A corollary of having my opinions published is reader feedback. Some of it complimentary, some not so… and some I can’t figure out what it even means.
I’ve written before about justifying actions using meaningless phrases. “Social justice” for instance. I pointed out that its meaning is transitory and “apparently means whatever the particular [social justice] advocate wants it to mean to justify their particular cause.”
I’ve been referred to by some critics as “far right”, or “right wing”. I’m not really sure what my accusers mean by those terms. So I researched the definitions to see if I may be something I’m not aware of.
I began by looking up “right wing” in the 1952 edition of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language that my wife found in a thrift store for a couple of bucks and gave me as birthday present because “you like to know the meaning of words.”
(I once gave her a fruit picker for an anniversary gift so she could reach the fruit at the top of our orange tree. She says it’s one of her favorite gifts from me. Yeah, that’s right, guys, she’s easy to shop for. And she’s hot – though I’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, NOT post her picture. But I digress.)
According to my 1952 Websters “right wing” means, “the conservative wing, or section, as of a political party, a political movement, or a political body, such as the right wing of the Socialist Party of America.”
So, by definition, socialists can be “right wingers”!
The most current edition of Webster’s defines “right wing” as “the rightest division of a political party”. That definition is autological — the same word used to defines itself. “Rightest” isn’t defined, but “rightism” is as “the principles and views of the right”.
Are the editors of Webster’s getting lazy, or is this evidence that the term is meaningless?
So I looked for an answer in the law. Black’s Law Dictionary doesn’t include any such term, so it has no legal significance. A word-search of “right wing” in United States Supreme Court cases reveals the term has been used six times. In the earliest case reference, from 1957, the Court quoted from an affidavit referring to “right wing unions”.
Labor unions can be right wing? That must come as a shock to Karl Marx.
The Court’s most recent reference to “right wing” was in the 2009, Citizen’s United v Federal Election Commission decision (a case grossly mischaracterized by Democrat politicians and their media propagandists).
The “right-wing” reference in that a case is to donation solicitation by a Political Action Committee organized to intimidate supporters of candidates opposed to Democrats. That committee literature refers to such opposition as “right wing”.
So apparently, according to certain Democrats (but nowhere else I can find), anyone who isn’t a Democrat is a ‘right winger’.
Roget’s Thesaurus lists a plethora of synonyms for “right”… such as ‘sane’ and ‘rational’. It also includes political uses, such as ‘traditional’. If by ‘traditional’, those who call me a far right winger mean I believe in limited government and individual freedom, then I’m guilty as charged. But when did believing in those values become a pejorative? (“pejorative” (adj) – “expressing contempt or disapproval”)
Those calling me a far right winger apparently believe describing me that way alleviates their burden of actually refuting me with facts and logic. There is an old legal adage about that sort of ad hominem rationalization:
“When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts and the law are against you — attack your opponent!”
When critics can’t refute facts or conclusions, they accuse their opponents of being “right wing” – as if use of an undefinable pejorative ends the debate in their favor.
Historically, political debate degenerates into sound-bytes. It happens on both sides.
But in contemporary America, some who oppose individual rights, such as of free speech and owning firearms, or who believe indoctrination of children is acceptable, have radically weaponized political labeling by “cancelling” their opponents through social media. And as a result of what has been revealed through released internal Twitter e-mails, we now know that cancelling was done in collusion with federal government agencies — in violation of the First Amendment.
It would be farcical if it weren’t for where history has repeatedly shown that such labeling of political opponents inevitably leads. Marxist Joe Stalin first publicly labeled small Ukrainian landowning farmers as kulaks, then starved them in the holodomor and sent the survivors to Gulags.
The Communist Party in China first identified bourgeois reactionaries, then sent them to Maoist re-education camps.
In Canada, Professor Jordan Peterson is being compelled to attend “social media re-training” for re-tweeting another’s criticism of the government.
Big Brother is watching!
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.