Conservatives often claim that progressives keep altering the definitions of words. They are only partially correct. In truth, progressives do not want words to have definitions at all. The problem with definitions is that they are absolute, and the extreme left never wants to find itself trapped by absolutes because it cannot shift its ideology – its claimed values – when politically expedient if it is bound to immutable definitions of words. Thus, we find ourselves in an age when certain words have no fixed definition and, therefore, can be used almost randomly to mean whatever progressives want them to mean at a given time. Controlling words and their definitions, then, becomes another factor in the left’s war on free speech.
We recently discovered, for example, that the word “woman” is apparently indefinable. The newest appointee to the United States Supreme Court claimed she cannot define “woman” because she is not a biologist. The left wants to discard the word altogether because it’s very difficult to strip it of definition. The best replacement they came up with was “birthing person.” But this still falls short of being indefinable because, well, obviously only women – females – meet the definition of birthing person. For the time being, at least, one cannot be sent to prison for pointing out this fact.
The Other War on Free Speech
That’s only one of many words the left has attempted to strip of any definitive meaning, however. Joe Biden, who generally has trouble saying words – and when he does say words, he often uses them in the wrong context – recently pandered to the extremists by using a term the left loves to apply to anyone who disagrees with them. That term is “fascist.” Only, Biden didn’t even have the courage to go all in, so he instead described the ideology, if one can call it that, of former President Donald Trump and his supporters as “semi-fascist.” It’s a nonsense word – and a spineless ad hominem. There’s no such thing as semi-fascist. One is either a fascist or one isn’t. Can you be a “semi-Nazi”? Just a little bit Nazi but not totally Nazi? Are semi-fascists liberals on weekends and holidays?
Fascism, in fact, has some defining characteristics – and, ironically, its distinctive traits are remarkably similar to the goals of the modern Democratic Party. It is a collectivist ideology in which the central government, by means of coercion, co-opts private industry to advance the ruling party’s economic and social agendas. China, for example, is a fascist country – and has been for around three decades. It is communist today in name only.
But modern leftists have chosen to use the word “fascist” to describe anyone who, in their view, threatens democracy or attempts to restrict what they consider to be individual rights. Not only is that not the correct definition but it is now applied only to the right - even to conservatives who zealously oppose big government, the very hallmark of a fascist regime. Thus, fascism has become a word without definition. After all, socialists – or communists, or Marxists – also restrict rights and threaten democracy. History proves this. No country that has adopted total socialism has ever respected individual liberty or choice or adhered to free and fair democracy. This is not disputable. And that provides a neat segue to some other words the left has chosen to strip of specific definitions.
That’s Not Real Socialism
Socialism, as a word that describes a certain system of government, has also come to have no meaning. Why? Because real socialism has always proved disastrous, leftists have decided that it should not be confined to any particular definition. This has proven to be useful every time some pesky conservative points to all those countries that adopted socialism and then ultimately failed – which is all of them, of course. “Ah,” the leftists will say, “but that wasn’t real socialism.”
Ask any American leftist to provide an example of socialism working and he or she will almost certainly cite western European countries. But none of those countries are socialist; they are federal or parliamentary democracies that also happen to operate wide-ranging government-run social welfare programs. To borrow from leftists, that’s not real socialism. Those are capitalist countries in which the populations have been conditioned to pay exorbitantly high taxes to subsidize “free” government services, such as health care, education, and housing.
Additionally, the left has stripped the meanings from words like extremist, terrorist, democracy, and, more recently, vaccinated and recession. An extremist is now virtually anyone who believes in individual liberty and constitutional principles – or even free speech. Hardcore progressives have frequently used the word “terrorist” in reference to those very same people. Democracy is used to describe whatever political system the left wants. This harkens back to the 20th Century communists who liked to call their countries democracies, even though truly democratic elections were unheard of; the German Democratic Republic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and so on.
The goal is to create a constant state of flux and confusion; up is down, right is wrong and, tomorrow, down could be up – or down – and wrong may or may not be wrong. When reality, truth, and facts are all subject to change at a moment’s notice, progressives can never be held accountable for anything because what was true last month will not be true next month. That they may have said the opposite last year of what they said this year is irrelevant because last year’s “truth” has been altered and updated. It has been redefined. This explains why the left has put such great emphasis on not only restricting free speech but also controlling language and insisting that only “approved” words can be used. It has little to do with not offending people; it is a method of enforced compliance. Control what words people use – and what those words mean – and you eventually control how people think and then how they behave. Does it sound like a conspiracy theory? Maybe, but that depends on your definition of conspiracy.
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