They Did What !

A little thing, at first glance, is the sudden over-use of the word robust: The UN issued a robust resolution; the US will have a robust response; politicians take robust actions or have robust reactions.

The Oxford Complete Word Finder lists robust (in the 4th definition as regards a statement, reply, etc.) as bold; firm; unyielding. Any of those words seem a better choice to describe a resolution, a response, an action or reaction. But suddenly, a word heretofore most commonly used in descriptions of a person’s physique or appetites, is applied to political actions.

Is there a person or persons somewhere in our government who spend their days producing lists of politically correct terms for use by politicians? Euphemisms that allow them to say something in such a vague way that they really can’t be accused of having said it.

Yes, diplomacy, (generally defined as using tact, discretion, delicacy, and courtesy), is a necessary part of governing. Still, don’t you wonder who is really fooled by the use of all these PC terms and what, in the end, they accomplish?

There are other descriptive words found in the definition of diplomatic such as wise, prudent, and perspicuous (clearly expressed) which seem more important but are mostly absent from current day diplomacy. Is it possible that things might actually improve if countries talked to each other in a courteous way using honest, straight forward words that clearly express their position?

For instance, we need oil, China needs oil, India needs oil, and so do all the other industrialized countries in the world. Everyone knows this, so why is it the last thing mentioned when we talk about what we are doing in the Middle East? Does anyone really believe that we would be involving ourselves in the governments of that part of the world if they didn’t have oil? And if we hadn’t been involving ourselves in their business for years, would they care about us? Do you know that as far back as FDR in 1945 we have been trying to gain control of oil in the Middle East (Just think where we might be with alternative energy sources if we had been concentrating on that since 1945!)? Do you really believe it is our freedom they hate? Or is it what we do with it – like trying to control their governments so we can control their oil?

Why doesn’t the free market theory apply to oil? They have it, we need it, and we compete with other countries for it. Openly and honestly compete for it. We could afford to do that if we were not spending billions of dollars trying to impose our beliefs, our way of life, on a country that isn’t ready for it and doesn’t want it, and in the process strengthening the belief in other Middle Eastern countries that we will come after them sooner or later.

Loving my country does not mean agreeing with everything the government does any more than loving my kids makes me blind to their faults. Good parenting requires consistency and vigilance, good citizenry requires that same watchfulness. Over indulgent, negligent parents produce willful, selfish children of weak character. Negligent citizens allow their government to become just as willful, selfish and lacking in character.

In May, Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote an article in which he listed some of the hallmarks of totalitarian regimes including “excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.�

Recognize anything in that list that is happening in our country today?