Posted by
Patrick Henry on Friday, August 27, 2010 9:59:12 PM
Liberals have so much fun labeling conservatives and calling them names. With
controversies swirling around the issues of illegal immigration, gay marriage and
the "middle-finger" mosque, the words "Islamaphobe," "homophobe" and "xenophobe"
have been rolling off forked liberal tongues like grease going through a goose (an apt
parallel because they have a similar odor).
The power of words -- any words -- is the response they evoke. The term "racist,"
for example, used to draw a powerful emotional response of anger or denial due
to the political and moral incorrectness of being one. The term has recently lost a
good deal of its clout because both neutrals and those who are targeted by it have
caught on to the fact that it really only means the user, almost always a liberal, hates
and disagrees with the target which, for the most part, has nothing to do with race.
"Fascist" was another such word, conjuring up images of brown-shirted thugs
with swastikas on their armbands goose-stepping toward one crime against the
human race or another. The same thing happened to it. It was so overused that
most people came to see that so labeling someone had no connection in reality to
historical examples of such behavior.
So the problem for liberals, who inevitably resort to namecalling extremes when
they are losing arguments on fact and logic (which is most of the time), is that
they are running out of effectively heinous label words. Not to worry, however,
for they have discovered the "phobias."
All the "phobia" words are based on the Greek noun phobos which, literally
translated, means fear. Coupled with another noun, it describes fear of something
specific. Agoraphobia, for example, combines the Greek word agora, meaning
marketplace, with phobos to mean, in English, fear of crowds. Hydrophobia is
fear of water, claustrophobia fear of closed in places, and so forth and so on. These
are, of course, psychological terms describing undue or unwarranted, even psychotic
aversions to things considered by others to be harmless. This makes them fiendishly
useful for the left who, by coupling them with identity politics, can allege at one and
the same time that conservatives unduly fear whole classes of people thereby showing
their intolerance and mental imbalance. Yum!
This explains the fact that the MSM, Democrats and other liberals can hardly frame
a sentence these days without using the word xenophobe (undue fear of foreigners),
Islamophobe (undue fear of Islam) or homophobe (undue fear of homosexuals). They
are the more delighted because they can sound educated and erudite while doing it.
But like most liberal tacticss, this shabby one breaks down upon close examination,
and increasingly falls on deaf ears because it begs two questions, namely whether
the sentiment being challenged is genuinely fear, and whether it is indeed undue or
based on real threat. To wit, no one really fears homosexuals or gay marriage. One
may disagree with them on moral or sexual preference grounds, but the notion of
mobs of conservatives fleeing in terror before stampeding faggots is ludicrous on its
face. Renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously said, "Always so act
that the maxim of your action could be wished universal." What he meant was that
one should act in such a way that if everyone else in the world acted that way, then
everything would be great. What would happen if everyone in the world opted for
the homosexual lifestyle? Well, we could close all our schools, because there wouldn't
be any children. There would be no more clothes to buy, no junior soccer teams to
coach, no grandchildren to dote on. Would everything be just fine? Would that be
a situation we would choose? You decide. Are so called "homophobes" really afraid?
Should they be?
What about Islamophobes? Do you really think New Yorkers are Islamophobes?
They were attacked and slaughtered on 9/11 by Islamic extremists, nearly blown
up by the Times Square bomber, a Muslim, and had the World Trade Center bombed
from below by Muslims even before the air attack. At least three sharia mosques in
upstate New York have produced a total of five different terror plots over the last
three years, and STILL, even though many New Yorkers hate to see the mosque built
near grond zero, few would deny Muslims the right to build it at all. Would New
Yorkers be justly dscribed as unduly afraid? Would there be any grounds whatever
to justify their fears if they were? Does Islam produce a lot of terrorists? Hmmm.
Then there's the dreaded xenophobe, the person who opposes illegal immigration
because he/she is allegedly unduly afraid of foreigners. Let's see, now, how much
are these unlawful aliens costing the states in which they unlawfully reside? And
how many did Immigration Control arrest just yesterday because they were serial
criminals? The number was 370. And is there no connection between those unlawfully
sneaking across the border, human trafficking, gun running and drug smuggling? Is
any of that cause for legitimate concern, or, if you're Rob Krentz, mortal fear? Don't
worry, be happy say the liberals.
But fear not, if liberals can take fancy words, ascribe whatever meaning they wish
to them and then hurl them in bitter invective at conservatives, two can play the game.
You don't have to take it! Next time you're in an argument with a liberal and he/she
loses it and starts the namecalling, refer to them as an alethiaphobe (one who has an
undue fear of truth), or a patriophobe (one with an undue fear of those who love and
are devoted to their country). They, of course, won't have the first clue what those
words mean, which will cause them to become even more irrational. A friend of mine
told me about the time when he was in middle school and he and his friends used to
tease the elementary kids on their way home from school by running up to them and
saying, "You've got GARMENTS." Not knowing that "garments" referred only to
their clothes, the littler ones would angrily deny that they had any, thereby making
the whole thing the more hilarious. The same tactic works with liberals.
Verbal bullying can be a hurtful thing, even when the target of such knows the bully
words to be false. The only way liberals learn is when they feel the sting at the business
end. Note how they froth and deny when called Marxists. But in their homophobic,
xenophobic, Islamaphobic tirades they mistake disdain for a culpable few for prejudice
against all, and strong resolve and resistance for irrational fear. Don't let the "phobe fibbers"
get you down. It's their mistake, their baggage, so don't let them impose it on you. My dad
always used to say that it sometimes takes a good bloody nose to unmake a bully.