by Robert M. Traxler

As we enter what some folks call the silly season, the presidential election season, we see politicians on both sides of the spectrum using the same old worn-out mantras.

One of my favorites is the use of the word “fight;” I will fight for you, your family, jobs, fairness, equity, abortion for or against, open or closed borders, restricting or expanding welfare programs, higher or lower taxes and more. The political class will not advocate, legislate or work for us, they will fight; what does that mean? Shoot, club, stab, bomb, punch? Fight is so widely used we fail to see how asinine a statement it really is.

The silly season has a large number of downright dumb and ambiguous phrases, such as fair share of taxes, common sense gun control, and corporate welfare. Saying things that are so broad, so wide ranging that they have no real meaning and can be whatever the reader or viewer wishes them to be.

If I hear a politician of either party say, “let me tell you what the American people think” or “let me tell you want the American people want” one more time, I may become ill. The statement predisposes that you and I cannot speak for ourselves and need the political/media class to tell us what to think.

“We need comprehensive immigration reform” is a saying commonly used by both parties that has no meaning and is so broad as to encompass every aspect of our lives. The careful use of words like “comprehensive,” “fair share,” “fair minded,” “mean spirited,” and “common sense” are meant to open a path to restructuring our basic form of government and society.

A favorite word of the political/media class is “diversity,” a word that is so vague that it can never be fully achieved. A Silicone Valley business has a very high percentage of minorities, but is not diverse because they do not have the proper percent of all minorities. The business may have a higher percent of women, Asians, African Americans and gays than the national average, but not transgender folks, so they lack diversity.

Common sense gun control got us the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection act, 1994-2004, the so-called assault weapons ban, a law that did little more than require firearms manufacturers to retool their plants. All of the restrictions outlined in the act produced weapons cosmetically designed not to look evil, but it did not change the way any weapon functioned in any manner.

What does “fair share of taxes” mean? Who could be against fairness and equity? Former United States Representative Barney Frank once said that he could not understand why people objected to the tax policy because in the worst case the government lets people keep half of what they earn. What you earn belongs to the government and they are good people because they allow you keep most of it.

Fairness is not fair in the eyes of those who must pay 50% , but is fair to those who pay zero, or indeed get a tax credit. Why we vilify, hate and punish successful Americans has always been a mystery to me. The political/media class on both sides but mostly the left use “Wall Street” as a bogeyman, as if a street had free will.

All this is in keeping with the mantras that criminals would rather be put to death than serve life in an 8-foot by 10-foot cell. Come on folks, if that is so why do 99 out of 100 file appeal after appeal? A criminal who receives a death sentence will be put to death in a very few years; Timothy McVeigh did not appeal and was put to death three years after sentencing, however most appeal for decades. Why would they appeal if death was preferred? The common sense test should apply here but once again advocates for a course of action are blind to common sense.

Only the political and media class could use the term “corporate welfare” for not taxing corporations; if the government allows a corporation to keep its profits it is referred to as giving welfare to corporations. Think about it — if the government does not tax you it is giving you something? If you keep a percentage of what you worked for and earned is it a gift from the government?

We will have a year of the same old chants and worn-out sayings from the politicians of both parties. The sad thing is that they repeat the mantras because they work, and people must want to hear them over and over again or they would not be so pervasive.