Language

"John Podhoretz once remarked that all conservatives are bilingual: We speak both conservative and liberal. Liberals are monolingual, because they can afford to be."

Just a quick note on this comment. I have been thinking out the language of politics for a while now (in fact I want to write and article on it someday) and one of the things that i have noticed is that conservatives always fight an uphill battle. Because we are a bit more realistic about the world and we believe that there are different solutions to the same problem that will work better for different people, we can't offer simple universal answers. So the liberal gets to say, "free health-care for all," and it sounds great. So great in fact that no argument is needed. they do this in all areas political. A job for every one. Perfect racial ratios in all jobs. Middle class lifestyles no matter how hard you work etc. etc.

The conservative now has a rhetorical hole. Before he can argue that any of these are infeasible or explain how they might lead to the exact opposite of what is promised, he has to explain why he thinks it is bad to cover children who are dying of ingrown toenails because their parents don't have a good enough job. Who can dig themselves out of that hole?

That is what the above quote means, when conservative hear the promises made by the liberal, he is able to translate them into tax increases, loss of freedom and governmental meddling in private life. When the liberal hears the conservative's response on the other hand he only hears how much the conservative hates the down-trodden. Who bears the weight of this responsibility? The Media who has coarsened discourse and stripped the political language of the compassion of non-governing.