Offensive Language

There are at least three words which should not be used generically but only to describe those historical acts. One of them is "holocaust," periodically used by abortion rights opponents to describe abortion. Recent comments by two other prominent individuals highlight hyperbole run amok.

The Arizona legislature has passed a bill, now awaiting the governor's expected signature, which

would require immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and require police to question people if there is reason to suspect they're in the United States illegally. It also targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.

On his blog, Cardinal Mahony, head of the largest archdiocese in the U.S.A., remarked

The Arizona legislature just passed the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law.

Perhaps (more on the bill in a later post). But he wrote (typed) also

I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation.

No, this is not quite "German Nazi" techniques. And Americans, not even Arizonans, are Nazis.

What kind of post would this be, however, without criticism of at least one Republican? If Cardinal Mahony was out of line, so too was an ex-college football star, intelligent enough to realize that he had no future in the National Football League, who became a Congressman- and not a very good one at that. Think Progress reports this exchange that took place at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference earlier this month in an interview with former Representative J.C. Watts (R-OK):

ELSWICK: We were talking about social programs, and J.C., she calls them the new slavery.

WATTS: Dave I think that’s a legitimate claim if the programs aren’t improving people’s lives or getting them into a life of productivity. It’s just like, we could say I think it’s slavery to give your kid an allowance unless you say you gotta take the trash out, you gotta keep your room clean. Parents usually don’t give their kids an allowance without saying you have to do something.

Yep, that's the ticket: giving your son or daughter an allowance while expecting nothing in return= slavery.

Representative Watts in 1997 implied that support for abortion was akin to support for slavery (though in my opinion, not quite equating the two things). A decade later and by then a CNN contributor, he tastefully included Reverend Jesse Jackson in a list of "race-hustling poverty pimps," who "talk a lot about slavery, but they're perfectly happy to have just moved us to another plantation." Apparently, Watts likes throwing that term "slavery" around- nothing like diminishing the horror of owning another human being.

Some terms, like Nazi and slavery, simply shouldn't be trivialized.

Sean Hannity, Making No Sense

Syndicated talk show host and GOP TV talk host Sean Hannity interviewed on radio former U.S.Representative J.C. Watts (R.- OK), a conservative black who served in the House after he wisely chose not even to attempt an NFL career as a quarterback. Sean clearly was surprised that Watts was considering voting for Barack Obama in November (apparently for racial reasons), and ticked off the (conservative) positions on which he believed they agreed. One of these was "we want to secure the borders for safety reasons, not for any other reasons." If this is in fact Hannity's only reason for a strict anti-illegal immigration policy, given that we know that our northern border is less scrutinized than our southern border, can a proposal by Sean Hannity for securing the U.S.A.-Canadian border be far behind?

Sean never misses a chance to assure us that domestic oil companies are selflessly pursuing increased supplies of oil to serve the American consumer with little interest in their own profit. Thus, during his interview with Watts he breathlessly asserted to his audience "fifteen percent of what we pay at the pump is taxes, it's unbelievable."

When George W. Bush assumed office in January, 2001, the nationwide price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline was approximately $1.43. Now it is approximately $4.00, a rise of approximately 280%. Subtract that 10% for taxes, and it still is $3.60 (and taxes were included in that 1/01 price of $1.43). Yes, Sean, the price at the pump and the pain caused the American consumer must be government's fault. Here is something Hannity would find really unbelievable if he did a little research: As of October, 2005, when the maximum gasoline tax rate in the United States was 17%, in France taxes composed approximately 70% of the purchase price. In April, 2006, when the U.S.A. had roughly a 15% tax on gasoline, the Netherlands had a 158% tax on gas. The U.S. had the lowest tax on gasoline of any industrialized country; compared to similar countries, governments in the U.S. take less; the oil companies take more. An inconvenient truth for conservatives and Republicans, but a truth nevertheless.