Their Proper Name

Ask any lawyer about the importance of being precise – or evasive – with language. Alexander Hamilton and his federal supremacists understood. So did railroad lawyer and slave-not-freer Abe Lincoln. (For those who didn’t know, Abe only “freed” slaves he had no power to liberate – in the Confederate States. Slaves under his control – including slaves held by his chief warlord U.S. Grant, remained most un-free for the duration of the war.) Bill Clinton was a masterful practitioner of the Art of Word (I did not have sexwith that woman…). Which, by certain Talmudic parsings, he didn’t. Not exactly. Wiggle room, you see. Of a piece with Hamilton’s brilliant flim-flam about the “general welfare.”

That is how it is done.

To undo it, there must be a rebirth of what they called in cowboy flicks, straight-talking. Calls things by their proper name – and challenge those who don’t or won’t. Make them say what they mean – openly. If you fail to do so, you’ve accepted their terms.

Which means, they’ve already won. Ask any progressive.

Or just wait. He’ll soon be “asking” you to “help.”

Most people are innocent victims of verbal (and written) rights-rape. For example, public schools. Well, no – they’re not. Yes, they are “open” to the public – in the sense that the public is forced at gunpoint to send its children to them. Which gives us a clue as to the proper name that ought to be used in every instance of discussion: Government schools. It is what they are, in plain, direct – and thus, honest – language. Nothing less. Which of course is why honest language is not generally used to describe them. Because that might get people thinking along certain  lines. “Public” sounds so much… friendlier. Free, almost – a vicious irony if ever there was. You’re not free to decline to pay for them (even if you don’t use them). And most kids are certainly not free to not attend them. Very much what you’d expect of a government school. Because the essential attribute of government is coercion – force. The thing that must never be openly stated – but always euphemized.

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