The American Left’s ‘False-goods’ Deceptions
In one of his final public appearances before about 50,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness, saying, “The tempter is subtle: he does not push us directly toward evil, but to a false good.”
That is true of much in modern life. In order to spare themselves and their policy preferences moral condemnation, ideologues misapply inoffensive words – “false goods” – to disguise bad conduct or policies in ways that allow them to “feel” without being virtuous, and “morally superior” based on literally no moral principles.
Many people on the American Left marginalize both conscience and logic by limiting their perceptions of “virtue” to how they think and vote, and passing off personal responsibilities to an abstract, faceless, inefficient, uncontrolled, often-corrupt government, while, at the same time, demonizing others who simply do not share what liberals imagine to be their “enlightened” points of view.
Some false-good phraseology is laughably harmless: to deflect public disapproval, the Obama/Biden administration redefined Islamist terror attacks as “man-caused disasters,” or acts of “workplace violence,” and the “War on Terror” became “overseas contingency operations.”
But not all “false goods” are equally silly. In 2021, the Biden/Harris-induced illegal alien invasion of/humanitarian disaster on our southern border, and the Texas legislature’s passage of a sensible abortion bill made two sets of commonly-used left-liberal “false goods” particularly relevant.
Both issues elicited volumes of creative left-wing “false good” euphemisms, not to mention noisy rancor towards fellow Americans who view illegal immigration and abortion, especially late-term abortion, as legal and/or moral problems the nation must address.
Even though illegal aliens (a term once commonly used without political bias) broke American laws to come or stay here, advocates attempt to justify general amnesty with “false goods” to blur the distinction between “legal” and “illegal.” In fact, euphemistically calling it “comprehensive immigration reform,” the Biden/Harris administration supported general amnesty for illegals, and encouraged congressional Democrats to include/hide amnesty in unrelated bills.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once framed his party’s false-good immigration gold standard by referring to illegals as “undocumented Americans.” The New York Times has referenced “would-be Americans.” Others prefer “undocumented job-seekers.” More recently, the Biden White House press office tried out “irregular migrants.”
They are here illegally. Full stop.
But, the euphemistic language of abortion contains the worst examples of “false goods.”
Abortion is the willful act of killing a developing child in the womb.
That fact cannot be obscured by false-goods such as “privacy,” “a mass of cells,” “lumps of protoplasm,” “terminating pregnancy,” “women’s health, “reproductive health” or “choice.”
Specifically, a “right” to abortion assumes that someone has the right to decide if an innocent other will die.
But, merely stating simple facts about abortion and illegal immigrants invites the wrath of those who prefer less-scrupulous, false-good descriptions.
On the unfounded assumption that they are somehow morally superior, left-liberals think they can slander, threaten or mistreat anyone with impunity.
But, let’s examine the Left’s moral “superiority.”
Left-liberals constantly labeled former-President Barack Obama’s policy critics and people unwilling to vote for Kamala Harris as “racists” simply to shut down legitimate debate and gain political advantage. No “false goods” there. Viciously toxic even when unwarranted, charges of racism allow no defense.
However, many of the same people who maliciously call others “racists” also favor abortion “rights” and amnesty for illegal aliens, both of which have harmed America’s black communities.
More than forty-two million (disproportionately black) Americans receive food stamps, and black communities tend to suffer the highest levels of unemployment.
But, as illegals flooded America’s labor market, even more black citizens lost jobs and job opportunities. Amnesty would sacrifice the economic interests of minority citizens just so self-interested politicians can enlarge their voting base.
Furthermore, since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, more than nineteen million black babies – roughly forty percent of America’s current black population – have been aborted.
Today, black women number about fourteen percent of America’s childbearing population, but thirty-six percent of all abortions. There are places in America where the black babies aborted outnumber those born.
If, on no empirical grounds, Barack Obama’s policy critics and Kamala Harris’s political opponents were labeled “racist,” then why, based on real evidence, shouldn’t the same accusation be leveled, only accurately, at every abortion and open borders advocate?
We’re listening…
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2025/12/28/jerry-shenk-the-american-lefts-false-good-deceptions/
