Monday, October 09, 2006

Slick Language and Giving Away the Farm

Stumbled on this article on the 2002 Farm Bill (referred to by Ilya Somin at Volokh.com in a post on how liberal Democrats could appeal to libertarians). For some reason it strikes me as an example of using slick language in an argument. Some examples:

  • "weaning" farmers away from farm programs (implying farmers are babies sucking on the teat of government programs)
  • "small family farms" replaced by "large commercial farms" (blurring the fact that the smaller farms of the 1930's were also commercial while the large farms of today are also family-owned and run)
  • playing "agribusiness" and "rich farmers" against "small family farmers" (blurring the fact that, given the increased specialization of modern agriculture, much of this is apples and oranges.) Small family farmers who have been growing field corn for the last 40 years get government checks; large operations who grow sweet corn for the last 5 years don't.
Oh well, I'm sure similar examples can be found on the other side.

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