As we all learned in social studies class, democracy is the worst political system, except all the others. I wouldn't argue otherwise, but I would say that part of what makes democracy such a terrible system are voters themselves. In the immortal words of Winston Churchill, "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
The "average voter," as we all know, has little deep understanding of politics or political system and little patience for learning. Because of this, politicians are given the unenviable job of having to persuade, cajole or wheedle votes out of people who rarely care, or care in entirely ideological ways.
This is done, in part, through semantics. Ask people what they think about "single-payer" health care, and most have a favourable opinion. Ask them what they think about "government-run" health care, and, even though you're asking them the same question, most have an unfavourable opinion. News networks (FOX in particular) made hay out of this psychological quirk, referring to Obamacare only in terms that were known to be interpreted negatively.
But there's been another sneaky linguistic twist recently that hasn't been commented on very much. I'm speaking here about the word "entitlements." The word is everywhere in the United States and, though it seems to have a long history, I can't help but interpret the recent upswing in its use as a sign of something bigger.
The word is, of course, legitimate, and government entitlement programs are programs that provide individuals or organizations with financial benefits (not necessarily in the form of money) whenever they meet eligibility requirements. Things like unemployment insurance and social security fit the bill.
With the looming fiscal cliff, it makes sense that Americans are talking about "entitlement reform." But the use of the word "entitlement" is, at best deceptive, and at worse, malicious.
First, the worst possible interpretation. Mitt Romney recently said to donors that Barack Obama won reelection because of "gifts" to minorities. The use of the word "gift" to describe such things as amnesty for children of illegal immigrants, affordable contraception and affordable student loans is one that betrays an extreme ideology; it is only a political extremist who believes the status quo should be upheld in the cases of punishing the children of illegal immigrants and making contraception and university both harder to afford. The "entitlements" being discussed here are so commonsense that they barely deserve discussion.
And Romney, of course, said even worse in his leaked "47 per cent" video, remarking that "there are 47 per cent who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it." As always, this quotation can be in part explained by Romney's foot-in-the-mouth approach to speeches. But more disturbing is the idea there are people who, for some reason or another, don't deserve to have food. Welfare programs were born of a collective will to make sure no one, however poor, unlucky or otherwise, starves. It's one thing to critique the ways in which we keep people from starving (moving more towards soup kitchens and away from food stamps, for example). But it's beyond the pale to argue there are people in society who are mistaken in their belief they are "entitled" to food, which is what Romney seems to have done.
But the more generous interpretation of the insistence on the word "entitlement" is that the word stands instead for a different word with the same meaning: rights. Indeed, most "entitlements" were created through arguments around rights. Think about health care. The basic argument used around instituting health care is that health care is a universal right. In other words, everyone who is a citizen has a right to good health, or to express it negatively, no one "deserves" to be unhealthy.
Romney's comments about food and housing can be interpreted similarly. Everyone has a right to some form of housing (or no one deserves to be homeless), everyone has a right to be safe from starvation.
The use of loaded language is hardly new to politics. Just look at the abortion "debate," especially because of the private member's bill introduced a few months ago. What is so bizarre about the whole discussion is the debate is really around a very narrow question - should abortion be legal. It's not a debate about the morality of abortion or about religious teachings around abortion, except tangentially. Plenty of things that are not, strictly speaking, immoral (like driving over the speed limit) are against the law. And plenty of things that can be considered immoral (like infidelity) are not legislated against.
Neither the term "pro-life," which addresses abortion itself, nor "pro-choice," which addresses the woman's choice, have anything to do with the abortion debate itself, which concerns legality.
We can take the hidden recesses of our subconscious for granted sometimes, assuming we humans are all purely rational actors. We forget there are vast expanses of our mind that aren't rational, that don't make decisions based on logic. Supermarkets exploit this with their floor plan (notice that we tend to walk counter-clockwise around a supermarket, starting at the produce section), advertisers exploit this by associating two unrelated things (beer and James Bond?), even songwriters exploit this by writing songs that, while not necessarily pleasurable, we can't get out of our heads.
Getting back to the entitlements question, people will respond very differently if they are described as rights. The real question is which way of describing programs like social security and health care is better.
Of course, the real discussion going on in the United States concerns how much of a role the government should play in each of these issues. But one gets the impression, from what many politicians have said, there are people who think there are people who don't deserve food, housing or health.
