Thought for the Day: Political Language and Semantic Gymnastics

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearnace of solidarity to pure wind."                                  George Orwell

Here are a few examples of semantic gymnastics that make the unthinkable "respectable."


Barack Obama: "I'm not pro-abortion, I'm pro-choice."

definition of pro-choice -- a euphemism for abortion, i.e., the direct killing of a baby in the womb through ripping the child's body apart or by chemical killing.

Dick Cheney: “I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program.”

definition of enhanced interrogation program: methods that include torture by water-boarding, a method where the person being interrogated feels like they're drowning

Nancy Pelosi: "affordable quality healthcare"

definition: socialized medicine administered by bureaucrats with mandated providers and the power to refuse medical procedures based on government cost/benefit analysis (i.e., restricted care for the unborn and the elderly)

Euthanasia movement: "end of life care" and "palliative care"

definition: hastening the patient's death through terminal sedation and withdrawal of food and water. (Not all palliative care professionals advocate this, but it is more and more common. See this report by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.)

Ask yourself how you are being manipulated by language. Watch how homosexual activists attach their choices of behavior to civil rights based on unchangeable physical characteristics like skin color. The comparison is ludicrous but it's worked for them.

It's important to define terms. What is marriage? Can two men or two women engaging in mutual masturbation or sodomy really contract a marriage? Words mean something and those who want to advance a lie always begin by distorting and manipulating language. Msgr. William Smith coined the maxim Social engineering always begins with verbal engineering. And there are many examples illustrating that truth.