Double plus ungood

There has lately been added to the lexicon a phrase which defies justification: “too big to fail”. The claim is that there exist companies whose impact is so broad and thoroughly integrated into the fabric of our economy that failure of such a magnitude would be unsustainable. The argument is no less specious than those which defend government itself. Not that I am an anarchist by nature, but I do think that government is overrated and, were ours to collapse, people would find a way to survive without it.

As for these companies that supposedly must be saved I say: follow the money. Sure the politicians will tell us that the loss of jobs, the collapse of financial markets and the gap in services will be too great, but what they mean by these things are the loss of government jobs, the collapse of financial support for their next campaign and the gap of services they will be unable to parade before the electorate. Creating the illusion that certain companies are so critical that government intervention is necessary to keep them afloat is akin to claiming that the collapse of McDonald’s will bring starvation.

While many people would be suffering had GM gone into bankruptcy protection, those people would be the unionists forced to renegotiate contracts that would make GM more competitive rather than the taxpayers who have yet to gain a dime from being forced into an unneeded rescue. The bailout of companies like AIG speaks more to the origin of political fund raising than it does to the need to persist financial institutions which practice flawed policies. Compounding these actions is the fact that it is the self-same elected officials who, having passed ill-conceived legislation, created many of the risk pitfalls into which these companies fell.

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, creating a culture in which companies believe that they will be saved from demise should they fail means creating one where the natural influence of risk is removed and decisions are made with less regard for their downside. The government already enjoys such a cushion from failure and now, thanks to the misguided actions of our politicians, so does big business.

Spin Cycle

There is that overt, institutionalized form of newspeak known more commonly as political correctness. Then there is the other form of newspeak better known as spin. The minuscule difference between the two is the nature of their delivery.

Political correctness is built around the belief that society can be manipulated. While the stated goal (i.e. a more enlightened and empathetic populous) might be fueled by good intentions, the intrusion into our lives is nothing short of sinister. Just as Orwell predicted, the ultimate aim of this modern newspeak is to rid the world of negative thoughts. While I'm not advocating negative thought, I am also not a proponent of, nor a believer in, the manipulation of societies. Such a power, regardless how well intentioned, is just as prone to abuse as is the most lethal of weapons and potentially far more dangerous. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the affects of such efforts can be short lived at best due to the fact that such programs cannot ultimately change human nature.

As for the second form of newspeak, it is perhaps less sinister because it is not limited by a particular ideology. In fact, there are examples of this art being exercised on the same populous to sell the same product from opposite sides of the political spectrum (e.g. the Justice nee Patriot act). This form of newspeak convinces us to support things like "fairness", "progressivism" and "life", all things which, separated from their contexts, are easily supported.

The "fairness" doctrine proposes to force radio and television outlets to provide equal time to opposing political and social opinions. Who wouldn't support fairness, particularly when it comes to politics? However, who is to determine what is fair? Is the measurement of audience size meant to be included in the comparison, or is the measure meant to include only time? Are we to assume that one political view point gets less time because it occupies times of higher viewer/listener-ship? And who is to objectively measure on which side a given viewpoint should be counted? Were a libertarian to be speaking, should he be counted as liberal when advocating legalization of drugs but conservative when touting the need for smaller government, or should he be simply silenced for failing to be easily categorized?

Progressivism is a similarly misleading term. Again, who would be opposed to progress? But this is simply a label placed over the prior term "liberal", meant to convince us that the intentions of the political left are positive and progressive. Similar to the other form of newspeak, progressivism proposes to force the human race to advance toward a higher form despite human nature.

Even the seemingly innocuous term "life" has been abused for the advancement of a cause. Those opposed to the premature termination of pregnancy inform us that they are pro-life. Well, who isn't? I don't know anyone who doesn't want to be alive, despite what life has often thrown their way. Of course, the term is meant to imply that any proponent of abortion is anti-life. Somehow the term anti-choice didn't stick to these people.

I'm not foolish enough to believe that such marketing of causes is soon to end. However, I would hope that more people would become aware of the intent when signing onto such causes. People will forever be mislead by the words being used as long as they permit themselves to be.