Monday, August 20, 2012

Rhetorical Flourishes

Please, People! I don't suppose this will help, but here's my passionate plea:
It's Governor or Mitt Romney, not "Mittens" or "Willard."
It's President or Barack Obama, not "Barry" (or worse.)
It's the Democratic Party not the "Democrat" Party.
It's LDS or Mormon, not "Morman" Church.
It's right-wing or left-wing not "fascism" vs. "socialism" (which are sort of different versions of the same thing anyway.)
It's Progressive, not "Liberal." (Only because some have made liberalism a dirty word. It's not.)
It's undocumented immigrants, not "illegal aliens."
It's Pro-life not "anti-women."
It's Pro-choice not "pro-abortion" (or worse).
It's Pro-traditional marriage or Pro-marriage equality, not all the other things people say.
It's Americans, not "real Americans." 
And in modern American politics, we can do without the following terms as they are not even accurate at least in the reality of the good ol' US of A:
commie, nazi, pinko, neanderthal, femi-nazis, taliban, bleeding heart, knuckle-dragger, clueless, homophobic, loony (well, allowing for the best political party on Monty Python), moron (with the exception of Bugs's phrase "what a maroon!"), dictator, warmonger, elitist, nuts, and, of course, any expletives or racially offensive words. 
Oh, and "PC" too. I suppose some may say this whole thing is an attempt at political correctness or censorship. Well, it's my blog and you don't have to read it. The First Amendment applies to my expression as well as my choices of self-editing and moderating comments.

All I'm trying to do is promote the passionate expression of ideas without the cheap resort to words that only inflame the irrational partisan diatribes. (For an example of that, you can check out the comment section on the Salt Lake Tribune or most political news sites - yeech!)

Sometimes I make mistakes. So feel free to point those out and I'll try to improve. You can also offer up other ideas of words or expressions I could list here and I'll give them consideration.

I may be wrong in my opinions. But I want to make my heart as good as possible (bleeding as it may be).

1 comment:

  1. Oh, another one to add:

    "legitimate rape" whatever that is.

    And just to be fair to the other side we'll add:

    "chains."

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome. Feel free to disagree as many do. You can even be passionate (in moderation). Comments that contain offensive language, too many caps, conspiracy theories, gratuitous Mormon bashing, personal attacks on others who comment, or commercial solicitations- I send to spam. This is a troll-free zone. Charity always!