Posted on 09/05/2009 9:36:20 AM PDT by quesney
A word or phrase is "Orwellian" when it is impenetrably obtuse or even oxymoronic. Objective truth is eroded by the endless blowing of windy rhetoric. Reality is then constructed to suit the needs of the moment.
The state of American politics has become increasingly Orwellian. At the national level in particular, elected positions are dominated by career-minded officials who repeat empty and often deliberately misleading or untruthful slogans. As Orwell understood, vacuity strips political communication of any concrete meaning. The absurd end result was captured by President Clinton's niggling over what the meaning of "is" is. If this trend continues, our language will ultimately be useless to express the ideas that form the basis of rational political discourse in a healthy republic.
Language is at the root of political consciousness. We can only know what we understand, and our understanding is limited by the words and phrases used to frame an issue. The constant repetition of imprecise, politically correct language is sure to have a cumulative effect upon a target audience -- eventually we begin to accept what we are told. Indeed, the main goal of political correctness, like Orwell's Newspeak, is to diminish the choice of words and thereby reduce the range of thought.
Listed below are examples of Orwellian words and phrases that proliferate in virtually every policy area of our deliberately dumbed-down democracy.
Taxes
"Voluntary Compliance" "Tax Cuts for the Rich" "Expensive" Tax Cuts
Tax Cuts as "Spending"
"Investments in . . ."
"Fiscal Responsibility" and "Fiscal Irresponsibility"
"The Era of Big Government Is Over"
"Compassionate Conservatism"
"Undocumented Worker"
"Working Families"
"Nondiscrimination" . . . "Equal Opportunity" . . . "Affirmative Action"
[...]
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at ntu.org ...
Do not take as a given the corrosive language of the left. Speak clearly and support people who speak truth to power -- bluntly, directly and with clarity. With real, genuine English that clarifies, not obscures or dilutes meaning.
Translation: Palin.
The correct source for this second article is the National Taxpayers Union:
http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=604
Stay vigiliant, people. Make no mistake: We are already in a cold civil war.
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Immediately after BO's schoolkid speech and assignment, assign simultaneous mandatory reading and review, Animal Farm.
Johnny Suntrade
First of all government schools aren't “public”. Mc Donalds is public. A park is public because anyone who can get there is allowed to enter. Our government schools, on the other hand, are highly restricted by boundaries, and ages. It is the government who dictates exactly with whom a child will assemble in these prison-like institutions.
Second...They aren't “schools”. They are indoctrination camps.
"Public" schools ceased to exist when the first school accepted funding that the federal government had confiscated from the citizenry to provide "free" lunches.
The Fabian-planned proverbial "nail-in-the-coffin" was the black-robed clerics instituting forced busing. This was essential in order to begin the destruction of neighborhood and local community loyalties, awareness, and, over a period of years, raise generations of children who only looked to a central government for their needs.
The only thing you left out is the criminal culpability of the parents that have been abusing their offspring by committing them to these asylums during the past several decades.
bttt
Yes. Orwellian is a good term for the Obama administration in general.
Wrong! All government schools must be shut down!
Are you among those who wrongly believe that getting the federal government out of education will “fix” the government schools? No, no, no, it will NOT!
Even if there were NO federal involvement, even if their were no **STATE** or even county or town level involvement government schools would still teach socialism!!!!
If government school districts were the size of a suburban housing subdivision government schools would STILL TEACH SOCIALISM!
Why?
Answer: Even if school district included only 20 families, government schools teach children to be socialists. These schools teach children that it is OK to use the police threat of the government to extract money from their neighbors to pay for something that their parents want given to them for FREE by the government!
It is a short step from accepting free government schooling ( extracted from your neighbor by threat of police action) to accepting “free” govenrment health care, medicines, retirement, disability, monthly welfare checks, food, clothing, housing, energy, and even entertainment.
Also,...It is impossible to have a religiously, culturally, and politically neutral school. Even if school districts were the size of 20 families, one alliance of families would impose their political, religious, and cultural worldview on others, and have police to make them pay for it!
While I agree that busing destroyed community loyalty, there would not have been busing if all schooling were private and there were no government K-12 schools.
I was merely identifying (IMHO) the major point at which a plan to take control of the Nation's education system (developed in the late 1800's and early 1900's) was finally initiated.
Since the first day I was on FR I've been calling for the complete abolition of the government (all) indoctrination system.
In addition, I feel that parents who have continued to criminally abuse their offspring by committing them to these asylums, after it became obvious that the government was in absolute control, should be identified as the ultimate enablers of this Nation's final political, cultural, and moral destruction.
So....in reference to your statement that I was "wrong".... It all depends on your definition of a "public" school.
For me, "public" means a time when a group of citizens who had children controlled all aspects of the operation, curricula, and financing of the school their children were in. I'm old enough to remember such a state of affairs.
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