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Orwell Rears His Head
Townhall.com ^ | Ocrober 16, 2020 | Erick Erickson

Posted on 10/16/2020 12:10:26 PM PDT by Kaslin

On Monday of last week, to use the phrase "sexual preference" was completely acceptable. As recently as last month, multiple gay rights publications used the phrase. Leon Panetta had used the phrase in the past couple of years. Joe Biden has used the phrase this year.

Merriam-Webster considered "sexual preference" to be just another version of "sexual orientation." But then Tuesday happened.

On Tuesday, the village idiot from Hawaii masquerading as a senator, Mazie Hirono, attacked Amy Coney Barrett for using "sexual preference" instead of "sexual orientation."

By Tuesday evening, the employees of Merriam-Webster had changed the phrase in their online dictionary to note it was offensive. No, I am not making that up. The dictionary company literally changed it after Barrett's exchange with Hirono. Steve Krakauer, a former CNN producer who now produces Megyn Kelly's podcast, documented the change on his social media feed.

Gay rights publications such as The Advocate went on the attack as well. In just 18 days, "sexual preference" went from acceptable to a hate crime. On Sept. 25, 2020, The Advocate tweeted out a story from its publication with this quote: "To come from that history to be able to now, as a director, be telling these stories (...) about young people who are just comfortable with who they are, no matter what their sexual preference is. It's just glorious and so satisfying." On Oct. 13, 2020, The Advocate ran a story with the headline "Amy Coney Barrett Blasted for Anti-LGBTQ+ Term 'Sexual Preference.'"

Incapable of winning the hearts and minds of the public on most social arguments these days, the left has decided to police the language and make common phrases used by even Democratic politicians a few months ago verboten. Progressive activists now routinely condemn anyone who supports or ever supported traditional marriage but will give a pass to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and others who held those positions.

Then there is the matter of the New York Post's Hunter Biden story. One of the most widely distributed newspapers in America has a major scoop about Joe Biden and his son, and Twitter not only blocked access to the story but also locked accounts trying to share the story and blocked people from even sharing links to the story.

Twitter was fine with a McClatchy story about Michael Cohen going to Prague, even after Robert Mueller specifically said the story was not true. Twitter was fine with BuzzFeed sharing the Steele dossier and rumors about the "pee tape."

But Twitter would not let a legitimate story from a legitimate publication about Biden be circulated because the material was obtained through alleged "hacking." It actually was not hacking. Whoever dropped off the laptop, which allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, for repair never bothered to pick it up. It became the property of the store owner.

Even if hacking were the case, Twitter has let loose multiple stories damaging to the President based on hacking and other information, including The New York Times obtaining Trump's tax records.

The American left and their tech comrades are trying to win by suppressing information they do not like and twisting language to suit their ends. They have dragged us into George Orwell's nightmare vision.

Progressives feel emboldened by what they see as a Biden win shaping up. They are revealing their own authoritarian nature with a heavy streak of totalitarianism where dissent is not permitted, language they deem hateful is not allowed and the news stories they find inconvenient are buried.

If Twitter's handling of the Hunter Biden story is not proof enough, consider Portland, Oregon. The national press has stopped covering the riots, but they are still happening. Last week, local businesses publicly began pleading for the riots to stop. The American media moved on from the story the moment it appeared to be impacting Biden.

Tech giants, mainstream media outlets and Democrats unable to win fairly have chosen to ignore stories that could damage Biden, block conservatives from sharing those stories and even alter the dictionary to advance their cause.

These are dangerous games they are playing, and they will end badly for everyone if they continue.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: joebiden; maziehirono; polcorrectness; sexualpref; wokeness

1 posted on 10/16/2020 12:10:26 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I always prefer discussing people’s “proclivities.”


2 posted on 10/16/2020 12:15:31 PM PDT by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: Kaslin

Or better yet, “predilections.”


3 posted on 10/16/2020 12:16:03 PM PDT by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: Kaslin
ex post facto (Latin) n. A law that retroactively makes criminal an act that was not criminal at the time it was done. In the United States, the passage of such laws is forbidden by the Constitution.
4 posted on 10/16/2020 12:18:19 PM PDT by left that other site (If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (Isaiah 7:9))
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To: billorites

Hopefully the possessors of the proclivities and/or predilictions have the proper perspective on pulchritude. But not a priapic perspective. :-)


5 posted on 10/16/2020 12:19:31 PM PDT by AFB-XYZ (Option 1 -- stand up. Option 2 -- bend over.)
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To: billorites
How about "perversions"?
6 posted on 10/16/2020 12:20:49 PM PDT by left that other site (If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (Isaiah 7:9))
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To: Kaslin

Those people in the congress are just too old. Ask 20 somethings. There are many that might “prefer” one gender one evening and another, another evening. It’s preference. Somehow (and it may be neurological environmental damage with all the plastics found in women’s uteri today), there are more gender fluid people in the youngest generations than ever before. I do not think it is some fad. There is something going wrong in our brains with all these neurotoxins in our lives.


7 posted on 10/16/2020 12:24:23 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: billorites

I have always preferred “peccadillo” in this context but that word apparently isn’t pejorative enough these days.

I guess that is what happens when they push out their sexual peccadillo to the point where they make a major civil rights issue out of it and it can’t be ignored or simply hidden behind the walls of their house, visible only to God and themselves.


8 posted on 10/16/2020 12:45:34 PM PDT by rlmorel ("Leftism is the plaything of a society with too much time on its hands." - Candace Owens)
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To: Kaslin

How you know your side may be full of crap: If you have to change the definition of words on the fly.


9 posted on 10/16/2020 12:49:12 PM PDT by TalBlack
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To: rlmorel
I have always preferred “peccadillo”

Lots of dead ones by the side of the road in Texas.

10 posted on 10/16/2020 1:02:34 PM PDT by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: Kaslin
We call it 1984

It's a manual...
11 posted on 10/16/2020 1:02:55 PM PDT by null and void (Don't piss off old people. The older we get the less 'life in prison' is a deterent!)
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To: Kaslin

It’s funny that someone smart enough to advise Chinese and Ukrainian energy companies for millions of dollars is not smart enough to know or even suspect that data stored in a computer is not going to be destroyed by immersing it in a hot tub.


12 posted on 10/16/2020 2:00:04 PM PDT by webheart (Coronavirus, I give up. Come get me.)
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To: billorites

Hahahaha...I like the dead peccadillo with the yellow stripe painted right over the top of it...:)


13 posted on 10/16/2020 2:12:42 PM PDT by rlmorel ("Leftism is the plaything of a society with too much time on its hands." - Candace Owens)
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To: Yaelle
I do not think it is some fad. There is something going wrong in our brains with all these neurotoxins in our lives.

Enough estrogen from the unabsorbed and not metabolized fractions of The Pill get peed into our waste water and through the treatment plants to make fish downstream 'gender confused' or even hermaphrodite.

Anybody downstream of a city who gets their drinking water from the river probably gets their own daily dose of estrogen.

Could be worse, I suppose, if we were getting testosterone and other body building steroids from our drinking water, some percentage of the population would be subject to flipping out in 'roid rage.

oh wait...

14 posted on 10/16/2020 2:14:03 PM PDT by null and void (Don't piss off old people. The older we get the less 'life in prison' is a deterent!)
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To: Yaelle
...with all the plastics found in women’s uteri today)

As well as all the batteries; too!

15 posted on 10/17/2020 4:33:41 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: null and void

They are finding traces of pharmaceuticals and LSD in the fatty tissue of salmon.


16 posted on 10/17/2020 7:22:50 AM PDT by thirst4truth (America, What difference does it make?)
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To: Elsie; Yaelle; null and void
I remember all the flip flopping between eggs and bacon being good then bad then good then "it depends." More fruits and vegetables and less red meat. Blah blah blah...

Then one day, Mrs DoodleBob said "no more soy." She explained things and, since soy wasn't part of my diet anyway, I gave it up. So did the little DoodleBobs.

Then we went gluten-free...THAT was hard, but honest to goodness, the improvement was life-altering. Then we selectively dropped things and GMOs and went organic without having to sell a kidney to pay for it. Tap water was replaced by well or spring water.

Then a funny thing happened along the way. We noticed many of our friends and family etc who didn't change or go cold turkey like we did (some of whom thought we were zealouts...), started having aches and pains and needing medicine and were depressed etc. Their kids were not always on meds, and the boys sometimes needed a bra.

Now, correlation does not imply causality. Further, I'm not perfect (a reading of my posts will prove that). That said, between genetic modification, pesticides, plastics and batteries, we've gone off the rails.

17 posted on 10/17/2020 1:55:56 PM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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