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- Activist
- Busybody.
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- Cargo Cult Politics
- The belief that a collection of people can transform themselves into a unified and effective political party by pretending that they already have.
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- Citizen
- The smallest unit of government. The growing use of this term is a cheap and easy way to devalue the
existence and power of each individual person. "Be a good citizen".
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- Fair Share
- As in "The banks (or the corporations or Big Oil or Big Labor, etc.) must pay their fair share." This always means:
more than the amount currently being paid, with the extra of course intended to go to the favorite cause of whatever group is complaining about the presumed
injustice.
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- Ideology
- "..is an instrument of power; a defense mechanism against information; a pretext for eluding moral constraints in doing or approving evil with a clean conscience; and finally, a way of banning the criterion of experience, that is, of completely eliminating or indefinitely postponing [consideration of] the pragmatic criteria of success and failure."
(The Flight from Truth, Jean Francoise Revel, New York: Random House, 1991, p. 228.)
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- Libertarian
- One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
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- Libertarianism
- See Ideology.
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- Political Party
- A voluntary organization formed expressly to secure and manage the offices of government by winning them.
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- Political System
- "That type of government where politics proves successful in ensuring reasonable stability and order."
(In Defence of Politics, 4th Edition, Bernard Crick, University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 21.)
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- Politics
- "The activity by which differing interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and the survival of the whole community."
(Crick, op cit, p. 21.)
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- Society
- When used in political discussions, this word means "that part of the citizenry that agrees with me on this issue." That is how "the good of
society" can be used to justify even the most extreme goals of both the Left and the Right.
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