We Must Move Forward, Not Back

The local government telecommunications monopoly plans to launch a new advertising campaign.

Being a monopoly, it has no particular need to promote its products. The thrust of the campaign instead is to show their commitment to “values and beliefs” such as “equality, education, non-violence, empowerment, breaking down barriers, and … preserving the environment” (Gulf Times, May 12, 2006, p. 3).

They are not spending this money on advertising in order to lose friends. They want to boost their public image. Their prime need is to preserve public support for their monopoly. Accordingly, you can be sure they are not pushing values that anyone actually opposes. That would be counterproductive.

Who could be opposed, for example, to peace and equality? Even Adolf Hitler was for peace and equality. “Germany is entirely ready,” he declared to the world on coming to power, “to renounce all offensive weapons.” War, he warned, is “unlimited madness.” But Germany wanted “equality with all other nations” (Shirer, The Rise and fall of the Third Reich, p.p. 209-210). Pity about that warmonger Churchill.

It follows that any politician whose public platform is no more than such things as equality, non-violence, empowerment, educating the young, breaking down barriers, or preserving the environment, is not to be taken seriously. He is not being honest; he is only kissing babies. Like patriotism, such platitudes are meaningful only as the last refuge of a scoundrel. If a politician stands for this and nothing more, assume he is a con artist, only out for himself; or that he has another, hidden agenda.

By the same token, if a politician claims his opponents oppose equality, empowerment, educating the young, preserving the environment, non-violence or the lowering of barriers, the onus is very much on him to produce some evidence of this. If a newspaper or a network or the media in general portray one particular party as doing this, bias can almost be assumed.

And, say, doesn’t this describe the modern left in general? Al Gore and Stephane Dion and David Suzuki, say, with their environmental crusades? And their use of the term “progressive,” as if progress were something they alone endorsed? Or that stupid phrase “we must move into the future”; as if there were some alternative?

Whatever else you may say about them, the modern left relies heavily on double-talk and deceit.