apparently, the buzzword gang, not his voting record, was to blame.

So  far as I can tell, this Senator seems like a great man, and I’m not disputing that, but three things bothered me about his published defense.

First, he refused to address the obvious: that  his ‘prudent and wise’ middle of the road voting record is viewed by the re-fired up conservative base as but another example of the stealthy surrender of constitutional principles to socialism that is today’s Republican Party. Isn’t that why the party’s conservatives said they refused to show up and vote in the last two elections, they were tired of being betrayed again and again by their supposed allies?

You see, Mr. Senator, the conservative base, the silent majority if you will, are fed up, and the Republican Party’s survivors in power still don’t get it.  And we wonder, will they ever get it?

Listen close: the hard truth as conservatives see it is this: moderates compromise with socialism, and compromising with socialism brings incrementally more socialism, always has, always will — and now our Constitution hangs by a thread — and enough is enough. Enough of the aggressive and obvious socialism of the Democrat Party, and enough of the stealthy and even more progressive socialism of the Republican Party, e.g., Third wayers, Compassionate Conservatives, and other plain old nice guys who just want to get along and prove they are team players even as they sell our souls to the devil. This is how conservatives feel. Address it.

Second, instead of talking about that nasty buzzword socialism that is on everybody’s lips, the good Senator challenged his grassroot opponents to stick to the issues. “Let’s talk about cutting the deficit,” he said.

Okay, but I’m sure they’d like to ask in return: ‘Is that the same deficit you and your fellow Republicans helped create by voting for President Bush’s Great Keynesian Bailout of 2009, one of the most radically left moves by a President of the United States in our history? A compulsory bailout, mind you, that so angered the CEO of US Bank that he violated the Bush Administration’s “gag order” and came out with the truth — on the Rush Limbaugh Show no less — what he said came from the Bush people’s own lips; “This is Economic Darwinism;” that is the survival of the fittest (the big banks gobbling up the little banks) with a little help from this Fabian Keynes Gang picking winners and losers just like the present administration does; and, let’s not forget, then scolding them and reigning in their economic freedom.

If this is how socialism and its advocates  work, I  think we need to discuss the issue of socialism more, not less, because it is immoral in principle, strikes a devastating blow at free enterprise, sets an extremely dangerous precedent for our liberties, and by golly sounds eerily conspiratorial, if not criminal. Honestly, Senator, can we survive a free people if we don’t confront it?

But perhaps what really irked me the most about this Senator’s comments was his his Third point in his defense: for after complaining about that buzzword “socialism” he accused its users of engaging in “McCarthyism” — a buzzword if there ever was one!

As I see it, a buzzword is a word just like “McCarthyism” — that ultimate buzzword aimed at REAL conservatives who HAVE educated themselves on the issues, who HAVE approached their representatives respectfully and intelligently, who just like their representatives are good parents, and good citizens, and God-fearing folks who go to church and live sober and upright lives. Yes, as I see it, a buzzword like ‘McCarthyism’ is the sort of word so charged to the tilt with negative emotions, so terrible in its implications, that once slung at an opponent: the issues, the voting record, the grave threat our nation faces, none of these issues matter anymore because these worthy, vigilant citizens are now wrong, they must be wrong by default, because they are subhuman, because they are the scum of the earth, no, because they are lower than the scum of the earth.

You know, every time I hear that buzzword ‘McCarthyism’ slung at a fellow conservative I know whose winning the debate and whose losing it. I would hope this senior Senator might realize we true blue Americans understand that; and that we hope that he would resolve to do better, resolve to raise the bar, resolve to talk straight about the issues, straight about the very real, the very dangerous threat we all face from that enter stage left wolf in sheep’s clothing  political ‘philosophy’ called socialism.

So what’s wrong with that, Senator? Buzzwords aside, what’s wrong with that?

Steve Farrell is one of the original pundits at Silver Eddy Award Winner, NewsMax.com (1999-2008), associate professor of political economy at George Wythe University, the author of the highly praised inspirational novel “Dark Rose,” and editor in chief of The Moral Liberal.