The Language of the Left

Deciphering what Obama and his cronies use in their speeches requires a liberal CliffsNotes. Kimberley Strassel lays out translations for common statements in Obama's speeches to help make sense of his lofty rhetoric.

"We are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin." Translation: Blame Republicans, and tax cuts.

- It's time to "make hard choices to bring our deficit down." Translation: Hello, higher taxes.

"The only way to fully restore America's economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world." Translation: Big government.

"We need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy." Translation: Your utility bills are going up.

"If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime." Translation: For now.

I find Mr. Obama's style of language disturbing. Obama slyly glosses over what he is really doing with the intent of fooling Americans who don't pay attention to what he says. It helps him usher in economic policies that have failed many times throughout history; policies that have always given the Left more of what they want - power. Thomas Sowell outlines the purpose of the Left's vocabulary in his book The Vision of the Anointed:

The vocabulary of the Left sets out to "either preempt issues rather than debate them, set the anointed and the benighted on different moral and intellectual planes, or evade the issue of personal responsibility."

It is not surprising that you can easily find at least one of these three within any one of Obama's speeches.

Sane Reading for Troubled Times

A recent article from World magazine titled Sane Reading lists some of the greatest economic books (in my opinion) ever written to help wade through today's financial insanity.

I generally disagree with many of John Maynard Keynes' economic conclusions. However, I respect his ability to explore new theories, his support of free markets, and his contribution to some of the great economic quotes. I find the following quote a bit ironic because I think many people have become a slave to Keynes himself,

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."

Without further ado, here is the list of books:

• The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes
• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
• The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
• Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
• Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
• Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises
• Book of Proverbs by King Solomon and miscellaneous contributors

I have read about half of these books and I am eager to read the other half. The ones that I have read are excellent, so I don't doubt that the rest are great reads. World magazine is what I consider to be a respectable and unbiased weekly news source as opposed to Time magazine which is full of liberal bias.