Topic: Letters:Times Daily
Article published Feb 18, 2006
Mark Twain once said the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Words are important. They're used to help and to heal, but also to hurt, deceive and distort. If one listens closely to the words used in today's society, this becomes abundantly clear.
Many social and political issues today are being defined by the words used to describe those issues rather than their substance. For example, the brouhaha over President Bush authorizing the National Security Agency to monitor the communications of suspected al-Qaida members into and out of the United States. The Bush administration refers to this as terrorist surveillance. Others refer to it as domestic spying.
Cutting through the verbiage, one realizes one side wants to track suspected terrorists who may be talking to American citizens while the other doesn't want those communications intercepted or listened to, regardless of what they may be plotting, even though there's no evidence of any non-terrorist related communications being tracked. Others say the president doesn't have the authority to do this, although previous courts have ruled otherwise. Indeed, Presidents Clinton, Bush (41) and Reagan all authorized the same action. Why would we not want to track terrorists and their contacts?
Keep in mind this was a top-secret program revealed only to key members of Congress. Yet, it was released to the media, and now al-Qaida knows to change their methods. So much for keeping a secret for national security.
A social issue where words are used to distort true meaning is abortion. Those in favor of abortion usually describe their position as pro-choice, meaning a woman should be able to choose to terminate a pregnancy. Those against abortion use pro-life to mean they believe in the unborn child's right to life. I've heard pro-lifers describe themselves as being anti-abortion but rarely, if ever, have I heard someone describe themselves as pro-abortion. It's as if there is a conscious attempt to avoid terms that refer specifically to the life or death of the child.
Many even refuse to refer to the unborn as a baby or child, using the word fetus or "clump of cells" to describe the child. A recent Baltimore Sun article quoted a lady describing sonograms, and the author of the article changed the word baby, which the lady had used, to fetus in the article. I wonder why? And why use the quote at all if one is going to misquote it?
Another area is what is being referred to as the "right to die" movement. The usual textbook word for it is euthanasia. Recent cases, such as Terri Schiavo's, highlight this. While I can understand a person choosing for themselves, or leaving written directions, to not be placed on life support, the "right to die" masks other motives. There have been a number of cases where elderly or infirm patients have been refused treatment and "provided the right to die" at someone else's behest. Indeed, the American Medical Association has stated it is not unethical to withdraw a feeding tube from a patient even if the patient is not terminally ill or permanently unconscious. It's as if the elderly now have an obligation or duty to die to keep from being a burden on society.
In times past, some cultures expected the elderly to go out away from everyone else to be killed by wild animals or to just die. Supposedly, this ended with people becoming civilized. But now it appears we're doing the same thing except through technology. This just seems morally wrong to me. I would think we would treat our elderly with honor and-dignity.
With many political words, one knows just as soon as they are uttered to turn on their internal lie detector. Inflammatory, disenfranchised, out of the mainstream and divisive are code words typically used when the results of an election didn't go the way someone wanted. When we're told we should be "tolerant," we can know we're expected to overlook some activity we usually find to be immoral.
Whether these words are being used because they're politically correct or whether they're just the latest political or social buzzword, we can know at least one thing. They're usually masking the true substance of what is being said.
Abraham Lincoln said, "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." I believe this is still true today. Unfortunately, too often in today's society, we aren't given the truth, and in order to know the truth, we not only have to listen and understand what words are being used, but those that aren't.
Eddie Herring is a Tuscumbia resident.
