How people talk about political issues in America has declined in the post-WWII era. Journalist Edward R. Murrow said that Winston Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle” in WWII with his memorable speeches in Parliament and broadcasts to the English people when England stood alone against the Nazi onslaught.

The only comparable figure in American politics since 1945 has been Ronald Reagan. He changed how people thought of the Cold War when he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in April 1987 and said, “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

In 2021 we find ourselves in a domestic Cold War for the future of constitutional government in the United States. Our opponents espouse American Marxism, to borrow from Mark Levin’s new book of that name. In the past 100 years “progressive” (i.e. left-wing) political philosophy has marched through our political and cultural institutions. Part of that effort has been to control the language and distort it for political purposes (e.g. “politically incorrect” words).

The following are some examples of corruption of the English language in recent years.

1. Democracy and Republic. Too many people refer to the American system of government as a “democracy.” The Founders wrote our Constitution very purposely to establish a constitutional republic. They knew their history and knew that the democracy of ancient Athens often descended into a mob rule. Centuries later the Roman republic deteriorated into an oligarchy with several strongmen at the top. Finally, the Caesars turned the republic into an empire. The U.S. Constitution attempts to distribute power between (1) the sovereign states and a federal government; and (2) three branches of the federal government. The people rule indirectly through elected representatives.

2. A “ballot” does not always become a “vote.” Democrats during the fight after the 2000 presidential election over Florida’s vote-counting argued that all they wanted was to “count all the votes.” In an honest election, the objective is to count all valid ballots and reject invalid ballots. One of the Democrat strategies in 2000 was to cherry-pick certain Democrat counties and hand count questionable paper ballots using methods to prevent improperly completed (and thus invalid) ballots from being rejected. A uniform standard must be applied to all ballots in determining when a “ballot” becomes a valid “vote”. That is the reason the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore (2000) reversed the Florida Supreme Court, which allowed two different systems for the vote-counting: a lenient system in predominantly Democrat counties and a strict system in predominantly Republican counties.

3. “Entitlements” is the term for a government program that takes money from some citizens (taxpayers) and gives it to other citizens. Before the expansion of the welfare state in the 1960s those payments would have been called “handouts.” The recipient is only “entitled” because politicians in Washington decided it would be nice to give them some money. Go back 100 years and Americans had a sense of self-reliance. Many would do practically anything to avoid taking money from the government. Institutions like churches, fraternal societies, and extended families were the first line of defense during hard times.

4. “Social Security” was the first entitlement and the phrase was part of a purposeful propaganda effort. In the second half of the last century, the government took money from taxpayers and gave it to retirees and told them it was a pension. It also announced that there was a Social Security “trust fund.” There was no such fund. It was just the government owing money to itself. While Social Security collected more money than it spent, the U.S. Treasury took the difference and used it to pay for other operations (e.g. the Vietnam War). Anyone running a pension like that in the private sector would have been sent to prison and it would have been correctly labeled a “Ponzi Scheme.”

5. When is a vaccination not a vaccination?  When it doesn’t meet the definition of “vaccination.” The CDC recently solved that dilemma by revising the definition from an injection that “prevents disease” to an injection that “produces protection.” A more honest approach would have referred to the new mRNA technology as a “gene therapy.” It’s the injection of genetic material so as to prompt the production of certain proteins which in turn trigger an auto-immune response. Whether this is a medical experiment on a massive scale conducted without informed consent from the subjects remains to be seen.

6. The latest power grab by leftists in this country is in the name of “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity.” The civil rights movement attempted to establish and preserve equal opportunity for all regardless of skin color. “Equity” focuses on equal outcomes. “Diversity” is taken to mean slavish adherence to the leftist wish of the moment, “inclusion” to be achieved by exclusion -- of points of view, skin colors, religions, and attitudes that differ from the leftist orthodoxy. If fewer black students are admitted to Yale in comparison to Asian American students, then it must be racial discrimination. Leftists want to ignore the hard work of successful students and a culture that encourages academic achievement.

7. It is a simple fact of human biology that a male has both X and Y chromosomes. A female inherits two X chromosomes: one from the mother and one from the father. Mothers only pass on X chromosomes. A male cannot become a female simply by declaring a female identity, even if he takes puberty-blocking drugs and has surgery to remove his male sex organs. To redefine the language we use to refer to men and women and to invent new pronouns are attacks on our very humanity. It denies basic biology. The suicide rate among people suffering from gender dysphoria is high. A humane society would not encourage gender dysphoria but study why many, if not most, young people who experienced it were able to outgrow it -- at least before it became a political issue.

8. The phrase “War on Terror” has obstructed the defense of this country from attacks by non-state actors who have state sponsors, both of whom are inspired by their Islamic religion.  Terrorism is a tactic. The Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, because America blocked Japan’s imperial ambition to conquer East Asia. Congress declared war the next day against the Empire of Japan. We did not go to war against imperialism. We fought and defeated the people who attacked us. To quote from Sun Tzu’s Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

9. I am old enough to remember when Time magazine ran a cover story on how the world’s climate was going to turn so cold as to threaten human survival. By the 1990s the threat had instead become “Global Warming.” Some people built computer models, plugged in centuries of temperature data derived from some tree rings to forecast a warmer world -- all caused by an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because we use petroleum products and coal. Al Gore made a career of it. Even before he ran for president in 2000, he predicted a calamitous rise in temperatures by the year 2020. When doomsday did not arrive on schedule, Global Warming transformed into “Climate Change.” My point is that the computer models did not predict today’s climate. Nevertheless, “activists” have demanded costly changes in our economy and claimed that doing so will avoid a one or two-degree increase in the average temperature – by the end of this century. The new buzz phrase makes no sense. Earth’s climate has always changed. In the past few centuries, we’ve come out of a Little Ice Age. Spending billions of dollars in order to change from a carbon fuel-based economy because of a theory based on computer models is human folly, if not a form of insanity. The abuse of language has obscured the departure from the scientific method and the adoption of a cultlike antagonism to our modern economy.

Those are only a few examples of how the English language is being abused for political purposes. If we deploy our critical thinking skills, we can push back for clear and honest language. It’s essential to preserve our heritage as a free people.

Image: Ivan Radic

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