[American Thinker] Seventy-three years ago, in his now classic essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell examined the deceitful nature of political speech in his day. He offered some superb examples of words that mask their actual meaning and of rhetorical devices intended to fool the reader. "In our time," he wrote, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." The imprecision, pretentiousness, and staleness are deliberate, intended to conceal what the writer does not want to admit. His examples, most of them from leftists like Harold Laski, were bad enough, but even Orwell could not have foreseen the nonsense coming from progressives this election season ‐ and it's still early in the game.Take defenses of the "Green New Deal." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who popularized the idea (which has been around for a decade or more), doesn't seem to have any comprehension of its cost, or the cost of anything else. When asked about how she would pay for it, her initial response was "tax the rich." The truth is that there aren't that many rich, and under her 70% and up federal tax plan, there soon wouldn't be any. Now she seems to believe that one can simply print money to pay for it all. This radical extension of Modern Monetary Theory would bankrupt the country and render our currency worthless.
Kamala Harris, another master of Orwellian speech, insists that "we have to be practical, but..." The problem is that she never defines what is meant by "practical." It is one of those words (like Obama's "smart" policies, which were invariably dumb) meant to end a conversation rather than open it to reasonable debate. Who can object to "being practical," but is it practical to spend an estimated $3.26 trillion per year on the Medicare for All plan Harris has endorsed? Harris refuses to discuss cost, insisting as she does that health care is a basic right and that destroying private insurance is the best way to deliver it.
Then there is Cory Booker, a speaker who often reverts to the rhetorical device known as "the big stick." When asked about paying for the Green New Deal, Booker responded by raising his voice and barking that "we can have it both ways." By this he implies that there would be no crippling cost to eliminating carbon fuels. Sen. Booker did not explain just how this would work, as if vigorously asserting that having it both ways were the same as doing so. But what is really meant by "having it both ways"?