The inventiveness of euphemisms used by commentators, journalists, and actors of our modern political stage in their discourse can amaze even the most politically savvy American citizen. For instance, take the phrase “rescue package.” What does one think of when one hears “rescue package?” Does one think of a caped hero, pulling people out of a burning building and flying them to safety? One is supposed to. Ideally, what the users of this neat little phrase would want one to imagine is, of course, Mr. Obama “saving the day” on our economic frontier. And as for the second word, “package,” its just more “consumer friendly” isn’t it? After all, it isn’t so appetizing to have Obama’s “package” referred to as an “agenda,” or “plot,” or “contrivance,” or perhaps, a “conspiracy.” 

Now a conspiracy, properly defined, is an act of uniting with others in an illicit or illegal machination; and since, when one considers the nature of this particular machination, the “rescue package” with respect to laws of the United States Constitution, “conspiracy” doesn’t sound all that imprecise, does it? 

Moreover, as a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be so unappetizing if “rescue,” with the image of a radiant hero saving lives, were replaced by a more precise word, such as “extortion,” and likewise replaced with the image of armed, uniformed thugs kicking down your door when you refuse to finance this “rescue.”
Extortion, properly defined, is the act of obtaining money or some other thing of value through the use or by threat of physical violence. What, in essence, does Mr. Barack Obama’s “rescue package” entail? It entails taking your money, by threat of physical violence, and giving it to someone else. “But it is for a good cause,” you might say? “It is needed to save the economy; but that is why it is called a ‘rescue’.” 

Never forget that an “economy” is us—you, me, him, her, the sum of the material dealings amongst ourselves and nothing more—and that the end does not justify the means. If you had two children, one of them toothless, and you decided to pick the teeth of one to fill the gums of the other, would you call that an improvement of their overall dental condition? If not, then why would you consider the extortion of one to help another any kind of economic improvement, let alone a “rescue?”

A “rescue package” this is clearly not.
Concealed in these cute, candy-coated terms, one would almost make the mistake of thinking so, as most do, since most people have no inkling of government’s essential nature nor of the laws once enacted to keep it in its proper place.
 
Government is: that institution holding the exclusive monopoly on the use of physical force. It can protect or it can destroy; it cannot produce. When a government taxes those whom it is supposed to protect, it is not producing anything. It is taking,in the most literal sense of the word. Government equals physical force, keep that in mind when you read or listen to any contemporary political discourse. Keep in mind that a “tax hike” means an increase in government’s taking of your money; that a “tax cut” is a decrease in that act of theft; that a “tax break” is not a “break” at all, but a temporary granting of that which is already yours, by a coercive institution that does not recognize your inalienable right to it in the first place. Keep in mind that a “jobless benefit” is a handout and that a “jobs initiative” is busy work. And most importantly, don’t ever lose orientation of what a true rescue is, and that in the sphere of American politico-economics it can be summed up in two words: laissez-faire.

Published: Saturday, February 25, 2012
Updated: Sunday, February 26, 2012 02:02