Deciphering the Code: How to make sense in an election year

It's election season and it’s time for politicians and the media to pull out all the stops on the use of code words. Both the left and the right try to mobilize their bases (and some independents) with superheated language that has a special meaning intended to mobilize impulsive, irrational feelings. Everyone knows what is really meant by these words and phrases, but no one would own the real meaning, short of torture.

On the left, there are three “hot” phrases that get the juices going: Fair Share, Less Fortunate, and Equal Opportunity. The first two are inextricably connected, both having to do with the doctrine of “unfairness,” that the “Occupy Someplace” movement has been highlighting and trying to keep in the public consciousness for the last number of months. The “rich” paying their Fair Share really means the leaders of the left arriving at a percentage of income to be taken from the former, in an amount to sufficiently punish those who have the nerve and gall to do what the latter will never do. That’s why those who promulgate the Fair Share concept can never quite arrive at an amount, or an amount that never seems high enough.

Less Fortunate is an even more pernicious term. What it really refers to, is those unfortunate people who missed out when the deity of success held its lottery, years and years ago. If they only had the right ticket, they’d be living in the McMansions and driving the upscale cars. What’s really nasty about this term is the unstated dismissal of the More Fortunate as lucky, “connected,” manipulative, and corrupt individuals, who have what they have through no talent, skills, nor drive of their own. If you have trouble believing this, talk to people in the mainstream media (when they’re not working), and visit a working class bar in any major city.

Equal Opportunity has been around since the 1960s (in some ways, since the New Deal), and may, earlier than this era, have had real and genuine meaning. But make no mistake, in our time it means one and only one thing: Equal Outcome. When this administration talks about equalizing the playing field, they mean, without exception, redistributing wealth, confiscating income, and making more and more cultural and social opportunities, entitlements. You know how Western European countries provide higher education free of charge? They exclude most of the eligible population early in their lives. (When I went to college in England, they still used the “11-Plus” test; which excluded the vast majority of children from any chance at a university education, and relegated them to the remnants of the Industrial Revolution.)

The right participates in no less mendacity. Their key code words are Social Issues and Conservative Principles. Both of these really mean an adherence to hobby-horse issues drawn from a narrow and exclusionary religious base. And these beliefs intend to be no less controlling of people’s lives, than the social engineering of the left.

When the right talks about the two hot button issues — gay marriage and abortion — their intention is not to initiate a debate on issues of social policy. On the contrary, their agenda is to impose their religious doctrine on the society as a whole. Whether it is evangelical Christianity, fundamentalism, or other orthodoxies, the mission is clear. You either believe what we do, about these issues, or you are wrong and evil. I have never believed that gay marriage or abortions are public policy issues. And I have never seen any convincing rationale for making them political issues. The attempt to do so seems to me, no less arbitrary, controlling, and autocratic than the left’s attempts to regulate what we eat, how we raise our children, and where we should live.

As a psychotherapist and social scientist, I have seen no evidence that gay marriages damage my marriage, or have undermined the resolve of people to commit to heterosexual adult intimate relationships. In terms of commitment and fidelity, there is not one shred of evidence that there is less of it in gay, committed relationships, than in their heterosexual counterparts. The old, still-referred-to stereotype, of the promiscuous gay guy, flitting from bathhouse to bathhouse, is as invalid as the stereotype of the ideal heterosexual union in which husband and wife never so much as look at a member of the opposite sex. Most people are blissfully unaware of the fact that over 50 percent of straight marriages experience infidelity. Personally, I don’t care if you marry your horse; as long as you don’t cheat on her.

In terms of abortion, I find the practice gruesome and repulsive — and none of my business. If I wanted to outlaw all the human behavior that I found destructive and repulsive, I’d have to quit working and devote the rest of my life to it. In a free society, there is much opportunity and much pain. Deciding, on a political level, which pain is allowable, and which is not, is a slippery slope to fascism.

As far as the “sanctity of life” argument goes, it has always struck me as an unexamined and contradictory canard that is pulled out when all else fails. When I have discussed this issue with advocates of this point of view, I ask them if they extend the argument to capital punishment, self-defense, and just wars. We kill people regularly, across the planet. Sometimes it is inexcusable and tragic, and at other times, it is totally justifiable and necessary. If you were an absolutist about this, during World War II, we’d all be speaking German, and pledging our allegiance to the Third Reich.

When it comes to the term Conservative, I get real tired of it being applied to everything short of late-night infomercials. It is not about your religious beliefs, your lifestyle, your ethnicity, your geographical location, or any other accidental characteristic. The term should only refer to the basic grounding principles of those astounding individuals who paid an extraordinary price to create a society that has benefited more people than any other place on earth. Those principles are: Individual Responsibility; Accountability; Freedom of Commerce; and Freedom of Speech and Expression of Individual Beliefs.

If you choose to engage in the political process this year, which I believe is everyone’s duty, ask politicians what they mean by the terms they use. Unfortunately, between career politicians and the mainstream media, meaningless cliches have come to dominate our political discourse, and people are reduced to arguing one pointless position against an equally pointless counter-position. We have a choice about changing this.

Morrie Shechtman, of Kalispell, is chairman of Fifth Wave Leadership and has consulted with hundreds of top executives worldwide about managing in a time of disruptive change and high risk.