"Racist!"- A Propagandist Appeal To Fear

People who throw out the accusation of racism out of propagandist motivation or pure ignorance, are not allowed on the ark.  By the way, neither are racists.

            It really isn’t a complicated concept.

rac·ism  (rā'sĭz'əm)   n.        -1.            The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.        -1.            Discrimination or prejudice based on race. rac'ist  adj.  & n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

However, in today’s discussion of many of the important issues facing our country, the term is flung around by the left with reckless abandon.  Actually, that is inaccurate; there is nothing reckless about it.  The term racism is carefully wielded to discredit anyone who may disagree with the leftist agenda.  It is a propagandist tactic called an appeal to fear.  If there is nothing real to discredit a person with conservative ideas, if the facts don’t support a true repudiation of the opposition, then the left pulls out their Scarlet Letter “R.”  99% of the time it is totally unfounded, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to matter.

Racism is a dirty term and the liberals count on that.  No one wants to be labeled as a racist, and unfortunately once ignorant America hears that term pinned on someone they lock on it, prejudge (how ironic), and refuse to actually hear the facts and opinions presented logically by the accused person, even though the accused isn’t a racist.

If people truly stopped and thought, or even better yet, listened to the actual arguments presented by the opposition, they might actually learn something and form their own opinions based on facts.  Oh the horror.  That is exactly what propagandists fear, but what we, as Americans, have to start doing again.  I’ll tell you, you can bet our great-grandfathers did not vote based on what someone told them they should think.  They listened, they evaluated and they came to their own decisions, right or wrong.  If contemporary Americans did more of that, America would not be in the mess it is today.

Just a few examples that I want the thinking individuals who read my blog to consider:

People opposing illegal immigration are called racists.

How is opposing illegal activity racist?  I have not heard a single Tea Party member denigrate any race, just the ILLEGAL activity.  As a group, they do no oppose Mexicans, Irish, Russians, or any other ethnicity that is currently represented by these criminals.   They oppose the criminals.  Perhaps you remember logical fallacies from high school English?  If not, I believe the term is inductive argument and there is an example of it here (scroll down to the bottom of the page).  Logical fallacies are used in propaganda to trick people into thinking something is true when it isn’t.  It is the tactic being used by those on the left to slander the right and try to discredit the movement to secure our borders.  No one is saying that most Mexicans are illegal, what is being said is that most ILLEGALS are Mexicans.  Do you see the difference?  The left hopes you don’t and so they throw out racist to blur your view.

People who oppose higher taxes are also called racist.

Apparently wanting to keep your own hard earned money is now “racist”.  What on earth does one have to do with the other?  The conservative argument is that American’s money is being taken from us, carelessly spent and often corruptly used, and that we have had enough.  Look back 100 years.  This country ran much more efficiently on a much smaller percentage of the American Worker’s dollar.  Even 30 years ago we did more with less.  Take education for example, my school offered gym, art, music, theater, after school sports all included in my parents tax rate.  Nowadays the same school has cancelled art and gym and decreased its sports program.  Those sports that are still around require the students to pay for their own uniforms and provide their own transportation.  Why is that?  They get more money now per kid than they did then? The answer is mismanagement combined with entitlement.  Just look to any teenager to see this principal in action.  If you give a kid $10 a week allowance, at the end of the week he will have nothing left over (the average kid anyway). If you give him $20, same thing.  Entitled entities are likely to spend anything they can get their hands on and then ask for more when they want something else. That is what our government does now because they know that they can take more whenever they run out of what they have already taken from us.

The right argues that we don’t work this hard so someone else can spend it with abandon.  Nowhere is black, white, brown, yellow, or blue mentioned.  In fact, I would argue it is the left that is racist because what they are truly saying is that the problem is not with their misspending, it is with the people of color in our country not contributing enough.  They are deflecting responsibility by calling the minorities the entitled entities.

All I am asking is the next time you hear the term racist tossed out to refute a position, listen carefully. Did the accused really utter anything racist at all, or is the accuser planting his own racist view into the argument and attributing it to his opposition?  Be wary of propaganda.  It can get you all turned around.  Don’t take someone else’s word for it.  Go to the source.  Look up the accused article, download the indicted speech.  And learn for yourself what that person’s points are, then evaluate them based on their merit not on your political affiliation.

And if you are interested in hearing true racism, check out this site.  You’ll see something I’ve been noticing for years now.  Most racism seems to come from exactly the individuals who cry “racist” the loudest.  But you be the judge.