It has been a long and irritating experience for me to watch the way media personnel appear to knowingly twist and abuse our language (United States’ English). And these abuses are not limited only to media individuals, but include elected officials, government employees and others who should know better but, in my opinion, deliberately misuse words to further whatever agenda the person is after.
One of the most notorious, in my opinion, misuses of a word is “democracy.” It continues to amaze and offend me how many of even supposedly intelligent and well-educated politicians with an “R” on their voter registration continue to refer to the United States form of government as democracy or democratic. A study of the Constitution, which established the United States, and of the contemporary written Federalist Papers will quickly establish that a democracy was the very last form of government desired.
In fact, in my schooling, back in the 1930s and 1940s, we were taught that as Benjamin Franklin came out of the meeting hall where the Constitution was being debated and written a woman asked him, “What have we?”
And he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it”.
Of course we are now immersed in an all-out effort on the part of most of the Democrat officials, both party and elected office holders, to destroy that republic and turn the United States into a socialist or even communist dictatorship, with them being the dictators. My thought is that perhaps if they could be required to go and live in such a nation for a few years, perhaps their minds would become permanently changed. They don’t understand why for more than 240 years hundreds of thousands of freedom seeking people have come here legally seeking the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and given by God. And the United States has been a shining beacon to the world as the absolute greatest form of government. It seems to me that this misuse is not accidental, but a contrived part of the movement to bring about the changes desired.
Also, much of the problem stems from the capture of the school systems by the “education establishment” -which has been captured by the forces of, in my opinion, evil.
As an aside to that, a number of decades ago, a very well-thought of radio and newspaper commentator stated that the name of the party the officials of which are now pushing most for these changes was officially established as “Democrat” and not “Democratic” – which is not a noun but an adjective as in “democratic elections.”
On the other side, an almost universal misuse of a word is republic. Many dictatorship nations for decades have made the name something with republic. Such was pre-World War II Germany, ruled by the Nazi Party, that called it the “Socialist Republic of Germany.” Those two words are diametric opposites and should never be used together as a name. This is done to confuse uninformed citizens and the rest of the world’s population and give the nation a semblance of legitimacy. The same criticism applies to those who use the term ‘republic’ with democratic in the name.
Another twist of grammar is the use of “liberal” in describing those of a Communist/Fascist/Socialist persuasion. The true definition of liberal would have it apply to those now called “conservative” since it is those of us in the latter group whose goal is a more liberal set of laws allowing the most freedom of choice possible, the leaving as much of the rewards of labor in the workers pockets or bank accounts and other benefits existing in a truly free nation.
On that issue, and at the risk of being accused of excessive repetition, it seems appropriate to bring up, again, the subject of the proposed “FairTax” – a House bill that has been introduced at the beginning of the last several Congresses with as many as 68 co-sponsors and hopefully also this Congress. Biblically it is warned, “Do not muzzle the ox treading out the grain.” Today’s meaning is, “It is immoral to take in the form of taxes the fruits of a person’s labor (income tax permitted by Amendment XVI).” I have encouraged Oklahoma District One Congressman Kevin Hern to sign up this year and suggest that each of us do so to both senators, congressman and any others in the personal circle of acquaintances. With this House make-up, passage will truly be a miracle.