When I was a child, adults would code their conversations so I couldn’t understand the content.  If they were talking about my going up to bed, for instance, they would spell out the key words (b-e-d, with a pecking motion finger pointing in my direction), so I was left in the dark about my immediate future.  Ironically, the parents who were using these types of secretive tactics were the same people who were paying for my elementary education.  They were giving me the skills that would enable me to break their secret codes. 

Once I became proficient in spelling and Pig Latin, they had to resort to real secrecy, with clandestine meetings.  I respect them for their efforts to protect me from the truth, or more often to protect the truth from my siblings and me, for our own good.  Sometimes situations call for secrecy and information control, as in the military.

Business and politics between rivals certainly requires these tools.  Competition is where the lines of truth become blurred with exaggeration, omission, selective editing, and the like.  The contract law principle caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – places a good amount of responsibly on the buyer for an equitable outcome.  The seller of anything has knowledge of the product or service that the buyer does not have.  Deception can occur; the product or service may not be worth the price being asked.  The seller doesn’t share that knowledge with the buyer, ever.

Thus, "buyer beware" is an important principle to live by, especially when it comes to elections.

What place do the methods and traditions of commerce have in the relationship between the elected government and its citizens?  Once We the People have granted power to those elected, we should be done with “buyer beware” concerns.  Yet the Democrats are stuck in the sales process.  They talk as if we don’t know any better. They say that the Fort Hood shooting and the Oklahoma beheading are not terrorism.  The Canadian Parliament shooting and the New York hatchet attack are not tied to Islamic terror.  The IRS e-mails are lost, the hard drives are lost, the borders have never been more secure, and the Earth is warming.  The four American deaths at the Libyan embassy were caused by a disgusting anti-Islamic video.  You can keep your doctor and your coverage if you like them.

The Democrats have stopped bothering with the deception part.  It’s as if no one can hear them but their supporters.  They don’t try to hide the real message anymore.  The left has an arrogance that has been forged over time.  This administration has no fear of the often painful process of accountability.  Critics are still dismissed and intimidated.  Inquiries of any kind are met with accusations of racism and bigotry.

America is in desperate need of a correction in the discourse between government and the citizens.  Crystal-clear messages need to be sent that we’re done with the status quo.  Now we can spell, and we’re proficient in Pig Latin.  That messaging can start on Tuesday, November 4.