This page is about the controversy over redefining and/or prohibiting certain words for political purposes, just
like in "1984", and other arguments about free speech versus political correctness. More and more
words are being essentially banned from public speech because a few people have an emotional aversion to
them.
For example, vagrants who might have been called "drunks" or "hobos" in 1960 would probably be called "homeless"
today, implying that they're exactly the same as anyone else except for their lack of a permanent address. No,
in almost every case, homeless people are homeless for very good reasons. Words are important tools, and
when useful tools are outlawed, an entire society suffers.
You may also be interested in my
handy translation table, for
converting liberal doubletalk into plain English.
Democrats' Unconstitutional Plot to
Invent New Congressmen. Right now, in the guise of a civil rights issue, the new
Congress is attempting one of the most brazenly unconstitutional power grabs in our nation's
history. The move aims to create a new class of congressman and simply add the first of
these to the 435 existing members of the United States House of Representatives.
What Kind of Person
Calls Himself 'Progressive'? The word Progressive first became popular in the late 19th century,
but has now been adopted as a popular synonym for "socialism." Americans tend not to like socialism,
associating it with the Soviet Union and other bad characters. But "Progressivism" sounds fine.
So it is a euphemism for something people fear; a cover-up label. The odd thing, of course, is that real
progress in the world is almost never achieved by self-proclaimed "Progressives." They generally
make things worse rather than better.
Obama's Amerikkka Corps: [Scroll
down] On the Obama campaign page devoted to the fellowships, Obama himself appears on a brief video saying
the program will "train a new generation of leaders that will not only help us win this election but help us
revive democracy in communities all across the country." Hold on a moment there. America may have
its faults, but does Obama really believe it doesn't have enough democracy already? The answer is both
yes and no, because left-wing extremists like Obama don't use the word democracy the way other Americans do.
To radical leftists, democracy is a coded word for socialism.
Capturing
the Language to Assure Liberal Dominance. A misleading recent headline in the New York Times
demonstrated the way that the left abuses the language to cement its continued control of our public discourse.
Under the banner "EVOLUTION OPPONENT IS IN LINE FOR SCHOOLS POST" reporter Cornelia Dean declared: "The
National Association of State Boards of Education will elect officers in July, and for one office,
president-elect, there is only one candidate: a member of the Kansas school board who supported its
efforts against the teaching of evolution."
The Bobbie Jo Stinnett case:
From
fetus to baby. This is a horrific crime that, like the Scott Peterson
case, opens an uncomfortable window into our culture's tortured reasoning on anything
related to unborn life. During the coverage of the crime, the status of the
Bobbie Jo Stinnett's unborn girl steadily changed. … [A] "fetus" — something
for which American law and culture has very little respect — was somehow instantly
transformed into a "baby" and "infant" — for which we have the highest respect. By
what strange alchemy does that happen?
On the use and abuse of
labels. Liberals don't usually call conservatives merely "conservatives." That's because
the term, standing alone, is not a pejorative. Instead, we are "extremists," "bigots," "homophobes,"
"racists" and "intolerant." And these labels, unlike the conservatives' general invocation of "liberal,"
are usually gross distortions.
Awash is
euphemisms. Educationese continues to favor words that cloak failure; so as not
to impair self-esteem "Negative gain" sometimes appears as a description of falling test
scores. A number of schools have eliminated "F" as a mark, and "suboptimal outcome"
means failure. In Britain members of the Professional Association of Teachers suggested
that schools drop the word fail.
Labour
kills off 'husbands' and 'wives' . Labour has removed the traditional terms
"husband", "wife" and "spouse" from a wide range of official forms, and replaced them with
the word "partner". Civil servants at Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs, which is
responsible for tax collection, yesterday [11/17/2007] admitted the new term was a
convenient "catch-all" and a part of "modern language". The move is said to take into
consideration the range of relationships that now have a legal standing.
Leftist Terminology For The
Next Two Years: We all know that the one thing Democrats can never do is be honest about their
agenda. To make the items in their liberal agenda more palatable, they have to couch their true
intentions in weasel words that attempt to mask the true liberalism that lies beneath.
Pelosi:
Just Forget the Word 'Earmark'. The more than 32,000 earmarks requested in the Homeland Security
spending bill have roiled the House this week, and now Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) wants the word 'earmark'
to just go away. In a Tuesday press conference about appropriation bills, Pelosi said, "Why don't we leave
here today forgetting the word earmark?" She said they should be called "legislative directives" instead.
Why
Liberals Spread Poverty: It's called a "surcharge." You and I would call it a tax
increase. One more way and reason for the political class to take even more of the money that you and I
slave for by slugging it 9 to 5 everyday. In their funny little semantic sideshow this
"surcharge" would be their answer to resolving the problem of the "alternative minimum tax."
Lawmaker
wants to ban 'illegal alien'. A state legislator whose district is home to thousands of Caribbean
immigrants wants to ban the term "illegal alien" from the state's official documents.
Bill To Outlaw the
Term "Illegal Alien". The prominent state senator who vigorously fought to restore felon voting
rights and later hosted a fundraising event for a convicted fellow lawmaker has introduced legislation to ban
the term "illegal alien" because she finds it offensive.
Liberal use of
language: Officials of that great bastion of liberalism — the European
Union — reportedly want to replace the term "Islamic terrorism" with "terrorists who
abusively invoke Islam."
Bills
would remove 'idiots' from Ohio code. Bills introduced in both the House and Senate would remove
outdated terms once used to describe the mentally ill from the Ohio Revised Code. Ohio Advocates for Mental
Health came across the word "idiot" while researching state law 18 months ago, chief executive Doug DeVoe
said. A search of an electronic version of the law revealed other words now considered to be offensive.
The Editor says...
Political correctness requires that dictionaries must be scrubbed, filtered and sanitized to avoid hurt
feelings. The word idiot used to be a perfectly legitimate term to describe a person of profound
mental retardation having a mental age below three
years.* The
offensiveness has resulted from the chronic misuse of terms like idiot, imbecile, and
moron by people with limited vocabularies. (I regret that some of the blame goes to
the Three Stooges.)
How to Speak
Liberal: Start by obfuscating. The most striking recent example is Democratic
representative John Murtha's plan to "redeploy" American troops from Iraq. His idea, of course, is to
pull all the troops out as soon as possible. But "redeploy" makes it sound like a tactical maneuver
rather than a move to retreat, to give up, to cut and run. Other Democrats have adopted the word.
A secular-to-English
dictionary. Secular speak is a way of making nasty things sound nice, rather
like applying lipstick to a pig. After the application, the pig is still ugly and smells
bad. So it is with secular principles supporting immorality and the culture of death.
The Fascists Among Us.
It's no secret that hurling names about is as common in the political world as it is in a grammar school
playground. One oft-used pejorative is "fascist," which, along with racist, sexist, homophobe
and others, tends to be least understood by those who utter it most. And because these damning terms
are used wantonly, more to discredit than describe, they tend to be misapplied.
The Left hurts the
battle against torture, rape and other evils. In the past, when I heard that a woman had been
raped, I recoiled in horror. Not any more. Now, my first reaction is, "What happened to her?"
One has to ask that question because the feminist left has redefined the word "rape" to the point where, unless
you know the specifics, you don't know if a woman was violently forced into sexual intercourse or had engaged
in sex that she regretted the following morning. For the latter is one of the definitions of "rape" that
the feminist movement uses and has disseminated. That is how the figure "one in four" women having been
raped was derived.
Culture of Deceptive Words. I'm
an 82-year old World War II vet, and retired university professor. In the course of my lifetime I've
witnessed and continue to see increasing manipulation of words, word games, in order to deceive,
influence and control the public.
The left's
vocabulary: A recent angry e-mail from a reader said that certain issues should not be determined
by "the dictates of the market." With a mere turn of a phrase, he had turned reality upside down.
Eco-terrorists
are indulging in class warfare by another name. Somebody should write a doctoral thesis
about the sort of language that terrorists use when they try to justify what they have done. The
thought occurred to me yesterday, when I read the threatening letter sent to golf clubs in and around
Somerset by the bunch of fanatics who have just ripped up five greens at the Park course near Bath.
Guests or gate
crashers: Immigration is yet another issue which we seem unable to discuss
rationally — in part because words have been twisted beyond recognition in political rhetoric. We
can't even call illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants." The politically correct evasion is
"undocumented workers." Do American citizens go around carrying documents with them when they
work or apply for work? Most Americans are undocumented workers but they are not illegal
immigrants. There is a difference.
NOW's View on Free Speech? It's
intended only for those who parrot their leftist agenda.
Clinton
Rule Attempted to Alter Definitions of "Fetus" and "Child": The regulation, which was cleared by
the Clinton administration on January 17, but then postponed by the Bush administration, states that a newborn
is still considered a "fetus" until it is determined the baby will live by "independently maintaining a
heartbeat and respiration." Only when this determination is made is the baby considered a "child,"
according to the rule.
Homosexual Orwellian Newspeak:
Activist homosexuals have done an effective job of destroying the real meaning of "discrimination." Every
day you see the word "discrimination" in your local newspapers, mainstream magazines, and on television.
And every time this word is used in association with homosexual activism, it is used in a negative
context. We are being repeatedly told that it is wrong to "discriminate" against homosexuals who are
typically compared to blacks as a persecuted minority. Anyone who attempts to criticize homosexuals for
their deviant sexual practices is compared to a member of the KKK, or a Neo-Nazi group.
From the "Leftspeak Dictionary," here is Sen. Barbara Boxer
on partial-birth abortion: "That this Constitution as it currently is -- some want to amend it to say
life begins at conception. ... I am not willing to amend the Constitution to say that a fetus is a
person. ..." Sen. Barbara Boxer on trees: "We are talking about God's creations that we have a
responsibility to protect. This is Mojave National Preserve's Joshua trees. We have to
move to protect them."
The New Language: Like bums and hobos,
jungles and swamps have disappeared as well. Today's political agenda has given them new names.
They're now rainforests and wetlands.
None Dare Call It Fascism.
Fascism places the responsibility for the economy on business, which is rendered seemingly private, with the
facade of private ownership. The result of both socialism and fascism is the same: the destruction
of economic freedom, replacing the individual's choice of how to make a peaceful, honest living with state edicts.
Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself: By
raising the hint of an unpopular consequence — be it increased drug use or 'monopolization' of
industry — government officials are able to expand their control over society without having to
rationally defend their premises and ideas.
Sticks
and Stones Will Break Your Bones, But Words Will Send You to Jail.
"Master" and "slave" computer labels
unacceptable, officials say. Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and
contractors stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable
and offensive.
The
Case for Being Insensitive: It is curious that Americans, who with each passing year become less
concerned about good manners and etiquette, become ever more concerned with sensitivity in speech. It is
okay to be a slob at the dinner table. It is okay to go out in public half dressed. It is even
okay - some would have us believe - to use four-letter words in mixed company. But never, never say
something political that will hurt the feelings of another human being.
How Poor Are America's Poor? According
to the US Census Bureau, 36 million Americans are "living in poverty." Can this alarming claim really
be true? The simple answer is: No.
Rather
Than Censor "Archie," Let's Face Facts: An undiscussed danger of political
correctness is that when we censor our speech, we censor our thoughts. And if we refuse
to think about the problems and root causes of the ills of our society, rather than merely
attempting to smooth-over their manifestations, we'll never face and cure them.
Judge rules against driver who
wanted "Irish" on plates:
"IRISH" license plate seen as racist!
The Virtue of Individualism: The
committee gave me an ultimatum: change the speech topic completely and write about what
the committee wanted me to write about, or "resign" from the speaking position. I remained
firm to my decision not to change the idea of my speech.
Hate Speech from the Left: "It's hard not
to notice that political discussion over the last decade has increasingly degenerated into name-calling,"
Brian Anderson wrote in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal last year. "The insults most often come
from the left: 'racist,' 'homophobe,' 'sexist.'… It has become a habit of left-liberal political argument
to … redefine mainstream conservative arguments as extremism and bigotry. Close-minded and uncivil,
this tendency betrays what's liberal in liberalism."
Official says the Bible "exposes
homosexuals to hatred". Canadian tribunal rules paper can't run ad with critical scriptures.
Broadway Play Ruffles PC
Crowd: Today's politically correct atmosphere means it would be impossible today to produce films
today that were made as recently as the 1970s. "The Producers" is a case in point. People today
object to it, but it is an update of a Mel Brooks 1968 release.
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