“Word choices by politicians and activists matter,” writes Matt Yglesias. “[S]wing voters tend to self-identify as moderate, and as a result, people who want to win should try to portray their ideas as moderate, common-sense reforms rather than sweeping vehicles for change. At the same time, words are not magic.”

I disagree, but context matters. Yglesias is discussing whether terms like “Medicare for All” and “pro-choice” can do the heavy lifting for candidates and activists if the policies they’re used to promote aren’t as sound  as the slogans are catchy. He’s correct as far as he goes. “Free ice cream” sounds great, but if it comes with a “minimum $10 tip” disclaimer in the fine print, it probably won’t get quite so many takers.

But words ARE magic. Well-chosen words — especially words that poke at our existing inclinations or fears — can move the individuals hearing or reading them that first and most important step down one path or another, after which the path is like as not to become a set of rails that tend to keep one moving down the same track.

As Mark Twain noted more than a century ago, “the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

There’s a reason why the two major sides of the abortion debate call themselves “pro-choice” and “pro-life” (who could be against either “choice” or “life?”), but come up with less flattering names for their counterparts. The devil is in the details, and once you’re committed the details tend to matter less.

Put to their worst use, words become “black” rather than “white” magic.

See what I did there? Those terms don’t seem to have arisen from racial stereotypes, but to, say a late 19th-century “white” American the term “black magic” would have evoked Haitian Vodou and other African or African-adjacent practices. That’s the lightning. “Low magic” or “left-hand path” are just lightning-bugs.

One current (and related) example of “black magic” verbiage is “Replacement Theory” — the claim that suspect elites are behind a plot to replace “white” Americans with voters of darker skin hue for nefarious political purposes.

In reality, “Replacement Theory” isn’t actually about “replacement.” It’s about people moving from one place to another, members of various groups inter-marrying, things changing as they always have and always will.

But with the word “replacement,” its advocates bottle some big-time lightning by triggering a basic insecurity. Who considers being “replaced” a positive thing? Those who buy the initial premise are stepping onto the path marked “Now Boarding: Crazy Train.”

Words ARE magic — powerful magic. Be careful how you listen to them and use them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Why did Payton Gendron (allegedly, but he live-streamed it, so it’s not like there’s much doubt) murder ten people at a Buffalo, New York grocery store on May 14?

The pat, and at least partially correct, answer, is that Gendron subscribes to something called the “Great Replacement” theory.  That’s mostly what we hear about in mainstream media descriptions of his 180-page “manifesto”: He’s a “right-wing” racist who believes that political elites are conspiring to replace him and his fellow “white” Americans with people of color.

What most mainstream publications don’t do is link directly to the manifesto itself so that members of the public can easily access it, read it, and form our own opinions on its contents. They’re telling us what they want us to know about it in the hope that we’ll think what they want us to think about it.

I was able to find the manifesto — not via a major US newspaper, but linked from a “white nationalist” publication by a prominent racist writer — after a short search.

On a quick read, the only real conclusion one can reach (other than that a shower sounds like a great idea) is that Gendron is, well, crazy, very much in the Unabomber vein. He’s got a bunch of grievances, and for some reason he decided that walking into a store and gunning down a bunch of people was the best way to call those grievances to our attention — and, per the “Great Replacement” stuff, to reduce the non-white population directly, and perhaps indirectly scare other members of that population into leaving the US.

But there’s more to Payton Gendron and his grievances than the “Great Replacement.” For example, he describes himself as in the “mild-moderate authoritarian left” category politically, complaining that under “conservatism,” the “natural environment is industrialized, pulverized and commoditized.” Some of his opinions fit comfortably into the 21st century “progressive” mold.

Mainstream media’s reluctance to show us the whole sordid thing is self-serving in that sense, but also part and parcel of the notion that “de-platforming” crazy ideas reduces crazy conduct, particularly of the violent sort.

That notion has never worked out in practice. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. For example, the Weimar Republic made liberal (sic) use of anti-hate-speech and “insult” laws to suppress Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party. And the Nazis used that attempted suppression to paint themselves as martyrs and inspire their base to action.

Attempting to suppress Gendron’s manifesto doesn’t stop those who want to read it because they’ll likely agree with it from finding it. It just makes it harder for the rest of us to engage his terrible ideas and steer the impressionable away from them with better arguments.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On May 10, Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology released a report — “American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century” —  which you should find disturbing but shouldn’t find surprising.

The part you should find disturbing: “ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]  has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time. In its efforts to arrest and deport, ICE has — without any judicial, legislative or public oversight — reached into datasets containing personal information about the vast majority of people living in the U.S.”

The part you shouldn’t find surprising: “ICE has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time. In its efforts to arrest and deport, ICE has — without any judicial, legislative or public oversight — reached into datasets containing personal information about the vast majority of people living in the U.S.”

In responding to the report, a number of commentators pronounce themselves shocked — shocked! — that a federal agency which the US Constitution says can’t be allowed to exist would do things the US Constitution says it can’t be allowed to do.

According to the US Constitution (see Article I, Section 9; Article V; and Amendment 10), the federal government has no legitimate power to regulate immigration. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. ICE has no lawful function whatsoever. It’s just a bunch of guys with guns, running around harassing, abducting, and sometimes murdering, travelers.

Also according to the US Constitution (see Amendment 4), the government isn’t allowed to conduct unreasonable searches and seizures of our “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” The ICE “data dragnet” is the very definition of such unreasonable searches and seizures.

Your data and information are yours, not theirs, and absent very specific (“particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”) warrants issued on the basis of probable cause to believe you’ve committed a crime,  ICE (even if it could legally exist) would have no business rummaging through that information even if doing so entailed the off chance it might catch a criminal, which it doesn’t (immigration is not a crime — see above).

But why on earth would anyone be surprised that a criminal organization like ICE would commit, you know, crimes like searching your stuff without a warrant?

In 1982, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling set forth what’s commonly known as the “broken windows” theory. According to that theory, visible signs of petty crime, such as broken windows, encourage more — and more egregious — crimes.

While that theory has often been used to justify depredations like the ICE “data dragnet,” it also explains them: Tolerating the very existence of a criminal organization like ICE naturally encourages it to constantly pursue, and frequently escalate, its criminal activities.

The solution to such problems is not “judicial, legislative or public oversight.”

The solution to such problems is disbanding criminal organizations like ICE and obeying the Supreme Law of the Land, under which there’s no such thing as an “illegal immigrant.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY