Words may change, but smear tactics always smell the same.
More and more often these days, the word "mean" is popping up in discussions over political policies, typically used as a pejorative describing conservatives or conservative positions.
Sometimes it's hyphenated to clarify the intent to malign to the core: "mean-spirited."
The technical definition of mean as an adjective in that regard is "unkind, spiteful or unfair."
Resorting to name-calling or other diversionary measures in an argument once the facts have begun to accumulate against one is nothing new.
Its practice in legal circles is legendary enough to have spawned an adage from Pulitzer hat-trick author Carl Sandburg: "If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell!"
Shouting down principles and factual points has become habit for many high-profile special-interest groups, as evidenced by the nearly knee-jerk reaction to any contrarian disputing any facet of their accepted gospel.
Hurling terms like "racist" and "homophobe" never advances discourse--indeed, the hurlers' objective is to quell it.
Usage of the M-word is now sinking to the same low standard. Effectively labeling someone, some position or some policy as mean has a tarnishing effect.
The American spirit isn't mean, and as a people we aspire to the word's antonyms: kindness, benevolence, fairness.
We're taught as children that "being mean" is wrong. There's a biblical admonition to put away the "meannesses of life," identified as bitterness, wrath, anger and malice. Mean characters in childhood stories are always the villains, those who come to a bad end.
It's essentially ingrained in our American psyche that mean equals bad.
Nobody wants to be mean. And the good news is, wails from special interests notwithstanding, the overwhelming majority of us aren't.
Conservatives don't need to cower at the mean moniker.
If the Trump phenomenon indicates anything, it's a longing by the electorate for leaders who aren't afraid to "tell it like is"--that is, to achieve some political equilibrium by verbalizing what a great many people are thinking on this issue or that.
What's most needed when the M-word accusations start surfacing is some perspective to principles.
Take the issue of crime and punishment, for instance. Proponents of capital punishment are routinely called mean. The murderers themselves rarely are.
Is it not mean to say to a victim's family--whose world has been unjustly devastated and whose lives have been robbed of many joys forever--that the killer deserves to live while their loved one lies in a coffin?
Is it not mean to tell the law-abiding prospective migrants in Mexico and elsewhere--those who aspire to our principles and follow the rules even though that prevents them from entering the U.S.--that the reward for their integrity is that America will grant their less-scrupulous neighbors who illegally crossed the border citizenship and all its benefits?
Ask someone who balks at deporting illegals next time what he would say to a struggling family in Mexico who has taught its children that doing right matters. Any American government policy that punishes people for doing the right thing is not only mean, but contemptible.
That's not to say we must harshly punish those who did the wrong thing, but we must require something of them to earn their legalization and acknowledge lawful obedience.
It's not mean to hold people accountable when they knowingly do wrong.
Sticking to principles isn't always easy. If it were, there'd be precious little discord in the world. A good and yet tragic example of fidelity to duty and principle involved Gen. George Washington's handling of the treatment of British Major John Andre during the Revolutionary War.
Andre was captured as a spy for carrying secret papers in his stockings, and the penalty for espionage was hanging. As an English officer, Andre pleaded instead to be shot as a soldier.
Washington regretted the circumstances, but the rules of war were clear. He believed that permitting Andre's act to escape its proper punishment would be an "unsafe" course to follow.
There are those today who might look back at Washington's anchored resolve and obedience to principle as "mean."
There are many who might have said, "What does it matter? Let Andre have his firing squad. He's being executed, that's what matters."
The problem is, that's not what mattered. What mattered then and also two centuries hence is duty to principle. That's what Washington instinctively knew and courageously clung to, despite his personal sorrow in doing so.
Second-guessing our heritage is in high vogue nowadays. Those who will never see the critical significance of Washington's integrity in the Andre affair could never have led the country as he did.
It's too much to think abuse and misuse of the M-word will subside. But maybe not too much to at least recall another prudent Sandburg quote: "When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found: They forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along."
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Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 08/28/2015