The “Ic” Factor

This subject has been bugging me for quite a while now. I kept telling myself that it was just me; that I was letting “them” get to me and I should just let it go. Being a ‘words matter” kind of person, it hasn’t always been easy to shrug it off.

Then today I heard it again, seemingly for the millionth time, and it was the last straw. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not holding “them” responsible, it’s totally our fault and we are the only ones who can do something about it.

I thought it best to do a bit of search to see if someone more “literate” had put my feelings into words. Low and behold, there it was, not only from the “liberal” New Yorker magazine, but with reference to none other than William F. Buckley.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/07/060807ta_talk_hertzberg

To my surprise, the article by Hendrik Hertzberg quotes a 2000 article by Buckley in National Review as follows:

“I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began.

“Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are diffculties, as when one desires to describe a “democratic” politician, and is jolted by possible ambiguity.

But English does that to us all the time, and it’s our job to get the correct meaning transmitted without contorting the language.”

I thought of writing some epic post asking DUers why we and our party have acquiesced to the bastardization of the name of our Party. Thankfully, Hendrik Hertzberg and William F. Buckley have saved me the effort and done a far better job than I could. I invite everyone to read the New Yorker article and then ask yourself, why we let them get away with it. It’s become acceptable, even on the floor of the Senate and House, to use the truncated and overtly insulting term “Democrat Party”. “They” say Democrat Senate, Democrat leaders, Democrat Congress, Democrat policy.

It’s become a buzz word for me, a sign of disrespect. How can we accept any pretense of comity as long as they openly disrespect our very name? Yet not once have I seen or heard a politician or pundit balk at being openly ridiculed. It’s time for that to stop. It’s time that every time “they” misstate our Party’s name, we STOP and call them out for it. It’s time that every time we see it quoted in print, we comment on the disrespect it reveals. Ask “them” why they find it necessary to misstate the name of our Party and why they expect us to accept their assertions in good faith while they do so.

We as a Party should take Buckley’s words to heart. We should STOP ceding the English language to the GOP. STOP allowing them to redefine the meaning of words like 'liberal', to mean something distasteful. I would love to hear a concerted effort from the Democratic Party to speak in unison on this. This one time, we should take a page from their playbook, come up with talking points, and have EVERY member of the Democratic Party react exactly the same way, with the same phrases, every single time they openly disrespect our Party’s name.