What political words or phrases used to describe policies are the most misleadin

1. 61

   Peter Leeperposted 12 years ago

   What political words or phrases used to describe policies are the most misleading?
   
   What political words or phrases used to describe policies are the most misleading and used to put a bad face on the other parties concept?  How does the term used skew the intended idea?  I will start with one example:  entitlements:  used for welfare benefits and exudes that the recipients feel like they are "owed" the benefits as opposed to needing them.

   replyreport
2. 0

   JThomp42posted 12 years ago

   "I promise>........................................................................................

   replyreport
3. 80

   junksellerposted 12 years ago

   The word government itself is used in such a way. Conservatives have turned the government into a great bogeyman--some sort of terrible abstract monstrosity that exists outside of ourselves, and who, depending on which side you are on, either wants to enslave you or turn you into a dependent suckling infant. They have worked extremely hard on this narrative, and while there are legitimate complaints to be made against the government, for the most part, the government is simply the collective public will, and the so-called dependencies are just shared resources the public willingly provides for the betterment of society.
   
   According to their narrative, things like regulations become attacks upon the free-market (the great God of all goodness) and an attack upon freedom itself rather than reasonable measures to protect and promote social and environmental health and justice.
   
   According to their narrative, the government is ALWAYS bad. Always inefficient, always incompetent, always wrong, etc. Except of course when it comes to military spending, in which case they are always right (despite the fact that military spending is arguably the least effective of any of our spending, but we don't really care about realities much these days).
   
   This then becomes a lazy person's argument. There's no need to actually address policies when you can simply say, "hey, it's the government, they suck."

   replyreport
4. 75

   tsmogposted 12 years ago

   Off the cuff and not a linguistics expert all words fit the bill you are suggesting. An example is those odd little people in the story of Gulliver's Travel were political concepts for that era and day. Gulliver too. Yet, that story is a children's story even today. I think it comes down to content and context, yet again I'm not an expert.

   replyreport