There has been quite a discussion going on between some local left-wing types and a conservative legislator named Tom Burnett. I am going to deal with some of the statements made by Bethany Letiecq and Billy McWilliams. First, here are several from Ms. Letiecq:
“Rep. Burnett… argued that he takes no pay or benefits for his legislative work. But that's not our issue. Burnett may be so privileged that he can afford to work for free, but that privilege has rendered him out of touch with the realities of so many in our community.”
Privilege:
a. A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste.
b. Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others.
Notice the not-so-subtle use of language by Ms. Letiecq. She is attempting to make a connection between someone who has gained success by his own hard work with someone who has been given a special advantage. This is a fallacy known as Poisoning the Well (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/poiswell.html), that is, an attempt to discredit him as a person so that anything he might subsequently say will be colored by the mischaracterization.
The use of the term “privilege” is also being employed in an attempt to create an us-versus-them scenario, to separate him out as dangerous, foreign, an oddity, or “not like us.” For the political Left, it is a frequently employed technique to create false dichotomies between people or groups in order to create friction, while simultaneously avoiding any discussion of actual issues. At its heart it is manipulative and anti-intellectual.
“He does not believe in programs like meals on wheels or food stamps and thinks they are unnecessary and wasteful. I disagree. I work with low-income families and elders and see how hard they work to make ends meet. It is crazy that Tom does not know that elders often make decisions about buying prescription drug refills or food for their tables.”
Another frequently used technique of the Left is to conflate a government program with a beneficial activity. So if someone opposes a particular government program, they must be in favor of the problem which the program is ostensibly trying to solve. For the Left, everything revolves around government. If there is a problem, government must be the solution. There is no other possible solution.
Interestingly, Ms. Letiecq makes note of the suffering of senior citizens, yet they are universally covered by various government programs, including Social Security and Medicare. But somehow they still must choose between prescriptions and food? How could this be? If there is a government program, the problem must be deemed solved, unless of course we need even more government programs to solve the problems the government programs didn’t solve.
Beyond that, notice the use of language: “It is crazy that Tom does not know…” First some name-calling, coupled with an assumption about Tom she could not possibly know herself. He is being painted as oblivious to pain and suffering, but Ms. Letiecq is compassionate, engaged, and caring. Tom is callous and unaware, presumably because of his privilege. Again, the strategy is to neutralize Tom without ever having to deal with a substantive argument about issues.
“From Tom's perspective, he suffered, worked hard, pulled himself up from his bootstraps so he does not support social programs that have been put in place to help others in poverty.”
Ms. Letiecq uses a conjunctive adverb (“so”) to connect a proposition (“he suffered and worked hard”) to establish a conclusion (“he does not support social programs”). The conclusion is a non sequitur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)), and in fact is false. Tom is a conservative, and most conservatives oppose social programs, not because they don't want to help others in poverty, but because:
1) There is no constitutional authority for them
2) They have failed to solve any of the problems for which they were created
3) They cause all sorts of personal and societal collateral damage
4) It is unjust to force some people to serve the interests of others
Once again, it is clear that Ms. Letiecq is attempting to smear Tom by trying to connect him with an imaginary privileged class of people who are aloof and unmoved by other peoples’ suffering. The lack of evidence for this does not deter her from persisting in this false narrative.
“From my perspective, what Tom fails to address are all the programs that have been in place over the past 50 years that allowed him to succeed in business and life...to work hard and get ahead. Tom is now actively working to dismantle the very programs that helped him succeed. It takes an individual working very hard AND government programs to lift us all up. Where would we be without government support of roads, infrastructure that helped establish suburbia, and all the other programs that supported Tom's hard work?”
This is known as a Bait and Switch. Leftists commonly conflate legitimate, constitutional duties like building infrastructure, with social programs that redistribute wealth. The programs of the “last 50 years” are not the same as roads and infrastructure. Food stamps are not the same as post offices. Welfare is not the same as police officers.
Because of her governo-centric ideology, she is convinced that people just can’t succeed on their own. They need help, her kind of help. But unfortunately for her, Tom and others like him didn’t succeed because of government, they succeeded in spite of government. The fact that people succeed even yet today given the arbitrary obstacles government has placed in their path is a testimony to their dogged determination and resourcefulness, people that Ms. Letiecq seems to despise.
Also, it needs to be pointed out that a road does not discriminate between the “privileged” and the regular people. A sewer system processes everyone’s waste without regard for their status. A landfill does not require an earnings statement. All of these things are simply tools to do the business of free enterprise. There is no government intervention to determine outcomes, there is no wealth redistribution, and there is no meddling in economics when it comes to infrastructure.
In Ms. Letiecq’s mind, some people simply do not deserve what they have. She is convinced that they are not going to use their wealth correctly. They are greedy and selfish. In fact, they don’t even deserve their money, they probably obtained it by cheating people. So we need people like her implementing government programs to make sure that these evil people do not get away with depriving the needy. She believes that she has the right to determine how much people need, and if they have too much she thinks government is perfectly justified in taking it from them. You see, wealth needs to be spread around, and the government programs of the last 50 years are designed to do just that.
“His faulty world view, his blinders "privilege" him not to see how government could function to do more for all of us. In Tom's world, he is self-made and government is bad. I challenge that. He needs to own how tax dollars have benefited his life. By disavowing that, he takes a privileged perspective that suggests he is an island and never benefited from the help and service of others.”
Here we have another typical Leftist narrative, that conservatives are anti-government. As already discussed, opposing the unconstitutional activities of government is not the same thing as opposing all government. But what is really noteworthy is the nonsensical statement, “He needs to own how tax dollars have benefited his life.” Can you imagine, Tom needs to realize that the government took his own money from him in order to benefit him? He should be thankful that government doesn't trust him with his own money. One might wonder if Ms. Letiecq is actually thinking about what she is writing!
She also employs another Bait and Switch. She conflates Tom’s accomplishments and self-sufficiency with the idea that he believes he has never benefited from the "help and service of others.” She cannot know this, of course, but it doesn’t stop her from using it as a bludgeon to impugn him. Beyond that, however, is that I do not know of any conservative who believes that they are an island and have never benefited from others. This again is a non-sequitur. Conservatives believe that it is the responsibility of individuals to help others by freely choosing to share of their time, knowledge, and wealth. This is not the same a government program.
Billy McWilliams writes this:
“I agree with you that a discussion on his voting record is sorely needed. I'm certain it would show he has voted against the values of his district, both financially and morally.”
1) There is no such thing as a district having values. People have values, not entities.
2) He assumes that government programs are definitively moral, and if you oppose a government program, you are immoral.
3) He makes a statement of morality, but whose morality is he referring to? And why is it now ok to impose this morality on others, even using the force of government to accomplish it? And what about the Leftist axiom, “you can’t legislate morality?”
4) What are financial values? Mr. McWilliams is throwing out fine sounding phrases that have no meaning but are designed to elicit an emotional response. Implied is that Tom is immoral and is violating some sort of unspoken standards, standards that are determined by MR. McWilliams. We are left to guess what they might be.
“I'm proud of working with Bethany [Letiecq] who is a principled teacher who lives her values and wants to fight for a better Montana. Finally, tell me exactly why Rep Burnett not taking pay is a virtue? (And that hasn't been confirmed.)"
What does “living her values” mean? By what critieria is he deciding that Ms. Letiecq’s values are superior, and how does he know that, by implication, she is doing a better job living her values than Tom is? And why is it noble to live one’s values? I thought it was virtuous to compromise, to be open to new ideas, to be ready to change? When someone lives their values, aren’t they committed to a certain unwavering standard? And here I thought that it was conservatives who were dogmatic.
Mr. McWilliams asks why not taking pay is a virtue. This is an interesting question, which tells us much about the mindset of big government true believers. Mr. McWilliams apparently cannot conceive of a scenario where someone who is entitled to suckle off the government teat would not do so. He doesn’t understand that the money Tom declines is money that came from someone else's pocket. He thinks that there is something wrong with someone who turns down free money. He doesn’t get how people who make a life for themselves, could be repulsed by the idea of receiving money that was taken from someone else.
Mr. McWilliams then takes a petty, small-minded shot at Tom: “And that hasn’t been confirmed.” Until it is confirmed, well, Tom is assumed to be a liar. Here we have a glimpse of the hatred that the Left has for those who disagree with their big government philosophy. Conservatives are evil, they steal and cheat and lie. They vote against the values of people, and won’t even take government money.
These comments are a target-rich environment. It’s time we conservatives learned how the Left manipulates the language, how they engage in misdirection, and how they misrepresent the views of their opposition. The country will be better off for it.
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