The Liberal Lexicon

In the wake of the upset of Delaware congressman Mike Castle by Tea-Party endorsed Christine O'Donnell who thus won the right to run for the U.S. Senate seat formerly occupied by Joe Biden, there's been a lot of liberal wailing and teeth-gnashing. Many hands have been wrung, for example, over "fears" that there's no longer any room in the GOP for "moderates" and "alarm" that "extremists" are taking over the Republican party.

In light of how frequently words like these are bandied about among the lefties it might be helpful to define exactly what is usually meant by them. It's not what you think.

You might assume, for instance, that a "moderate" is someone who votes liberal and conservative with approximately equal frequency, but you would be mistaken. You might also think that an "extremist" is someone lurking on the fringes of society, whose views are so far out of the mainstream as to reasonably be considered weird. Again, you'd be wrong. This is what the left wants you to think when you hear these words, of course, but it's not how they use them.

The real definition of "moderate" as it is often employed by liberal pundits in today's political discourse is this: "Any Congressperson or Senator who votes with the Democrats when the vote matters and votes with the Republicans when it doesn't."

Thus Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, Colin Powell (although he's not a Congressman), and Mike Castle are all regularly referred to as moderates, while Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Jan Brewer, Sharon Angle, and Glenn Beck (another non-politician) are called extremists. (Hmmmm, do liberals have something against women?)

The liberal definition of "extremist" is equally exotic. A political extremist is: "A Republican (There are no Democrat extremists) who opposes the policies of the Democrats."

In other words, in the liberal worldview there are no Democrats who are extremists and no genuine Republicans who aren't. It's certainly strange that according to the liberal lexicon views held by over 70% of Americans get you labeled as an extremist if you happen to share them.

Bravo, Mr. Jones

I don't know exactly what this father said, and maybe he went too far, but I admire him. His daughter, who has cerebral palsy, was afraid to get on the bus because on previous occasions she'd been tormented by the riff-raff that rides it with her. The dad apparently did what any father who cares about his daughter would want to do, which is to come within a whisker of knocking a couple of those punks silly. He also, apparently, had some bracing words for the bus driver who'd done nothing to stop the harassment of his daughter.

I know we should eschew violence, and there were doubtless innocent kids on that bus who were terrified by Mr. Jones' angry rant, but sometimes, like when your child is the victim of malicious bullying, I think turning the other cheek is just not the loving thing to do. Sometimes what a young miscreant needs most is a strategically delivered boot, and for my part, I wish there were more fathers like Mr. Jones (and fewer mothers like the one in the video). If there were there might be fewer young thugs plaguing society and pushing young girls into contemplating suicide.