reply to post by davidgrouchy
Well, I will give you credit for your keen eye at the building
metaphor being used for economics (+ECONOMY AS HOUSE+ --> debt ceiling,
foundation of our economy, economic collapse, etc.) For more, might I suggest Lakoff & Johnson (1981),
Metaphors we live by.
However, I'm confused. You put Politicians' pay on the list, but then seem to denote "public servant" as something beyond this, even though you allude
to Washington (which is a
metonymy, meaning Washington stands for the political system of our country - while we were on the subject). I'll
agree that politicians make more than they deserve (and they stay in office too long...whatever happened to going back to private life??? Career
politician is a horrible concept). We can argue about the teachers, firefighters, police, postal workers (though they are paid by postage, not taxes),
city inspectors, and the like, but I don't think the whole lot of them could come anywhere near to touching the 56 cents on the dollar that we spend
on defense (meaning the wars).
I would argue that although "defense spending" is on the list you made, that is actually a catch-all that really is not. In other words, "Defense
Spending" is really a
synecdoche (
totum pro parte) for those aspects of the defense budget that can be privatized.
**Keeping mind that when you privatize a service, the government still actually pays for all ("no-bid contracts") or part of it ("subsidies"), the
actual function is then performed by a separate entity that may or may not charge citizens for the good or service.
When the politicians say "lower defense spending", they are talking about trivial bs. They still are not touching the wars (taboo in a war economy?)
with a ten-foot pole.
There you go, examples of metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche as they relate to the somewhat misleading language used to discuss this whole debacle.
edit on 17-7-2011 by Sphota because: I always forget the second parenthesis.
**Just to be clear, I'm aware that a no-bid contract could still go to a bus company or rail service, where the ridership would still pay a share (or
even provide all financial support) through ticket prices, I just could not think of a "full on term" for subsidy...then again, by definition, a
subsidy just means to "prop up" or "sit behind" and could, in theory, provide 100% of the financial support, right?
edit on 17-7-2011 by Sphota
because: clarification