The Language of the Left

Congratulations is due to Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker for not only becoming the first governor to ever survive a recall election but also by doing so in an overwhelming manner. Contrary to expectations and exit polls, Walker trounced Democrat rival Tom Barrett 53% to 46%. The recall election, which was the third in United States history, was prompted by Democratic and union angst over Walker's reforms that limited collective bargaining for public unions. But while the Republicans clearly won the political battle yesterday, they are slowly losing a broader war.


Republicans have been allowing the left to set the terms and terrain for debate over a wide array of issues. The right has continually failed to challenge underlying assumptions and language used by the media, pundits, and politicians on both sides of the aisle. This has allowed, even helped, the left to determine a battleground that is less defensible for the right by presupposing certain facts and language that should be readily open to challenge. The right, for the most part, seems to be oblivious to this fact—an effect that is slowly undermining the philosophy of the right, their political goals, and eventually support for a conservative agenda.

This issue has been painfully present throughout the Wisconsin recall election. Specifically, the debate has been framed as an issue of collective bargaining rights. The Washington Post stated, "The passions that fueled a long fight over union rights and Wisconsin’s cash-strapped budget brought voters out in strong numbers Tuesday to decide whether to recall Gov. Scott Walker [emphasis added]." The New York Times used similar language, "[V]oters began streaming into polling places on Tuesday to decide whether to remove Gov. Scott Walker, the Republican whose decision to cut collective bargaining rights for most public workers set off the fight [emphasis added]." CNN parroted, "Gov. Scott Walker [is] a Republican hero for pushing austerity measures that stripped collective bargaining rights from most public unions [emphasis added]." The supposedly right-leaning Wall Street Journal fell into the same trap: "The recall was triggered by a backlash to a law Mr. Walker signed in March 2011, two months after taking office, that forced government workers to pay for more of their pension and health-care benefits while also cutting most of their collective-bargaining rights [emphasis added]." Even the hated "right-wing propaganda" from Fox News used rights language: "The effort to recall Walker began shortly after he was elected in 2010 and began cutting the state’s huge budget shortfall by holding down taxes and removing collective-bargaining rights for unions representing state employees [emphasis added]."

While at first glance this may seem trivial, the nearly complete use of rights language is packed with assumptions—assumptions that validate the left's political philosophy and make it exceedingly difficult for Republicans to reorient the country's drift. Walker's win was aided by a number of factors—unmanageable state fiscal conditions, distaste with the concept of recall elections, and the poor economy—that may not exist in the future. However, without the presence of these factors, the underlying problem—the pernicious effect of collective bargaining by public sector unions—arguably may not hold electoral sway in future political climates, particularly if the right is unable able to correctly elucidate the issue.

The pervasive use of "rights" language is the crux of the problem. By labeling collective bargaining a right, the left is able to incorrectly frame the debate and mop-up voters who are offered a false understanding of the issues. It leaves the right with a reduced tool-kit to persuade voters, thus handicapping their arguments and their efforts. Republicans have only been able to go after the pernicious effects of public unions during an economic downturn because the employment of rights language has prevented them from successfully arguing against the innate demerits of public sector unions. They have thus been unable to illuminate the problems of collective bargaining absent economic woes, preventing the advancement of a just policy that should be easily supportable even during economic booms. By using the language of the left, the right is providing the unions and the Democrats with a subtle but lasting win. They are allowing collective bargaining to be incorrectly defined in leftist terms, as a right—a concept that is held to be sacred to most Americans and something that people have been striving to protect for generations.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy right are defined in the following manner:

Rights are entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to be in certain states; or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in certain states.

Rights dominate modern understandings of what actions are permissible and which institutions are just. Rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived. To accept a set of rights is to approve a distribution of freedom and authority, and so to endorse a certain view of what may, must, and must not be done.

In other words, rights are entitlements that individuals can justly make a claim on. A government that strips its citizens of their rights is unjust and has exceeded its authority. This is a fact that is recognized by most Americans. The United States has a long history of promoting and defending rights. Even if most Americans agree with Governor Walker's policies, by labeling them an attack on collective bargaining rights, many Americans are left with a level of discomfort, an internal cognitive dissonance between a policy that innately feels correct and an attack on an institution that has high value.

Such internal dissonance, even if subconscious, yields a substantial win for the left, especially among younger, more idealistic voters. It not only compels some to vote with their "hearts," but generates a space for political arguments that misconstrue the facts. Political battles can be won and lost, but by defining the framework in which battle is conducted, the left wins the long-term war. Through this process the left is able to successfully define how future generations will think.

The problem is fortunately easy to rectify. Republican politicians and pundits must be aware of the language they use and they need to clarify the (often unthinking) misuse of language by the media and other public figures. Collective bargaining rights need to be re-framed as what they truly are: collective bargaining privileges (or more benignly collective bargaining). This will, at minimum move the debate from one over whether it is acceptable to strip certain rights from public sector union members to one over whether these powers are rights or privileges. At best, a complete swing in language will move the battleground to more friendly terrain (and correct terrain in the eyes of this blog) where collective bargaining powers will be justly classified as undue privileges and thus much easier to curtail.^[1] (who would stand for giving a special interest privileges at taxpayer expense?)

By changing the framework of debate, Republicans will have an easier time presenting their arguments, putting the Democrats on the defensive, and undercutting the ability for the left to portray such sensible reforms as undermining anyone but a narrow special interest. But if the right is not careful, as has unfortunately been true for decades, the left will continue to win the war of language, thereby slowly undermining the principles of this country.

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Note:
[1]Collective bargaining, especially by public sector unions, is unquestionably not a right. Collective or group rights in general are hardly defensible. An understanding of the proper role of government does not leave any space or philosophical justification for such a right. While arguments may be made for the utility of collective bargaining in some instances and at some times (possibly, more so in the private sector with truly commoditized services that lack adequate government protections for labor), they cannot be made in rights language. Other justifications must be employed to defend collective bargaining, which is exceedingly difficult. This is why the left has successfully fought to define many of its political goals over the past decades, in terms of rights language. It is much easier to defend a right (and some in the Civil Rights era were clearly violated) than rely upon another less potent and universal defense. But the abuse of the concept of right has gone too far, and is (and has been) undermining  the fabric of the American political system.

Obesity Isn't Abuse

The media has been aflame with a recent editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that advocates removing severely obese children from their parents.  People are right to be concerned about unjustified state intervention within the family.  Children should not be removed from the home except under the most excepting situations.

However, when one pushes aside the media firestorm and actually reads the original JAMA commentary, the author's claims are less "nanny state" than some pundits choose to portray.  The authors state:

...[P]oor parenting is analogous to secondhand smoke in the home—a condition associated with adverse health consequences for the child, but not warranting legal intervention.   

...State intervention may serve the best interests of many children with life-threatening obesity, comprising the only realistic way to control harmful behaviors. Child protective services typically provide intermediate options such as in-home social supports, parenting training, counseling, and financial assistance, that may address underlying problems without resorting to removal. These less burdensome forms of legal intervention may be sufficient and therefore preferable in many cases. 

...In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable from a legal standpoint because of imminent health risks and the parents' chronic failure to address medical problems. 

...Nevertheless, state intervention would clearly not be desirable or practical, and probably not be legally justifiable, for most of the approximately 2 million children in the United States with a BMI at or beyond the 99th percentile.

The authors clearly address that such instances of overt state intervention should be severely limited.  They are also correct in stating that "[d]espite a well-established constitutional right of parents to raise their children as they choose, the state may intervene to protect the child's interests."  One of the primary roles of the state is to protect individuals from abuse or injury caused by others.  This constitutional protection has to be extended to children as well - few would dispute such an argument.

Nevertheless, while the author's argument is much more narrow than the media has thus far portrayed, it does venture a bit outside of what is acceptable.  Obesity isn't abuse.  At most, obesity may be an indicator of potential abuse.  There are numerous causes of obesity in children.  Accordingly, in cases of morbid obesity it may be appropriate to investigate a home situation to determine if abuse - whether neglect or emotional or physical abuse - is occurring.  However, obesity alone should never be justification for the removal of a child from his or her parents.  This, as many have pointed out, gives the state far too much power to determine what is and what is not right for an individual. 

Jonah Goldberg stated the problem aptly.  "Once you establish the idea that the state can take away kids from loving parents because the state thinks they're not good parents, you really are off to the races."

The Religious Assault on Liberty: When Religion Coerces the Individual

Secularism-as-a-religion is by far not the only threat to liberty. Religion too can mount insidious molestations on freedom. In the newest incarnation of the Muhammad cartoon uproar, Comedy Central’s South Park, which offers puerile but wickedly intelligent social commentary on a ‘nothing is sacred’ basis, has been under attack. Creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, have received loosely worded death threats for their portrayal of Muhammad – a sacrilege for many Muslims.

The threats have prompted increase police security and an unfortunate back-down by Comedy Central, which censored the cartoon. As has been discussed on ANR before, such kowtowing to radical demands is foolhardy.

At the base of the debate comes the value of the individual’s or the group’s rights. Like the radical secularists in France who are attempting to ban the burqa, the radical Muslim’s here are drastically encroaching on the right of the individual to behave as they see fit. The claims of sacrilege and a religion’s right to not be insulted are a group’s claim that attempts to subordinate the individual to the power of a few elite. In this case, the elite is the fundamentalist Islamist leadership which has determined what constitutes ‘correct’ in the eyes of their creed.

The desire to oppress the individual in the name of religion is a pernicious aim that has far too often claimed victims over the course of history. Religion, like any other influential grouping of people, should have no special rights over the individual. Each man or woman should be free to choose how to associate with others, as long as such associations do not have destructive effects on third-parties. However, such associations should have no rights to force others to adhere to their voluntarily agreed upon memes.

As offensive as South Park may or may not be, groups do not have any special privilege to not be offended. By calling for such special treatment, fundamentalist Muslims are only deepening the cultural divide and severely trampling on the fundamental rights of man. They should accept the fact that coercive force will never convince the alleged offenders to toe the line. Instead, they should work to educate others about their beliefs and affirm their own convictions regardless of what occurs in the ‘outside’ world.