Thought # 15                                                                     March 2009
Author: Bill Thurston

Labeling our Government Officials

Is there any intrinsic value to label our government representatives or even ourselves? Here are some labels that are used in almost every political newscast or editorial:

1. Left, right, liberal, conservative, Libertarian, Socialist, democrat, or republican.

2. To get more precise, you can put "middle of the road" in front of any of the labels above.

3. The far left liberals are radicals and the far right conservatives are reactionary.

4. Democrats sometimes vote like republicans and republicans sometimes vote like democrats.

5. John McCain was too liberal for many republicans.

6. There are New Deal liberals, social democrats, civil libertarians, liberal conservatives, conservative liberals, fiscal conservatives,  paleoconservatives, and the list goes on and on.

7. Did you know the republican party and the democratic party came from a single party called The Democratic-Republican Party and was founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison around 1792.    

The Thought:

Try to avoid using these terms as they are general descriptions at best and different people have different meanings for each term. Replace these terms with terms that reflect the characteristics you would like to see in your representatives. They may be different depending on whether you are characterizing the President of the United States or the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, or the Secretary of State, or your local mayor.

For example, what are the top 3-5 characteristics you would like to see in your President of the United States? Here is a partial list of some positive characteristic and their opposite you might choose:

Strong Leadership ------- Weak Leadership
Intelligent -------------Ignorant
Highly qualified ---------Not qualified
Honest ------- Dishonest
Truthful ------ Liar
Integrity --------  Lack of Integrity
Enthusiastic -------------  Unenthusiastic
Dedication --------- Lackadaisical
Inspiring ---------- Uninspiring
Confidence ------ Unconfident
Focused ----- Unfocused
Analytical -------- Seat of the pants
Humor ---------- Stern
Teamwork ------- Self centered
Positive ---------- Negative
Straight forward  ----- Not straight forward

As an example, let's say you choose leadership, highly qualified, honest, and positive as the characteristics you would like to see in your President of the United States.

Now if someone asks you about your President of the United States, you could say:

"The person is an inspiring leader that is honest and intelligent." or  "The person has leadership skills but is not qualified, somewhat dishonest and negative.".

People will take notice that you have really given some thought while developing your opinion.

Give this exercise a try using your President of the United States or your governor.

A second thought is the labels "rich", "middle class", and "poor". Our representatives use these terms often, yet the definition seems to change. Try not to use these words either as they are ambiguous.

This whole Thought wouldn't need to exist if the media and our representatives didn't use labels in very important communications that we try to understand. 

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