Here's a story on
political language that was new to me.
The widespread belief that there is an "illegal immigrant" problem is a relatively recent phenomenon, according to Joseph Nevins, author of "Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the US-Mexico Boundary." As Nevins notes, the national platform of the Republican Party didn't mention a concern over "illegal immigration" until 1986. The Democrats—characteristically late and in a reactive mode—followed suit in 1996, adopting a similar stance as their counterparts.
That's one of the key patterns to understand in immigration debates over the past 15 years: Republicans take a stand; Democrats respond by agreeing with the critique but offering a slightly less harsh solution; Republicans get most of what they want.
It wasn't always that way. Back in the 1970s, the Carter administration, under INS Commissioner Leonel Castillo, sent out a directive forbidding the use of "illegal alien" and replaced it with "undocumented workers" or "undocumented alien." But as Nevins writes, "that linguistic sensitivity quickly disappeared."
Let's just repeat this part: "Republicans take a stand; Democrats respond by agreeing with the critique but offering a slightly less harsh solution; Republicans get most of what they want." And in many cases, it starts with what Nevins called "linguistic sensitivity." Or you might call it Democratic fear. It's manifest in this case by Democrats adopting the Republican narrative on immigration, using their words. But all too often, the reverse happens, and the Right succeeds in making us give up our words.
Consider the case of "liberal." As defined by The American Heritage Dictonary at Dictionary.com, there's not a lot to object to in the concept.
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.[...]
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression[...]
Freedom. That's pretty much as American as you can get. And yet, Democrats who cleave to this political tradition—to civil liberties and to freedom guaranteed by law—run from the word, calling ourselves "progressive." Progressive is a perfectly fine word, embodying a great deal of what we stand for, but there sure as hell isn't anything wrong with liberal. We are liberal, in the best traditions of American political theory and practice. And we allowed Republicans to sully that word and to effectively take it away from us. We allowed them to redefine our basic political identity.
Well, enough of being bullied into emulating the know-nothings by shrinking our vocabularies. By letting them define us and what we believe in.
Right now, in today's political debate, the number one word we need to embrace: entitlement.
I see lots of arguments that by calling the core programs of our social safety net—Social Security and Medicare in particular—entitlements, we're somehow falling into the Republican trap, that it's already a dirty word and that by using it we're diminishing the importance of the programs.
Hogwash. Let's just get the basics here of what the word "entitled" means as it pertains to these programs: "a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something."
Legal right? Just claim? I think we've got that covered. By all means, there's a legal right and just claim to these monies by the people who have paid into the funds for their entire working lives. Like 93 year-old Esther Lenett says in the video above:
Social Security is our money. Workers fund Social Security, not the government.
Workers fund Social Security and Medicare, and retired or disabled workers are entitled to have their contribution and the contract they made with their government honored.
Now that's not to say that a sense of entitlement is necessarily an okay thing to have. Like this guy, tea party Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who believes because he is a U.S. congressman he is entitled to not have to pay the $100,000 he owes in child support and to not have to appear, again, before a judge to explain precisely why he's failed to support the children he brought into the world.
Just as bad is the sense of entitlement Republicans have to get at our retirement money to pay for wars and more tax breaks for their base, or the entitlement to our hard-earned savings the banksters feel they have as they grasp at more sources of money to feed their gambling habit. Ironic that those who would make entitlement a dirty word are those who have the most perverted sense of what's due them just because of their position in society.
What it all boils down to in the end, as usual, is the fight. Democrats, progressives, liberals have to embrace the vocabulary of our beliefs, and to fight for them. Fight for the words and in fighting for the words, fight for what they represent. Being bullied into giving up how we talk about our basic principles puts us on the slippery slope of being bullied into chipping away at them, and the policies and programs that grew out of them. If we give up on defending the idea, how do we defend the product of that idea?
Words matter in politics. So do promises. Damned right, Social Security and Medicare are entitlements. And damned right the people who pay for them are entitled to what was promised them in return.
