THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 28, 1995 TAG: 9504280007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By BEVERLEY DABNEY
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
After sitting through long minutes of Newt Gingrich's self-congratulatory performance in the role of a ``president delivering the State of the Union address,'' I finally heard the expected words: ``It's as simple as that.'' They were as inevitable as the tag on a helpful local's directions to a lost motorist: ``You can't miss it.''
Objection. We can miss it - easily. And it is rarely as simple as that.
Such comfortable expressions, falling smoothly from the tongue, might serve as caution signs to the listener to be wary of the message in which they are embedded. If solutions to the problems that plague us were that simple, they would long ago have been found and agreed upon. But the easy phrases, spoken with great finality, almost achieve the dignity of folk wisdom, discouraging disagreement or even question.
Is it truly ``the fact of the matter'' ``at this point in time'' that we can ``end welfare dependency'' by force-feeding ``welfare queens'' (and their children) with ``the work ethic,'' or by extolling ``family values''? ``My family values - may they always be right, but right or wrong, my family values'' (with apologies to Stephen Decatur).
Do we need to ``get tough on crime'' by arming the citizenry, even with assault weapons, to ensure ``a level playing field'' in gun battles between ``law-abiding citizens'' and bad guys (who are probably better shots than the good guys)?
Is the infallible cure for economic ills ``getting the government off our backs'' by repealing regulatory laws intended to protect public health and environment?
Can we surely exchange deficit for solvency by relieving the ``over-burdened (wealthy) taxpayer,'' whose beneficence will then ``trickle down'' to those in lesser tax brackets or no tax bracket at all?
Can we curb a ``tax-and-spend Congress'' and ``eliminate waste'' just by shifting the onous of tax collection from national to ``more efficient'' local government, ``closer to the people,'' run by businessmen who know how to ``meet a payroll,'' but may know little and care less about health and environmental hazards? Is this where ``the buck (really) stops,'' rather than at the president's or speaker's desk?
If we deny congressional access to our pockets for either deposit (Medicaid, etc.) or withdrawal (capital-gains taxes), will ``the American people'' necessarily win financial independence?
There may be good ideas among these prescriptions, but they are not easy to identify and examine critically when they are couched in overstuffed prose. Like primitive peoples who are said to ascribe magical properties to names or certain words, we may mistake speech for action.
With an almost superstitious reverence for the word ``democratic'' (but not for the right of dissent on which democracy rests), some less-than-courteous Republican speakers refer to the opposition as ``the Democrat Party.'' Can they be ``Republicans''?
At the same time, in Virginia, they vilify as an infidel a fellow Republican who puts principle before party ``loyalty'' by failing to support a candidate whom he considers unworthy of his party's trust. Can they ``have it both ways''? Apparently individual responsibility and independent judgment - ``just say no'' - must lose out to fund-raising and votes in ``competition'' that is an essential feature of ``free enterprise.''
Such contradictions might raise questions about the soothing verbiage that is a staple of TV advertising and in the oratory of talk shows and campaign speeches. We could be led to forget that difference of opinion is no crime, that we don't always have to ``go along to get along.''
Maybe ``the bottom line'' is that the lost motorist can miss it. Maybe it's not really ``as simple as that.'' MEMO: Ms. Dabney is a longtime reader of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB