The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Speaking Republican

AUTHOR: ELISABETH PARKER 

When their words don’t mean what you think they mean — which is most of the time — this guide to speaking Republican comes in handy! — Photo collage by Elisabeth Parker for Addicting Info, with apologies to the “Complete Idiot’s Guide” series. Photo of boy with gun from the Huffington Post.

How can you fight back against conservatives and their backward policies when nothing they say ever makes any sense whatsoever? When their words never seem to mean what you think they mean — which is most of the time — this guide to speaking Republican comes in handy. After all, as the famous Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher Sun Tzu famously wrote in his book, “The Art of War,” “So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.”

Here are just a few of the many rave reviews for our “Complete Idiot’s Guide To Speaking Republican.”

• “This helpful guide to speaking Republican really comes in handy – I wish I’d read it back in 2008, because my whole term would’ve turned out differently.” – President Barack Obama.
• “Dang! No wonder I can never understand a word they’re saying!” – James Carville, Democratic strategist.
• “Great book — hugely helpful. Now, when did you last take a Wall Street bank to trial?” – Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
• “I’ve forged a career and company based on the idea that anyone can learn to speak any language … but until I read this guide to speaking Republican, nothing they said ever made any sense to me.” – Eugene Stoltzfus, linguist and Rosetta Stone founder.

Read for yourself to discover what Republicans are really saying the next time you hear one of their bizarre phrases on Fox News.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Speaking Republican

 Numbers -

• 9-11: Justification for torture and preemptive warfare abroad; and for domestic racial profiling and invasive security precautions at airports.
• 420: Another step down the slippery slope of drug legalization from California, the land of fruits and nuts.

- A -

• Abortion: Something far more immoral and tragic than the Death Penalty (see Death Penalty,Fetus, Pro-Life).
• Affirmative Action: The soft bigotry of low expectations. Unfair hiring and college acceptance practices resulting from institutionalized discrimination against white men.
• Activist Judges: Liberal or centrist state and federal judges whose decisions support civil rights, reproductive choice, consumer rights, and corporate accountability. The term does notapply to conservative judges whose decisions undermine civil rights, reproductive choice, consumer rights, and corporate accountability.
• American: The awesomest and the best (see Real American).
• Anchor Babies: Children whelped out by pregnant illegal immigrants who sneak across the border in droves to steal citizenship and free medical care for their brown demon-spawn, who will grow up and vote Democratic.
• Anti-Business: Anything requiring accountability, transparency, fair wages, consumer rights, non-discrimination in hiring/promoting, and/or environmentally responsible business practices.
• Ayn Rand: That’s “Ayn,” which rhymes with “mine.”

- B -

• Bible: The infallible word of God, who said everything He wanted to say to a bunch of bearded misogynist warlords in flowing robes thousands of years ago, then sent His son Jesus Christ to take it all back, and hasn’t been heard from since. Which is why we need right-wing zealots to tell us what God really meant. For example, it’s still okay to hate gays, but we don’t get to stone women to death for being harlots … yet (see God, Jesus Christ).
• Bible-Based: A belief system that makes selective use of biblical texts to deny climate change, evolution, marriage equality, and equality for women.
• Big Government: All government functions that go beyond invading other countries and putting people of color in prison.
• Bigotry: (See Affirmative Action).
• Bipartisanship: Something Democrats are refusing to practice when Republicans try to shut down the Government or force legislation the American public does not want.
• Black and Brown people: Second class citizens (see Gay People, God, Legal Immigrants,Native Americans, Real Americans, Women).
• Business: Everything that’s good about the United States of America. Unlike “Big Government,” businesses are extremely efficient and cost-conscious due to decades of skimming billions off the top to enrich their top brass and shareholders (see Corporations).
• Business-Friendly: Anything that does not require accountability, transparency, fair wages, consumer rights, non-discrimination in hiring/promoting, and/or environmentally responsible business practices (see Anti-Business).

- C -

• China: A backward country with no minimum wage, safety and environmental regulations, civil rights, or workers’ rights … which the United States should start imitating as soon as possible. Not really Communist any more (see Business Friendly).
• Choice: Freedom to choose amongst various crappy options you can’t afford.
• Christian: An adherent to a religion named after Jesus Christ. Not to be confused with those who follow Jesus Christ’s teachings of love, tolerance, and caring for the less fortunate (see God,Jesus Christ).
• Class Warfare: Working people asking for a living wage.
• Climate Change: Global warming? What global warming?
• Communism: A catch-all term for anything that promotes tolerance, fairness, transparency, or social justice. Has no relation to the actual theory and practice of communism.
• Compassionate Conservatism: A term that makes a senselessly cruel and miserly philosophy seem palatable to people.
• Confederate Flag: A symbol of Freedom … um … at least for some people. (see also,Freedom).
• Corporations: They’re people, my friend (see Business, Free Markets).

- D -

• Death Panels: Bureaucrats who will deny treatment to Sarah Palin’s grandparents and disabled child and send them out on an ice floe to die, when Obamacare takes effect (seeObamacare)
• Death Penalty: Retroactive abortions performed after the 54th trimester, when a fetus turns 18.
• Death Tax: A grave injustice committed against heirs to wealthy estates.
• Deregulation: (See Business-Friendly, Free Markets, Privatize).
• Discrimination: (See Affirmative Action).

- E -

• Earned Benefits: (See Entitlements).
• Edward Snowden: Communist traitor (see Communist, National Security, Traitor).
• Efficient: The opposite of Big Government (see Business, Business-Friendly, Free Markets,Privatize).
• Elitist: Reads above an 8th grade level.
• Energy Exploration: Drilling for oil or mining coal in wildlife reserves and national parks.
• Enhanced Interrogation: Because we all know how people provide useful and accurate information when tortured.
• Entitlements: Stuff you aren’t entitled to, even though you pay for them with your taxes or financial contributions: Like earned benefits, food, housing, education, healthcare, and other ridiculous luxuries taken for granted in all the other modernized and wealthy — and some not-so-wealthy — nations (see Pensions).
• Europe: (See Communism).
• Ex-Gay: A reformed gay person with same-sex “urges” who prayed their gay away … because, of course, being gay is a perverse lifestyle choice (see Gay People).

- F -

• Facts: Liberally-biased, doesn’t watch Fox News (see Fox News)
• Family Values: In keeping with the values held by the authoritarian, dysfunctional families that warped conservatives’ minds to begin with. Not to be confused with values that actually support families.
• Faith-Based Initiatives: Church-based charitable programs which would supposedly replace government-provided social programs … as long as recipients receive Jesus as their Savior, and as long as churchgoers keep on giving reliably.
• Filibuster Reform: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s unconstitutional attempt to obstruct obstructionists from obstructing things.
• Fetus: A cluster of cells cultishly worshipped by conservative Christians as representing the sanctity of life. Like cows in parts of India, fetuses must be treated with reverence and never harmed nor killed.
• Fiscal Cliff: A non-existent precipice over which we’ll tumble if we don’t enact tax cuts for the wealthy and draconian austerity measures for the rest of us.
• Founding Fathers: A bunch of guys who dressed like Tea Partiers, and loved Jesus and Freedom.
• Fox News: Fair and balanced reporting (see Facts, Liberal Bias, Reality-Based Community).
• Freedom: The freedom to carry guns, discriminate against homosexuals and people of color, pay workers slave wages, treat women like chattel, and to bully people who aren’t like you.
• Free Enterprise: (See Business-Friendly)
• Freedom to Pray: Freedom to force Christianity on others with U.S. taxpayers’ dollars.
• Free Markets: Socialized risk, privatized profits. (see Business, Freedom)

- G -

• Gay People: ‘Soulless and destructive,’ according to Virginia’s GOP Attorney General and 2013 Gubernatorial candidate. Second-class citizens. As opposed to Real Americans (see Black and Brown People, God, Legal Immigrants, Native Americans,  Women).
• George Zimmerman: Law abiding citizen, victim of racist hate crime (see Trayvon Martin).
• Gerrymander: Something only Democrats ever do (see Voter Fraud).
• Global Warming: (See Climate Change)
• God: A mean, misogynistic, intolerant, war-mongering old white guy with flowing robes and unkempt facial hair who commanded us to hate women, gays, people of color, non-Christians, the poor, and pretty much everyone else except for men, boys, and fetuses (see Jesus Christ)
• Government: (see Big Government).
• Government Spending: Always bad, except when applied to prisons, and the military.

- H -

• Hawaii: A foreign country located in Kenya, Africa.
• Hate Crimes: (See Affirmative Action, George Zimmerman)
• Healthy Forests: Logging and mining.

- I -

• Illegal Immigrants: Brown people who live and work here, but are expected to not exist except when some rich anglo needs someone to prune their hedges on the cheap. Even worse-off than second-class citizens like Black and Brown People, Gay People, God, Legal Immigrants,Native Americans, and Women (see Real Americans).
• ILLERATE: How the folks at Westboro Baptist Church spell “illiterate.”
• Immoral: The opposite of being a Real American (See Affirmative Action, Anti-Business).
• Intelligent Design: Unintelligent design.
• Islam: (See Terrorist).
• Israel: A nation ardently supported by conservative evangelicals, because the Rapture won’t happen until the Jews retake Jerusalem. After that, of course, Jews who don’t accept Jesus as their Savior will die horrible deaths and go to Hell. But we don’t need to tell them that.

- J -

• Jesus Christ: The son of God, who sacrificed himself in a brutal and drawn-out manner just to save the sorry, self-righteous, cheating, and hypocritical asses of jerks like Newt Gingrich and Mark Sanford (see Christians, God).
• Job: Something people complaining about unemployment need to go out and get, whether or not any actually exist.
• Job Creators: The 1% who stash money in off-shore tax havens instead of making investments that create jobs.
• Job Killing: Holding businesses accountable, taxing wealthy people at the rate everyone else pays on their earnings.

- K -

• K-Street: Where disgraced GOP politicians eventually go to make a living.
• Keystone Pipeline: Energy independence and jobs. Well, okay, so we won’t actually be using any of that oil and there won’t really be any jobs either … unless temporary contract work for cleaning up oil spills counts as a job.

- L -

• Lamestream Media: Anything that isn’t Fox News.
• Legal Immigrants: Second-class citizens, especially if you’re Asian, Middle-Eastern, Latino, or African. (see Black and Brown People, Gay People, God, Native Americans, Real Americans,Women).
• Less Government: (See Business-Friendly, Free Markets, Privatize)
• Liberal: Evil.
• Liberal Bias: Most facts have this.
• Liberty: (See Freedom).
• Limousine Liberals: Wealthy socialists who think that just because they enjoy giving their money away to worthless moochers, everyone else should, too (see Elitists).
• Looters: A term borrowed from “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, to anyone who believes people have a right to fair wages, public services, and a social safety net.
• Low Information Voter: (See Fox News).

- M -

• Mainstream Media: (See Lamestream Media).
• Martin, Trayvon: (See Trayvon Martin).
• Marxism: (See Communism).
• Middle East (See Oil, Terrorists).
• Military: Not really part of big government or government spending (see Big Government,Government Spending).
• Mining: (See Healthy Forests).
• Moderate: (See Liberal)
• Moochers: (see Looters)
• Moral: Cheating on spouses, embezzling cash, scamming supporters, abusing prescription drugs, and soliciting young boys for gay sex, as exemplified by the behavior of conservative leaders.
• Muslim: People from countries that treat women as badly as American conservatives wish they could treat women (see Terrorists).

- N -

• National Interests: (See Oil).
• National Rifle Association (NRA): America’s foremost defender of Americans’ non-existent “Second Amendment Rights” to bear arms assault rifles (see Founding Fathers,Freedom).
• National Security: Justification for all evils committed domestically or abroad.
• National Security Administration: (See above).
• Native Americans: Second-class citizens (see Black and Brown People, Gay People, God,Legal Immigrants, Real Americans, Women).
• Nazis: Anyone who doesn’t agree with conservatives’ interpretation of the constitution.

- O -

• Obama: Osama Bin Laden
• Obamacare: The camel’s nose under the tent for single-payer, socialized medicine, which — to Republicans — is a BAD thing (See Communism, Death Panels).
• Oil: Must be extracted and protected regardless of environmental, financial, and human costs.
• Oil Drilling: (See Healthy Forests).
• Organic: Foods Real Americans don’t eat (see Communism, Elitist, Gay People, Liberal
• Osama Bin Laden: (See Obama)

- P -

• Pass: Something Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Boehner (R-OH) won’t do to any legislation, unless it prevents people from voting or having abortions.
• Pensions: Worker “entitlements” that they aren’t really entitled to — even though they paid for them — and which should be looted by corporations and Wall Street (see Entitlements).
• Personal Responsibility: A facile justification for not helping anyone, because when bad things happen to people, it’s their own fault.
• Poor: (See Looters).
• Poverty: A condition that conveniently provides a cheap and docile labor force, and which can also be blamed on the sufferers themselves.
• Privatize: Hand public resources over to profiteers, who will supposedly manage them more efficiently while charging us exorbitant rates for accessing them. (See Business, Freedom, Free Markets).
• Pro Life: Pro-Fetus. Once you’re born, you’re on your own (see Abortion, Death Penalty,Fetus).
• Pro-Business: Anti-union, anti-environment, anti-living wage, and pro-unelected government.

- Q -

• Quorum Call: Not nearly as fun as a booty call.
• Quotas: The soft bigotry of the low expectations we have for minorities and low-income folks.

- R -

• Racism: (See Affirmative Action).
• Rape: The only way God intended for unmarried women to have sex.
• Rape Kit: “Cleans you out” so you won’t get pregnant or diseased after being raped, according to Texas Republican State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg.
• Rape Victim: She asked for it (see Trayvon Martin).
• Rapture: An event preceding the end-times when all believers are bodily taken from earth into heaven by God, before the ravages of Armageddon begin. Seriously, I’m not making this up.
• Real American: White, native English-speaking, heterosexual, and not some goddam liberal hippie.
• Reality-Based Community: A frame of mind inhabited by Godless Liberals (see Liberal Bias, Facts).
• Reform: Rolling back reforms.
• Right to Work: The right to work for low pay and no benefits, and to get fired or discriminated against for no particular reason.
• Religious Freedom: The right to worship Jesus and force others to worship Jesus (seeChristian, God, Jesus Christ).
• RINO: Acronym for “Republican In Name Only” – meaning a moderate, non-Tea Party Republican.
• Russia: (See Communism).

- S -

• School Choice: Vouchers for bible-based schools or home-schooling. Or the freedom to choose between crumbling and underfunded schools, inferior for-profit charter schools, or private schools you can’t afford (see Choice).
• Stars and Bars: (See Confederate Flag)
• School Choice: Undermining public schools with vouchers for Bible-based education (SeeBible-Based).
• Second Amendment Rights: The total whack-job’s constitutional right to carry assault rifles and stockpile weapons in their underground, barbed wire-covered bunkers (See “National Rifle Association”).
• Snowden, Edward: (See Edward Snowden)
• Socialist: Anything to the left of Rush Limbaugh (see Communism)
• Stand Your Ground: The right to shoot anyone on sight who seems like a threat (see George Zimmerman,  Real American, Trayvon Martin).
• States Rights: The right of Republican state governors to deny civil rights, unemployment insurance, and health coverage to their citizens (See Freedom).

- T -

• Tea Party: Nutcases in pseudo-colonial clothing who think they’re a grassroots movement, but are actually funded by evil rich people like the Koch brothers (See Founding Fathers).
• Terrorists: (See Muslim)
• Tort Reform: Preventing people from seeking legal restitution and compensation for corporate abuses (but suing the US government is encouraged).
• Traitor: Even worse than not being a real American (See Communism, Edward Snowden,Real American).
• Trayvon Martin: He asked for it (see Rape Victim).

- U -

• Un-American: Urban, non-white, multicultural, progressive, non-Christian, gay-friendly, educated, and/or tolerant.
• Unfair: (See Anti-Business, Affirmative Action)

- V -

• Very Poor: “Lucky Duckies” who get everything handed to them on a silver platter; People former presidential candidate Mitt Romney was “not concerned about.”
• Victimization: Calling out conservatives when they — or organizations they support — victimize people.
• Voter Fraud: Voting for Democrats.
• Voter ID: People should be required to have an ID in order to vote, because if you’re lame enough to not have any photo ID, then you’ll probably vote Democratic.

- W -

• War on Christmas: Publicly acknowledging the existence of other (non-Christian) winter holidays besides Christmas.
• Welfare State: A horrible state of dependency that occurs when we have any social safety net provisions or public services whatsoever.
• Welfare Queens: Tramps who keep having children out-of-wedlock so they can collect huge welfare checks to buy gas for their huge pink Cadillacs.
• Whistle-Blower: Not a Real American (see Traitor).
• Women: Second class citizens (see Black and Brown People, Gay People, God, Legal Immigrants, Native Americans, Real Americans).

- X -

• Xenophobic: An apt description for many conservatives, although few of them would admit it.

- Y -

• Yellow Journalism: Any news reporting that makes conservatives look bad. The opposite ofFox News‘ ‘fair and balanced’ reporting.

- Z -

• Zimmerman, George: (See George Zimmerman)
• Zionism: (See Israel).