American Public Policy

I have been thinking a lot about the sorry state of our country. For the last 10 years we have had incompetence in the White House and things are looking bleak for the middle class. Our government has been reduced to two- or three-word slogans that define our public policy. Here are some of the most memorable:


1. Redistribution of Wealth (mostly from the middle to the top)

2. Government Takeover

3. Family Values

4. Cut and Run

5. Pro-Life and Pro-Choice

6. Support our Troops (particularly vacuous)

7. God Bless America (and presumably no place else)

8. America- the great country in the world (its more than three words)

9. God Fearing

10. Main Street vs. Wall Street

11. Socialism, Communism, Capitalism, Fascism

12. America is the Greatest Democracy in the World

13. Corporations are People

14. In God We Trust

15. Death Panels

16. Welfare Queens

17. Sanctity of Marriage

18. State of Israel

19. West Bank

20. Anti-Semitism

21. Racism

22. Islamophobia

23. War on Terror

24. War of Drugs

25. Ground Zero

26. Mission Accomplished

27. Weapons of Mass Destruction (a particular favorite of mine)

28. Zionism

29. Nation Building

30. Axis of Evil

31. Nuclear threat (usually applied to a country we don’t like, e.g., Iran but never Israel)

32. Activist Judges

33. Radical Islamists

34. Obamacare

35. Hope and Change (a true bill of goods)

36. Deficits

37. Insurgency (as opposed to freedom fighters)

38. Transformational

39. Old White Men (a phrase that is racist, sexist, and ageist- quite some accomplishment)

40.  Patriotism



I am sure if I were really clever, I could put this to the tune of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”