Stop Using The Word Conservative!

We the people of the United States, those outside the traitorous republican party, need to recognize the importance of language in our political discussions. As George Lakoff has shown in repeated editions of Don't Think of an Elephant!, how you frame the debate is as important as what facts you present or arguments you use. Additionally it must be understood that people do not necessarily use reason and rational thought when confronting politics, Drew Westen's book The Political Brain describes how emotion overrides these Enlightenment principles in our elections. This is a major reason so many on the political right in America seem to be cheering on a sports team when their party hurts them and everyone else in their corruption and mean-spirited policymaking. It is also why so many otherwise rational people go to great lengths to ignore or deny the overwhelming evidence of global warming, pollution, the impending energy crisis, and every other crisis threatening the human race.

It is on that basis that I issue this plea; stop referring to the reactionary, sociopathic authoritarians in the republican party as "conservatives." Stop referring to our economic system as "the free market." Stop referring to the massive giveaways to the narcissistic billionaires corrupting our country as "tax relief." There are numerous other examples but these are near the top of the list. So much rides on the frames and meanings behind the words, taxes are not the dues owed for living in a civilized country they are something we need to be relief from, the free market sounds uplifting and desirable not the instrument of inequality and impoverishment, and conservative sounds mature, respectable, and also wise. Many Americans who hold progressive views nonetheless cling to the label of conservative because it sounds grown up, or because their parents called themselves conservatives at a time when there really was such a thing.

If conservative means to care about your nation, if not the disadvantaged citizens in it, then these folks should seriously look at how so-called conservatives are tearing the country apart. If conservative means to value a stable society, then why do conservative leaders go out of their way to inflame and divide us? If conservative means to value responsibility, why do these leaders blame their every mistake on others? If conservative should stand for honesty and pragmatism, why do they lie pathologically and derive every action from ideology? The truth of course is that none of these traditionally conservative concepts describe the right wing in America. There is a whole laundry list of traits regularly betrayed by so-called conservatives in this country. At the top, conservatives are supposed to fear change, yet with every action republican leaders cause big change. The republicans are supposed to be the business party, yet in Wisconsin, where they control every level of government the business climate is terrible. If there was one characteristic of conservatives I remember from growing up, it is that they are supposed to be careful stewards of the people's money, yet this generation of conservative leaders seem to delight in throwing away money on every hare-brained scheme from privatizing schools and functions of the military, to bailing out unregulated bankers and the casino house of cards they create with every bubble.

Several of my recent posts have attempted to describe the right wing in America as fascism. I am not an expert on fascism so I may be wrong. But if the word conservatism means anything, it is completely misused in our political system and should be abandoned.