Beware Exaggerated Language

So in my English classes, I have harped on something I call "exaggerated language."  Exaggerated language is using words like "always," "never," "everyone," "no one" and so on.  When I grade papers that have these terms in them, I write beside them "prove it."  In other words, prove that no one ever likes to drink coffee.  Prove that everyone knows God is Lord.  Statements with exaggerated language are usually false.

Through the election season, I have been hearing an exaggerated statement (actually two) that I am sick of.  It's this: Conservatives don't care about the poor.  I want to say, "Prove it."  This myth that conservatives don't care about the poor (usually foisted on conservatives when they mention any kind of moral legislation because being concerned about morals automatically means you don't care about the poor) is plain wrong.  Let me give an example.

I'm going to pull from my pool of conservative friends.  Let's see.  At least five couples I personally know have adopted needy children, not to mention half my church.  All of them have gone on mission trips where they did such things as build homes, feed orphans, bring clothes and survival items to those without them.  My husband and I support two sponsor children, not to mention the large percentage of our budget that goes to charities that help the poor.  Our small group is spending its next meeting shopping and filling baskets of food for the needy.  My church partners with a charity working in downtown Dallas to help the homeless.  I could go on.  The point is, the conservatives I know help the poor.  Why?  Because God cares about the poor, so they do, too.  This idea that conservatives don't care about the poor is an outright lie.

So why are conservatives then charged with a lack of compassion for the poor?  What's really at root is not a lack or overabundance of compassion on either side.  What we have are different ideas of how to help the poor through the government.  Conservatives want to equip the poor with the ability to feed themselves and rise out of their poverty.  They want to teach a man to fish so he can fish for life.  They don't want to enable the ability to sit around and do nothing while the government fishes for me.  Others disagree.  They want to meet immediate needs, hand out everything they can so no one suffers in this country.  But understand, both sides care about the poor.  They have different ways of thinking how the government should handle the poor, but that does not mean either side isn't getting its hands dirty helping the poor.

(Here's the freebie, the second exaggerated phrase I've heard during the election: Conservatives hate women.  The catch phrase is "war on women."  Some say they demonize women.  This is so laughable, I don't want to address it with a whole post, a paragraph will suffice.  There are thousands upon thousands of conservative women, including myself.  Let me let you in on a secret: we don't hate ourselves.  Shocker!  This idea of a "war on women" pretty much surrounds one issue: abortion.  As Wikipedia defines it, "a political catchphrase used in United States politics to describe Republican Party initiatives in federal and state legislatures that are seen as restricting women's rights, especially with regard to reproductive rights."  It's any kind of legislation that is perceived to limit women's "rights."  Do you know we have tons of legislation in this country that limits rights?  We can't murder.  We can't steal.  We can't damage someone else's property and so on.  Conservatives do not view it as a right to kill a child.  That is murder.  It's not a war on women.  It's a hate of murder.  Others can argue reasons it is not murder, fine.  But don't pretend that because conservatives hold the belief that killing a child in the womb is murder that they hate women.  That'd be like saying because someone is okay with abortion, they hate children).

(This article will probably get me flamed.  So hear me.  I know there are conservatives who have said bonehead things and are the exception to the rule.  I hear what they say and I think, "That was a stupid thing to say."  There are people on the other side who have said bonehead things, too.  You can't generalize a group of people based on some bonehead sayings).