Stupid Terms in Our Political Lexicon That Need to Die
This is a rant about stupid terms in our political lexicon. In no particular order, with no particular provocation.
- judicial activism - Refers to "any court decision I don't like". All judges are humans, and therefore have opinions, and are therefore activists. Judges will make changes to public policy for as long as they have the power to do so, and to pretend that your opinion is somehow the objective, correct way to view the law is arrogant and offputting to everyone else. Even judicial precedent is itself the work of activists, and therefore cannot be said to be a basis for labeling a departure from it "activism".
- real Americans - Defined as narrowly as possible, if you live in America and carry American citizenship, you are a Real American. This unquestionably includes, and is not limited to: naturalized immigrants, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, all members of Congress, health insurance company executives, liberal elites, Tea Party members and descendants of slaves. If you are using this term to disambiguate someone from any group other than people without citizenship of the United States (and even this is arguably too narrow a definition), you are wrong.
- right to exist - This term has no definition in any legal, diplomatic or political parlance. It is a rhetorical device that Israel has rather pig-headedly framed its political status with, and is never used in the context of any entity other than the modern state of Israel. You can argue that Israel shouldn't exist in its current form or otherwise, but arguing over whether it or anything else has or hasn't the right to exist is pointless rhetorical masturbation. There is no test to determine whether any nation, political entity, person, place or thing has a "right to exist", because something either exists or it doesn't. Further debate on this subject falls under the domain of metaphysical philosophers, not politicos. Both Israel and its critics are wrong to use it. A sensible concept to use instead would be diplomatic recognition, which is well-defined, internationally respected, and an actual issue in the context of the political status of Israel.
- family values - To say nothing of how this term has been dirtied by hypocrite after hypocrite in the media, it is nebulously defined as "anything good for strong families", which is something people don't agree about. It is better suited to refer to an overarching topic of debate over ideology than something someone can vaguely say they support without further qualification, but it would be better if it were just completely superseded by statements along the lines of "My position on social issues concerning families consists of..."
- big government - There are pretty convincing ways to argue that the government is doing too much or intruding in places it shouldn't. But ranting vaguely about how big the government is will always ring hollow, because a government that serves 300,000,000+ people will be "big" no matter what. Hell, by what measure is the government "big" anyway? Number of people it employs? Amount of money it touches? How much it does? The complexity of the legal system? All of these will seem huge no matter who's in charge or what the government is doing, and thus any measure you choose must always be arbitrary and unnecessary. It's an imaginary issue, and all of the things it codes for can be better brought up in ways that can be reasonably talked about.