The Paxton Pundit - by Stacey Youdin

Define Your Terms

Listening to C-SPAN Friday morning, one could discover just what have been the results of concerted assaults against our language. Caller after caller, on one of the lines provided on Washington Journal, suggested that Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize was a sign of a world gone catawampus.

What does his work have to do with peace? He's a self-aggrandizing phony. Look at his own contributions to the problem for which he's being lauded for exposing. On and on went these tirades, to the point where I could only conclude that it was more a sign of operant conditioning than discourse. Where is this "reasonable person" whom our courts rely on to find probable cause?

They're so dangerous, the preconceptions which eliminate all but faith-based truths and produce outpourings of venom at realities which, perforce, run contrary.

Since his program's vault into popularity, Rush Limbaugh has used his so-called humor (but mostly overkill) to demonize the other side in a dialogue he has proven himself unwilling to engage in.

Al Gore became a one word monster, back in the day, ready to destroy America like Godzilla. Year after year, through run up to war and swift boat slander, all the way to the present (when Jimmy Carter along with so many others find themselves ripe for muzzling), the methodology hasn't much changed. It has also spawned manifold wannabes in lesser markets at all times of the day and night.

Friday's barrage of calls demeaning Gore and his prize was evidence of harvest time. The Harvest New Moon, as it were, in all its darkness.

Last week, the prevailing wisdom about the "phony soldiers" comment was that it was a 'dog bites man' story. What else would you expect from this Limbaugh character? There was just no there there.

Now, the indignation de la semaine is Ann Coulter's defaming comments about Jews on Donny Deutsch's "Big Idea" on CNBC. Just more dog biting man? One of her books must have just gone to paperback, could say the unconcerned.

But her defense, as Deutsch tried to disavow quickly and go to commercial, was that she was not alone. She often uses the strength which comes from her sales figures, not her intellect, but now she was aligning herself with the cadres of abolitionists whose targets include the secular and the humanistic. Is that not just plain scary?

It leaves me as unconcerned as knowing that in consolidating our county's voting districts, the site of the fundamentalist ministry in my hometown was kept as a polling place while a nearby firehouse was eliminated. Are we to conclude that this is, after all, a Christian country and I'm just showing off what Coulter called my "imperfection?" Geeze Louise! You can't make this up, unless you're the author of every cautionary tale on the subject going back beyond The Enlightenment.

Listening to the diatribes of callers and learning of the latest Coulter hand grenade caused me to wonder if there's any hope of a return to dictionary definitions or if every issue before us will need interpretation?

Recall how, on his recent trip to New York City, President Ahmadinejad's personal translator was busted by Farsi speakers within earshot for softening much of the original language at events where those services were part of the format. So, even if it's true that the use of a translator may be required in our politics, the choice for which one to employ presents an even larger can of worms for the opening.

I think there's a fairly well known arbiter waiting in the wings, should anyone care to avail oneself of it.

Making English the official language of the United States is a recurring proposal from the radical right, but this is the same faction which purposely distorts, misconstrues and redefines the building blocks of the language we all rely on. Not even the likes of Tim Russert seem able to penetrate it.

I am much less worried about a recently arrived Kenyan immigrant who might need a little help with translation from and into Swahili than a reactionary rightist deliberately feeding the airwaves new meanings for very old words.

Anyone who breathed a sigh of relief that 1984 came and went without any of those pesky Orwellian transformations need only ponder what it means these days to demand of one's adversaries: "define your terms." Given such latitude, they'll define yours too.

We should all appeal to a higher lexicographer.

Next week: Not Again?

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