Stealthy Tactics in Political Debate
I imagine that I'm not alone in worrying that there has been a disquieting tendency over the past few years to use stealthy tactics to get political points across and to try to win perhaps-unwitting sympathizers. A movement to keep a preschool out of an area of town becomes a campaign to "save a farm." A movement to keep the administrative offices of an historic site where they are mutates into an effort to "preserve the integrity of our neighborhood." A movement to maintain level school funding is repackaged as a mission to "retain Concord's diversity." A movement not to stop school buildings from being rebuilt transforms into a concern that Concord taxpayers not issue a "blank check." And during the past Town Meeting a movement to prohibit the widening of a principal town thoroughfare morphs into a call to "accommodate bicyclists."

Please. I'm for saving farms, preserving the integrity of neighborhoods, retaining Concord's diversity, demanding budgetary prudence so that we don't write blank checks, and accommodating bicyclists -- and I'm for apple pie -- but I have agreed, at bottom, with none of these campaigns.

I hate to conjure up the much-abused George Orwell, whose lifelong advocacy for clarity of writing and honesty in political debate sadly resulted in the adjective "Orwellian" coming to mean "purposely misleading." But can't we propose warrant articles, compose signs, and carry on our dialogue with more honesty, more dignity, and, in the end, more respect for people's intelligence?
Steve Bloomfield, Concord