Humpty Dumpty Was a Liberal or Who Controls the Dictionary?

A well known scene in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass involves a conversation about words between Alice and Humpty Dumpty. Here's how it goes:

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.


Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master---that’s all.”

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

"Would you tell me please," said Alice, "what that means."

I thought of this exchange today after writing about "gay pride" yesterday. Pride, according to a "gay" Humpty Dumpty means public enthusiasm for one's sexual identity and practices which happen to be unnatural and perverse. If, on the other hand, a heterosexual tries to use the word "pride" as in "straight pride," to mean pride in his sexual identity and practices, the "gay" activist protests. According to the "gay" the word, in that context, means hatred, intolerance, and racism. (Just read the article I linked to in the previous post.)

"Impenetrability" is certainly the watchword for the liberal activist since you can never be sure what he means when he uses a word unless he tells you. And today's definition is likely to change tomorrow. Whether it's a pro-abortion politician like Nancy Pelosi claiming to be a "devout" Catholic while she spurns fundamental doctrines of the Church or your average liberal claiming that "Nobody supports abortion, but many people support choice!", you have the destruction of language by the Humpty Dumptys of the liberal culture.

To most people "devout" means to be deeply committed to something. Nancy is devout of course, but she is a devout liberal, not a devout Catholic. "Choice" means to make a decision between a range of options, but it also means a "deliberate" decision. Those who support "choice" for abortion, the deliberate decision to kill a child, support that option. Whether they would personally choose it or not is irrelevant. They accept it as a legitimate alternative. They would never call themselves "pro-choice" about rape or the murder of the already born.

But liberals really don't support "choice" at all in a generic sense. They do not support the right of bikers to choose not to wear helmets or the right of drivers not to latch their seatbelts or the right of consumers to eat saturated fat and smoke or the right of farmers to plant a field inhabited by the kangaroo rat. They only support "choice" when it suits them.

I, on the other hand, am much more "pro-choice" than they are. I support the right to choose anything that is morally good or morally neutral. I oppose the choice to do deliberate evil, although many evils I would not write into the law. If gays (or straights) want to engage in anal sex in the bedroom or the closet, I won't do anything to stop them. But no one has the right to demand that I say they're evil behavior is a good "alternative lifestyle" that must be approved as a civil right and protected by law.

Msgr. William Smith, a brilliant Catholic ethicist, often said that "Social engineering begins with verbal engineering." Those who control the dictionary, are close to achieving their agenda. "Gay" activists demonstrate brilliance in this regard. By manipulating language, they are redefining marriage as the civil right to sodomy and fellatio and many in the culture now champion it as well. That such a redefinition has serious consequences for the common good and the rights of others seems to escape scrutiny. "Gays" have also redefined bullying and hatred to mean opposing the "gay" lifestyle. If you dare to call their perverse behavior...well...perverse, you are "homophobic."

The abortion crowd is also adept at word massacre making killing children a "choice" equivalent to options on the dinner menu. What's hindered their success is the advance of medical technology that puts the lie to their description of the baby as a "clump of cells." Sonograms, in utero surgery, and other medical treatments for babies in the womb expose their lies to the light. Few women contemplating an abortion who receive a sonogram will kill their babies. It's harder to murder someone to whom you've been introduced. Although our culture of death, championed by liberals, is making it easier as recent acts of infanticide show.

Nevertheless, despite all the semantic gymnastics, reality is still reality. If a hotel manager calls the 13th floor in his building the 14th because of people's superstitions, the building still has a 13th floor. If, as Lincoln said, you call the dog's tail a leg, he still has only four. If you try to dehumanize a person by calling him a "fetus," a "gook," a "chink," a "kike," a "mackeral snapper," a "queer," or a "nigger," he is still a member of the human family made in the image of God even when he commits evil. If evil behavior could separate us from the love of God, who could be saved?

But words have meaning. When you see people manipulating language and changing those meanings to promote an agenda, you can be sure they are people of the lie, sons and daughters of the one who was a liar from the beginning. There are liars on all sides of the political spectrum and word manipulators as well. Some are deliberate liars and some are the brainwashed dupes of liars. The moral person must be neither.

So love the truth. Don't engage in the semantics of the lie. Never let a pro-abortion politician get away with claiming to be a "devout" Catholic. Never call an abortion mill a "clinic." Never cower before a "gay" activist who says he can take pride in his perversion, but you can't be proud of your love and commitment to traditional marriage. Never call evil a "civil right" that must be written into the law. A disintegrating society may crush you, never let it transform you into a monster like the banal little clerk of death, Adolf Eichmann.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, I urge you to be ready to suffer and even die for the truth. It's happened before and it will happen again. When Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher refused to bow to King Henry VIII's demand that he be named head of the Church in England, they were both beheaded. How many throughout the centuries were murdered or sent to the gulag or the concentration camps when they would not bow to the nailed boot and the iron fist? All the engines of persecution are in place here in the U.S. ready to be fired up and used against those who will not bend to the tyranny of moral relativism. Pray to be faithful in time of trial and be ready to suffer, for as St. James says, "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." (James 1:12)

Humpty Dumpty is in power now, but remember what happened to him. The "king" of this world and all his minions will not be able to put the rotten egg back together when he falls as he surely will. And when the victory comes it will belong to the Lord.