The Political Lexicon - 2008 Edition

The following are terms and phrases used by different political groups, factions, organizations and their decoded meaning. Additionally are other, more traditional phrases also needing such listing.


1) Astroturf - To simulate a 'grassroots' campaign by paying individuals and organizations for support and not having such payments accredited to the parent organization. Originally used in the computer industry to identify a number of advertising and marketing campaigns sponsored by companies for their products without attribution of funding to those writing articles approving of such products. Now more generalized and inclusive of politics.

Ex. "That Senator sure astroturfed the problem for re-election support!"


2) Speaking the Truth to Power - Traditionally used by university freshmen and sophomores to tall about how they provided their views to the administration. Now used in a generic sense to indicate anyone that is a Liberal telling any elected official about their views. Usually reported in a positive light.

Ex. "I spoke the truth to power about global warming to the mayor."


3) Swiftboating - Speaking the Truth to Power to a Liberal utilizing said individual's record and asking for explanations. Usually reported in a negative light as being 'unfair' to an individual to remember their actions and explain them.

Ex. "The Senator was swiftboated on his record."


4) Quagmire - A term commonly used to describe every US military venture since 1945. Commonly used as a predictive term for failure of military operations before they begin.

Ex. "The US would face a quagmire invading Grenada."


5) Misunderstood Foreign Cultural Institutions - A phrase used to describe organized crime from overseas communities, like the Triads from China, Yakuza from Japan, Mafia from Italy, and Red Mafia from Russia.

Ex. "My campaign took donations from misunderstood foreign cultural institutions that are a normal part of their society."


6) Family Values - A term used to describe one's affiliation with a certain type of voting group. Alternatively meant to indicate that one running for office intends to try and pass legislation on morals. The vagueness of the term makes it applicable across the political spectrum.

Ex. "The party platform took a stand on family values for distressed couples of the same or opposite gender."


7) Fiscal Conservative - A term used to describe a candidate's position that 'holding the line on pork' is good enough.

Ex. "While running as a fiscal conservative, the Representative promised that payments for local projects would continue."


8) Federal Deficit - The amount the Federal Government runs in the red every year on current accounts.


9) Federal Debt - The total amount of all debt held by the Federal Government upon which interest is payed.


10) Social Security - A concept to retire older, viable workers from the workforce with monthly cash payment at a certain time garnered from young workers.


11) Health care insurance - A subsidized system of paperwork that utilizes a small fraction of the money paid into the system to deliver actual health benefits.


12) Subsidies - Government intervention in a market to appease a section of the electorate or to garner payments from industrial sectors. Subsidies usually contribute to overuse or abuse of the area being subsidized or to poor accounting and credit practices, leading to long term structural economic problems.

Ex. "Health care subsidies have increased the cost of health care."


13) Human shield - The act of interposing oneself to make a political statement. Done on the Liberal side this is meant to demonstrate 'solidarity' with a mental concept and often forget the individual's responsibilities to society as a whole.

- On the Conservative side this is meant to impede the rights of others to exercise their rights by insisting that 'if they only thought it over' the mind of the individual would change.

Ex. "The arrested individual was taken away after becoming a human shield at an abortion clinic to protest the quagmire in Iraq."


14) Soccer Moms - A key demographic that only shows up after an election is analyzed and then plays no further part in subsequent elections.


15) Chickenhawk - Individuals using this term prefer to have the Nation run by a military elite. Utilized to try and discredit an individual standing up for National defense and security. Also an indication of lack of comprehension of civilian control over military affairs.

Ex. "Only soldiers should get a say when we go to war and not people who don't volunteer, you chickenhawk!"


16) Triangulation - The political art of arriving at a policy point only after consulting all available polls and then changing such policy after subsequent polls.

Also - having no set political ideology or doctrine.


17) Two Americas - Any individual indicating that there are 'two Americas' is a rich individual without conscience or the unwillingness to contribute greatly to charity from their own funds.


18) Entitlement - Promises to give anything to a population segment to garner votes no matter the economic or sociological impacts of same. Often referred to as 'budget busters'.


19) Bleeding Heart - An individual so willing to take the side of the 'disenfranchised', 'underclass', or 'poor' that they are willing to sacrifice national sovereignty, national treasure or individual freedoms to gain these supposed 'good ends'.


20) Personal empowerment - A term used to indicate that the government holds all power and that anything the individual can wrest from it should be used to attack such government.

Ex. "The welfare applicant used pesonal empowerment to complain about the small amount of money he received from the government."


21) Post-Westphalian State - A Transnationalist concept to infer that progress can be had via the older system of religious persecution and Imperial oversight.


22) Transnationalism - Any system of ideology that seeks to remove rights from Nations and individuals and place those into unaccountable and unelected hands, be they individuals, groups or institutions.

Similar terms: Globalism, Internationalism, One Worldism, Just Imagine, Anti-Globalism, Socialism, Communism.


23) Free Trade - The religious orthodoxy movement that puts forth that freedom in trade promotes freedom, and that all such trade should be unaccountable to National needs. No effort to back this is ever demonstrated even when given contra-examples of this.

Ex. "Free Trade just takes time to work, and 30 years in China and 90 years in the Middle East just aren't enough."


24) The public's right to know - An excuse used by any journalistic endeavor of dubious outlook or backing that will undermine National Security.

Ex. "The public's right to know about the overseas wiretapping program may get to your Aunt Amelia's phone!"


25) The Public Interest - A phrase used by any ideologically oriented journalist or by a political activist for their partisan concerns.

Ex. "It is in the public interest for the Senator's sex life to be investigated in extreme detail."


26) For the children - Used across the ideological spectrum when no other argument for a program or project can be found.

Ex. "The banning of diyhydrogen monoxide is for the children!"


27) The common interest - An indication that one's taxes will be going up whenever this phrase is used.


28) It can't be addressed locally - A concept deployed so that a problem gets addressed less competently and at more cost at a higher level of government.


29) For the public good - Utilized any time that a pork project runs out of any other justification, including it being 'for the children'.


30) Only the Federal Government can address this - Any problem identified as such becomes perpetual and insoluble.


31) Count every vote and make sure every vote counts - Utilized when the vote count goes in favor of a partisan political organization, at which point that organization will use this and want the vote counting stopped.


32) Don't drink and drive - Originally utilized to help curb intoxicated drivers from taking to the road, this has now become the phrase of the New Temperance movement. Soon to be shortened to: Don't drink.


33) It's for your own good - Any time this is deployed it is an indication that an individual is about to suffer long term loss of property, funds or living. Often used in conjunction with 'the public good' and 'for the children'.


34) Racist - Anyone winning an argument with a Liberal.


35) We were put here for a purpose - Often used by those wishing to expand the number of laws covering morality.


36) Anonymous sources - Individuals who are 'anonymous sources' do not want to have their name revealed, be held accountable or questioned. Originally meant to demonstrate someone in authority revealing a nefarious program, it has come to mean any individual pushing an ideological viewpoint of any sort that does not want to be accredited with same.

Ex. "Anonymous sources in the CIA confirmed that fluoride in the water is a plot to rot your brains."


37) Single payer health care - A concept in which an individual applies to a bureaucrat to find out if they deserve health care. Also the removal of all health choices from the individual and giving it to the State.


38) Terrorism - A tactic used in illegitimate or illegal warfare performed by non-Nation States. When this happens at sea it is called Piracy, on land it remains tactic-descriptive oriented. Individual involved in this have no standing under the laws and customs of warfare.


39) Freedom Fighter - Individuals who organize, put on uniform, are held accountable to a command structure, and adhere to all the laws and customs of warfare.


40) Armed political organization - Ancient - Once used as a form of repudiation in regards to the Wiemar Republic's National Socialist and Communist parties in disparagement for their breaking with civil society. Typically applied to those seeking totalitarian rule.

-Modern - Now used to speak approvingly of the thuggish tactics used by any organization that makes any claim to politics in opposition to the United States or its allies. Typically applied to those seeking totalitarian rule that the Left approves of.

Ex. "Hezbollah is an armed political organization full of freedom fighters that just act like terrorists."


41) Grim statistic - Any casualty toll due to any ongoing process which can cause death. First applied to the automobile and drunk drivers, this term has been more generalized and often deployed for use in warfare. Statistics of this sort only stop growing once the class of individuals for which it is accountable ceases to exist or the operating modality for it ends. Typically a meaningless statistical count utilized for partisan political polemics.

Ex. "The grim statistic for individual deaths due to sword wounds has been reduced to single digits, globally, on an annual basis."


42) The President is responsible for (lack of equipment for soldiers) - Typically used by ideological partisans to pin blame on an individual for something that is not their fault, as Congress is the procurement and supply branch for the armed forces.


43) The worst war in history - Typically any ongoing warfare, this usage has been around since the beginning of warfare and misapplied to each conflict, which has typically led to bemusement, head nodding, yawns, appeasement and then worse wars.


44) Peace - A constructive arrangement between Nations to create a regularized atmosphere of trade and commerce. War is not a leading indicator of peace nor of peace to war, but are separate realms of endeavor that can and do overlap. Often the end of a war is not an indicator of peace nor is the state of peace without armed conflict arising. Nationally this is an either/or condition, globally it is a mixed condition of varying degrees of intensity.


45) Genocide - The utilization of mass slaughter against a targeted ethnic, religious or other minority. Once considered one of the greatest tragedies of mankind, multiple genocides have gone on without any response to them, thus ensuring the continuation of this form of killing.


46) Pacifist - Any individual who does not believe in warfare for any reason. Generally approves of genocide as it would require warfare to end an ongoing genocide and that is 'not their problem'.


47) Gender Gap - Ancient - A term once used to refer to the societal differences and earning power of men and women. Now that women are fully capable of making life decisions and accepting those consequences the differences in prime statistics of mortality and earning power are closing to the point of indifference.

- Modern - A term used to indicate that one's gender should exclude one from political scrutiny.


48) PC - Politically Correct or Political Correctness - A term used to identify those that do not adhere to a Leftist line in politics and to indoctrinate children and young adults via the educational system to Leftist lines of thought. More generally a system of thought control via harassment, abuse and attacks upon individuals and ideas the Left disagrees with.


49) Compassionate Conservatism - Big Government Conservatism.


50) Small "l" liberal or libertarian - An individual who does not like the trends towards Leftist and Libertinism seen in modern political movements, and repudiates other labels like 'Progressive' or 'Conservative' as being centered on government and not on individuals.


51) Nationalist - A term highly vilified by the political Left so as to eliminate supporters of Nation States from the political arena. Currently there are no Nationalist parties or candidates in the United States.