You Can't Win the Argument if You Can't State the Problem

A conversation on the deck of a Politically Correct S.S. Titanic.

"Sir, there's an iceberg headed for us!"

"Is it dangerous?"

"While icebergs are generally not dangerous if they're left alone, there are extreme parts of this iceberg which if collided with might potentially damage our ability to stay afloat. On the other hand the iceberg was here before us, and if we do collide with it we might merge together with it into a stronger Iceberg\Titanic combination that would bring diversity to our superstructure."

"Perhaps, we should change course."

"We could do that, but we wouldn't want the iceberg to think we were discriminating against it."

It's a joke, but there are no shortage of real life analogs for it. If you make plain language into a forbidden thing so that saying anything is a process that begins with careful self-censorship, and ideas are expressed in a doubtful apologetic way to avoid giving offense, you can be sure that people will not be able to state the nature of the problem.

And if you can't state the nature of the problem, there's no hope of a solution. And that is why conservative politicians continue losing the debate over foreign threats and domestic social issues. While grass roots level conservatives can state the nature of the problem, conservative politicians very rarely do.

In the 2008 American Presidential Election a candidate who boasted of straight talk, left the straight talk at home, and worded everything vaguely and focused on assuring everyone what a nice guy he was. He lost the election to a candidate who had worked even harder to assure everyone what a nice guy he was, and was even vaguer about his plans.

Conservatives win elections when they can clearly state the nature of the problem in plain talk. Because common sense is on the side of Conservatives, while vagueness is on the side of Liberalism. That ability to plainly state the problem was behind the success of such late 20th century leaders as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It is what garnered Palin a following in the first place.

The War on Terror is in such a dismal state because of a President who could sort of state the nature of the problem and then lost the ability to state it at all. Israeli and European heads of state long ago lost the ability to state the nature of the problem. Not only did they lose the ability, it is now actively illegal.

And when Conservative politicians can't state the nature of the problem, but instead begin talking around it, apologize for their half-hearted views before they even state them, and leave the general public confused as to what they mean, and unable to see the difference between them and their liberal opponents.

Why was the cartoon of Mohammed with a burning bomb fuse sticking out of his turban so explosive? Because in a few simple lines of ink and some limited coloring, it aptly stated the nature of the problem. Stating the nature of the problem is a very dangerous thing. In a political culture built on confusing the issue, stating the nature of a problem plainly is about as explosive as free speech can get.

The public is prepared to hear the problem plainly stated. Most of them understood the nature of the problem on their own, or at least did until the newspapers, the evening newscasts and the rest of the garbled newspeak of liberalism got hold of them, and left them thinking that maybe black really is white, and terrorists are just misunderstood people angry at injustice.

But the problem is not extremism. The problem is not injustice or lack of communication or not enough Americans wearing keffiyehs as a fashion statement. The problem is Islamic terrorism. The problem is Muslims. Islam is not a Religion of Peace. It is an ideology built on violence, deceit and terror, and perpetuated by violence, deceit and terror.

Immigration allows more and more Muslims to enter America and Europe. Every Muslim who crosses the border increases the risk of terrorism and Muslim violence. That is the nature of the problem.

The problem is not capitalism. The problem is that the endless expansion of government has made entire domestic industries unprofitable, and overregulated the rest. Global treaties have swung trade balances over to favor countries using slave labor for cheap manufacturing, while leaving civilized countries in the dust.

The real problem is the social cost of immigration. A national health care safety net is viable for working class citizens, but it will always be overloaded beyond sustainability by the dysfunctional overgrown families of third world immigrants. So will all other forms of social services, not to mention the justice system. Immigration drives organized crime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, terrorism and a hundred other social ills. There are only two reasons that the immigration portals remain open, dirt cheap labor and votes for liberal politicians. And we'd be better off without both.

You can't win the argument, if you can't state the problem. When Conservative politicians are ready to begin stating the problem, they'll be ready to start winning elections.