We Are Liberals; They Are Serviles

The concept that the power to name a thing is the power to control that thing was prevalent in the beliefs of many ancient societies, and it holds true in many ways even today. In fact, the psychological science behind this belief -- specifically the fact that whichever side controls the language of an argument controls the argument itself -- shows how the collectivist left has perpetrated an identity theft of unprecedented proportions. The left has stolen the True Name of Conservatism and used that Name to promote a collectivist or even totalitarian agenda that goes against everything that Name implies. Nowhere is this more obvious than with respect to the word "liberalism."

Genuine liberals support individual rights and oppose state control of the economy and individual behavior, while the collectivist left supports state control of the economy and the individual. Mandatory participation in the Social Security pyramid scheme and mandatory purchase of health insurance beyond an individual's needs are but two examples. Those behind these agendas are therefore not liberals, but "Serviles."

And "Gay" once meant happy and care free rather than the permitted name for a Sodomite.

The intentional perversion of the language is a hallmark of the totalitarian mind, something Orwell knew well and made the center piece of 1984. They have distorted the meaning of the name "Fascist" so that most perfect descriptor of today's leftist intelligentsia is all but unusable too, again IMHO, with malice aforethought.

I’ve been raving about this for years. Define the terms and win the argument:

‘Progressives’ - how can progress not be good?
leftist (there are no ‘rightists’) and no more Marxists either.
nationalist becomes xenophobic
homosexual changes to gay
traditionalist becomes chauvinist
celibate becomes sexually dysfunctional
etc. etc.

The left is really, really good at this. Of course having the MSM on your side helps a lot.

The list is huge.

Languages change, that is their nature. “Silly” used to mean “expensive”, not “whimsical”. “Gentleman” used to refer to a man of a specific socio-economic class. Same with “lady”.

I remember being thrown thrown for a loop when hearing the phrase “hook me up” at a potluck. The person saying it meant “I can’t quite reach that jello salad over there, would you mind spooning some onto my plate for me, please?” while I was taking it as “Could you set me up on a date with someone?” Not a message I was expecting to hear from a complete stranger!

There have been many discussions I’ve seen which had to be stopped in order to establish deffinitions for the terms being used. It gets confusing when everyone means something different.

At the start of the Twentieth Century the term "liberal" meant the same in America as it still does in the rest of the world - essentially, what is called "conservatism" in American Newspeak. Of course we "American Conservatives" are not the ones who oppose development and liberty, so in that sense we are not conservative at all. We actually are liberals.
But in America, "liberalism" was given its American Newspeak - essentially inverted - meaning in the 1920s (source: Safire's New Political Dictionary). The fact that the American socialists have acquired a word to exploit is bad enough; the real disaster is that we do not now have a word which truly descriptive of our own political perspective. We only have the smear words which the socialists have assigned to us.
And make no mistake, in America "conservative" is inherently a negative connotation - we know that just as surely as we know that every American marketer loves to boldly proclaim that whatever product he is flogging is NEW!

I have my own Newspeak dictionary:

liberal :
see "objective," except that the usage is reversed: (usage: never applied to any working journalist)
progressive :
see "liberal" (usage: same as for "liberal").
moderate:
see "liberal." (usage: same as for "liberal").
centrist :
see "liberal" (usage: same as for "liberal").

conservative :
rejecting the idea that journalism is a higher calling than providing food, shelter, clothing, fuel, and security; adhering to the dictum of Theodore Roosevelt that: "It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena (usage: applies to people who - unlike those labeled liberal/progressive/moderate/centrist, cannot become "objective" by getting a job as a journalist, and probably cannot even get a job as a journalist.)(antonym:"objective")

right-wing :
see, "conservative."

conservative :
opposed to radical change of the sort which promote the idea that assigns authority to "liberals" while leaving the responsibility with those who work to a bottom line and therefore are subject to second guessing.

....good and noble words which have been stolen and corrupted.

Diversity, tolerance, acceptance, queer.... the list truly is endless. It's gotten to the point with me that in a lot of discussions..... say as might occur at a family gathering where socio-political topics might get discussed... every discussion I get into starts with a statement of "so before I can answer that question or carry on a discussion about that issue, how exactly are you defining that word?" It's like every discussion becomes consumed with clarifying the language, and establishing the definitions to the terminology that might get used.....

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Recommendation: use ServDem (Servile Democrat) instead of LibDem (Liberal Democrat).