Words represent ideas. And ideas are important. The concepts in the Declaration of Independence or the Bible or those of Shakespeare or Aristotle would not be available to us without the words used to convey them.
Consider two sentences: People should eat vegetables. People should not smoke cigarettes.
These are fairly straightforward concepts but I want to break them apart and look at the individual parts for a moment.
“People”, without any qualifier in front of it is generally understood to mean “all people”. One could narrow the scope by using rich people or tall people or black people or old people or gay people. Clearly there are a number of words one could use in place of “people”. We could use farmers or men or Republicans or liberals.
“Should” indicates an opinion. The speaker believes that what they are saying ought to be the case. One could replace should with “should be forced to”, or “should be prevented from”, or “should be punished for”. This changes the meaning considerably because although you may feel “people should eat vegetables” you may not feel “people should be forced to eat vegetables”.
“Vegetables” and “cigarettes” can of course be replaced with any number of things or issues. Some hot button words are guns and abortions and marijuana. We have to be careful when we read sentences because often people see one of these hot-button words and simply think “for” or “against”. The rest of the sentence matters a great deal.
For example, many people will say they do not think people should smoke cigarettes but that they do not think people should be prevented from or punished for smoking cigarettes. Unless we are talking about young people, and then they may feel young people should be prevented from or punished for smoking.
And we should consider an initial phrase often added to the front of such sentences. One could start the sentence with “Republicans believe”, or “liberals think”, or “blacks feel as though”. Without a qualifier such as “some”, these are usually very unfortunate sentences. We need to be careful when drafting sentences that narrow from “all people” down to specific groups. If you say “women should…” then it should likely involve mammograms or Pap Smears. Likewise “black people should…” had better involve checkups for sickle cell anemia.
It is ok to feel that people should eat vegetables or go to church or exercise. It is ok to believe that people should not smoke cigarettes or have abortions or loot stores. These are individual opinions about what is right or wrong, wise or unwise, appropriate or inappropriate. When we cross over into believing that people should be forced to, or prevented from doing things, we run into a number of issues.
The first issue we run into when thinking that force should be used to make people do things or to prevent people from doing things is – by what right? What gives you the right to tell someone else how to live their life? One answer might be the natural right of self-defense. In the case of murder or rape, these are cases where one human infringes on the most basic rights of another human being. Society has decided that people must be prevented from, and punished for, infringing on the rights of others.
Property rights are another appropriate reason for believing that force should be used to prevent or punish the actions of another. Theft and vandalism violate the rights of another person and justifies the use of force to prevent the acts or punish the violators.
Often, however, people are merely offended that someone is doing something that they do not believe is wise. Getting drunk or smoking cigarettes may not be smart things to do but we must ask ourselves whether we have the right to use force to prevent them or to punish people who engage in these behaviors. Likewise exercise and attending church may be good things but can we rightly use force to make people do what we think is right?
And that is why many of us often find ourselves in the position of defending a person’s right to do something that we personally think is unwise.
A second consideration when deciding whether to use force is that we have to figure out who will enforce rules and how they will enforce them. We need to consider the practical limitations and ramifications of what we are proposing. We can punish people for exceeding the speed limit when they are caught but there is no practical way to prevent people from speeding. The punishment may act as a deterrent, but it does not actually prevent someone from doing something.
Attorneys get paid a lot of money to convert ideas to words and words back into ideas, because it is often a difficult and tedious thing to do. We revere documents like the Gettysburg Address because of the precise, clear, and brief manner that so many important ideas were communicated. Likewise we are appalled by the complexity and number of pages in the tax code or Affordable Care Act.
As I worked the polls during the August 5thprimary election here in Missouri I spoke to a number of people. Most had little to say, but one gentleman came out after voting and pointed at my sign and just said, “NO”. I engaged him in conversation and asked him to explain. He had concerns about my candidate and party and he expressed those. As he did I listened and just kept clarifying his meaning using the ideas above.
There were a group of firefighters also working the polls next to me who watched our interaction with great interest and perhaps trepidation. As we talked it turned out we actually agreed on most things. It was mostly a matter of getting beyond the hot button words and looking at rest of the sentence, at the ideas involved. There were a few instances where the gentleman referred to what “all the Tea Partiers think”. I gently corrected him, first backing away from “all”, and then examining the difference between what people think “should be” and what they think should be “forced” on people. Before he left we shook hands and although we still did not see eye-to-eye on everything we realized there was much more common ground than was initially apparent. The firefighters paid us a great compliment when they noted that they never thought that conversation would end that way. One said that if leaders in Washington could discuss issues that way we could make a lot more progress.
I hear many unfortunate comments from my conservative friends as well. In general it is better to avoid statements like “liberals all think that…”, or “those black kids all believe that…” because we don’t know what ALL members of any such group believe, and just because someone believes things should be a certain way does not mean they believe laws are needed to make it so. We need to stop painting with a broad brush.
Some of us spend a lot of time discussing various philosophies on society and government. These things get pretty specific and it is nearly impossible to discuss these ideas without labels. Words like communist and fascist and anarchist and libertarian and even conservative and liberal have meaning but generally must be redefined with each conversation. There are left- and right- libertarians. Classical liberals are nearly the opposite of modern liberals. Anarchists can be socialists or capitalists.
It gets a little tedious and so we make models and charts to show where each exists on various spectrums. Some want less government and some want more equality and some want both. Most people quickly get bored with the details and complexity of the discussion and go watch TV instead.
Last week Joe Brazil was elected the new chairman of the St. Charles Republican Central Committee and he suggested everyone go home and think about what the committee’s purpose should be and what they were trying to accomplish so some concrete goals could be set for the next year. Republicans know they need to improve their image and decide what they stand for and then communicate that to the community in a concise way that people can understand.
It is a tall order. No organization is completely of one mind, and there are certainly differences of opinion as to what the brand should represent in this case. There is change occurring, with the “old guard” being slowly replaced by a new way of thinking. I think much of it centers on the difference between “should” and “should be forced to”. We need to be the party of both liberty and responsibility.
This is important because labels are words and words matter. People do not have the time and patience to look beyond the surface and so the words and labels need to have consistent and concise meaning that people recognize. Companies know this and spend enormous time and energy making people understand what their brand represents.
The folks protesting in North St. Louis County last week were not all of one mind. Some of them were there to loot and vandalize and agitate. Some were there to party and take part in the mayhem. But manywere down there peacefully calling for justice and defending their liberty. They were asserting their rights to free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. Most of them were appalled at the vandalism and violation of property rights by the looters. They were sick of big government intrusion into their lives and protested against the militarized police state. They want a better education for their children. They called for more transparency in their government. They want more economic opportunity, and not just a handout.
Someone needs to let them know, gently so as not to shock them, that these are Republican ideas.
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