Positions sadly get twisted in U.S. elections

June 3, 2012 / 1 Comment

I have written extensively on the first in this column, and will devote the following lines to the second: I must say here that the Democratic propaganda machine,  aware of the fact that the president can’t run on his record and that the majority of the electorate has said no to the famous Reagan question “Are you better off now than four years ago,” has resorted to this stratagem of balkanization of the elections, scare mongering, class warfare, gender warfare, envy, hatred.

And in doing so, they take small and insignificant events and inflate them to huge proportions by literally “changing the subject.” I counted eleven cases of the kind. Here are a few:

1) The Fluke contraception: Miss Fluke complained on TV that it cost her $300 to “contraceive” and that she can’t afford it, and wanted OPM (other people’s money) to pay for it. It was later reported that she. or anyone, could buy the pills for 9-10 dollars at Walmart,or even get them for free from Planned Parenthood or other organizations. This subject was on top of the news for a few days.

Then it was revealed that Obamacare forced the Catholic Church and its institutions to pay for that service in violation of their religious beliefs. (There are today 43 lawsuits filed by Catholic groups against the Obama administration , accusing it of  violating the Constitution and their religious freedom..)

But the Democratic campaign  changed the subject from “first amendment” to the Republicans and Romney are “against contraception,” (which is absolutely false and was denied vehemently,)  and then extrapolated this false accusation to “Romney is against the women.” (which is even more outrageous.) In linguistics, we call this maneuver “sliding semantics.”

2) Requiring ID for voting : I have been voting for about 40 years in the US and never missed a vote. Every time, I take with me my driver’s license and show it in a provocative way to make a point that it should be required by law. I have in the past voted in other democracies where this show of proof of eligibility was done as self-evident. The purpose is, of course, to avoid possible fraud, multiple votings as it was done, and proven, by ACORN, voting by dead people or illegal aliens etc. But when demands were made for requiring identification, all hell broke loose. The semantic sliding was loud and clear: The Democratic propaganda accused the pro-identification of “disenfranchising the poor who can’t pay for the ID card.”  In vain, it was retorted that it won’t cost the poor anything.

3) If you oppose illegal immigration, you are anti-Hispanic. Why? Legal Hispanics (or people of any origin) have the same interests as other citizens , and many of them  resent illegal people taking their jobs, crowding their schools and hospitals, and costing them, as taxpayers, billions of dollars.

I know of a few who told me just that. But the politicos make it sound as racist, falsely of course.

4) If you are for cutting spending (when 40 % of the federal budget is borrowed money, and when the national debt surpassed 16 trillion dollars), you are accused of throwing grandma over the cliff.

5) If you are against gay marriage, you are accused of hating gay people and discriminating against them and violating their civil rights.

6) If you are against terrorism, you are accused of “Islamophobia.” Etc., etc.

An enlightened electorate can’t put up with these twists and distortions that muddy the waters of this essential process in a democratic society. Let us insist on the voting criteria when the citizens come to make their choices: Not party loyalty, not demagogic and false advertising, not demographics and ethnic politics, BUT personal character, sincerity, credibility, a record of past accomplishments, and a clear and sound program of action in the future, should guide this sacred choice.

*
Yetiv is a freelance writer based in La Jolla. He may be contacted at isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com