The Right Wingers Have Hijacked The English Language

They've stolen several words that define people and co-opted them for their own use. They shouldn't have been able to do this, but they've managed it. We need to take these words back and use them as they should be used.

Patriot

The right has stolen this word, and corrupted it to mean only conservatives can be patriots. Where it once meant loyalty to the principles of this country and a commitment to fighting for those principles, it now has taken on a new meaning. The only group using this word is the right wingers. If you do not agree with their particular interpretation of how things should be in this country, you cannot be a patriot. It doesn't matter if you've served in our military or whether you hold the Constitution...the whole Constitution...up as the ideal set for our nation. If you don't fall in line with right wing politics, you are unpatriotic.

Christian

It's a simple word, describing a person who follows the teachings of Christianity. Now, though, the right has hijacked this word to mean only those who hate abortion, gays, Muslims, and anything that doesn't meet with the right's approval. Catholics, Lutherans, and other mainstream churches are no longer "Christian," according to these wingnuts. As improbable as it seems, they are succeeding in this redefinition of the word. Even the media uses it in the way the wingers prefer. If you aren't a fundamentalist, born-again, part-of-the-Bible-believing conservative, then you aren't Christian.

American

According to the wingers, people who don't buy into the entire conservative winger philosophy are not really Americans. They're Socialists or LIBERALS or something else. The fact that these non-Americans won the last election is irrelevant to the wingers. In their world view, you should not even be able to vote.

Liberal

This was one of the first words the wingers redefined. It was an intentional thing, promoted by the GOP to marginalize liberalism. Where it once meant someone who held humanistic values, it has been corrupted to mean someone who wants to take money from those who have some and give it all to those who don't. It now means someone who wants to destroy the nation and force everyone to become homosexual and have abortions. They have succeeded so well with this word that liberals have ceased using the word in self-description.

There are other words the right is attempting to hijack. We need to take these words back and return them to their original meanings. We're in the majority. We simply have to reclaim the language and stop allowing the right to alter it to their purposes.

here at DU.

"But we ain't like them!"

Pro-choice, diversity, community, equality, empowerment, sex worker, hate speech, free healthcare, common sense gun laws, affordable housing, etc. etc. etc.

:kick:

Goose, gander; pot, kettle.

Please show how any of those words have been redefined to mean something that they are not, unlike the right's definition of "liberal" to include non-liberal big government philosophies such as Fascism.

:hi:

OK, I'll give you a few examples from my list.

Pro-choice = in favor of legal elective abortion

Sex worker = prostitute

Free healthcare = subsidized health care

Common sense gun laws = bans on whatever kind of gun you don't like

Affordable housing = subsidized housing

being a smart ass is not an acceptable answer.

Here; I'll help you by providing an example of my side of the argument.
Pro-choice - every single Pro-Choice person I know is literally pro-choice. They are not pro-abortion, they are for keeping the choice private, safe, and legal.


If you cannot back up your assertion with even one definition/example of how you are correct, then you are doing nothing but acting smug and failing to understand how arguments and disagreements really work. Your answer is the equivalent to saying "because" or "god did it" without offering a shred of evidence.

how he thinks those words have been co-opted. I expect crickets.

fwiw, I typed my reply before he edited his answer, but he still fails to actually provide good arguments to back up his hypothesis.

Ironically, I would agree that the left sometimes co-opts things, but not a single one of his examples fit that, and in fact are the kinds of things the right tends to cry about us, calling us intolerant, etc.

:rofl:

What about the phrase "pro-choice" is dishonest?

What about the phrase "diversity" is dishonest?

I am completely willing to hear your POV except you have not really defined it very well, other than as a 'hit and run' type of thing. I understand you are trying to say that the above terms are dishonest and the meanings of them have been twisted or co-opted by the left, but I disagree and would love to see you expound on them.

On the other hand, you prefer to laugh and be a smartass instead. Your choice.

:hi:

A sex worker works in the sex industry.

The Pug definition of "Patriot" is not the same as it's literal meaning.

:hi:

You don't get it. The word "prostitution" has all kinds of negative connotations for many people. Calling it the sex industry is a way of sugar-coating it to make it seem more acceptale.

And we are truly "unamerican".

:crazy:

Oh I get it about PC. It is a sugarcoating in place of a negative conotation...but it is NOT a redefinition of existing terms with positive connotations to suit anyone's political goals. You don't get what Mineral Man is saying.

I did not say that the OP was wrong, only that it is one-sided. It attempts to define redefinition of words as an exclusive behavior of the right, whin in fact the exacct same behavior that is practiced by the left.

I agree with all of the specific points made in the OP.

Reading Is Fundamental.

That is not that "exacct same behavior". Rebranding/redefining an existing postive term and using different words to replace negative connotations are not the "exacct same behavior".

I read your point. The logic fails.

It's not something that just one side does.

Rebranding/redefining an existing positive term and using different words to replace negative connotations are not the "exacct same behavior".

Furthermore, your example is not a good one. "Sex Worker" is not just a prostitute, but a whole range of professions, many of them legal, but all of them suffering from lack of public acceptance. Strippers, actors, models, retail salespeople, and several other job descriptions - hell, even some sex therapists - all qualify as 'sex workers' technically. Is it about sugar coating something, or about trying to legitimize something which (a) a lot of people find valuable based on how much money is spent in that industry, and (b) which is seen as "immoral" by people who often tend to be hypocrites.

For the people who fight for the rights of sex workers, that term is not intended as a way to be PC but as a way to group them in their industry and as a way to speak about their professions with dignity and make them more legitimate.

You have failed again. Sorry.

Except in certain counties in Nevada.

I have friends who are strippers, nude models, and phone sex operators. They are doing legally but not socially acceptable work, and they are definitely in the sex industry - therefore are sex workers.

Porn is a HUGE industry. So big that I'd bet that more than a few people who complain about it also purchase it. And you know what? It's legal and should remain legal. And as long as it IS legal, then it should not be stigmatized.

Hell, I don't go to prostitutes - never have and probably never will - but I think it should be legal. It would be safer and slightly more legitimate, although still complained about by people who like to stick their noses in other people's business.

Oh, that's a good one. Way to throw a blanket over a whole bunch of people at once.

Who wants to be the first one to run down to the Best Buy and tell the guys who work the floor (preferably the ones who also work part time unloading the heavier stuff from the trucks) that they are "sex workers"?

No, wait...maybe it's just FEMALE actors, models and retail salespeople you lump into the "sex worker" category. Is that it? So if somebody's grandma works the jewelry counter at Kohl's, she's a sex worker? Or is it just the ones who are young and pretty? Is that it? Tells us a lot about you if it does. You're essentially saying that all young, beautiful women who work on the stage or in sales are the equivalent of street walkers and call girls. I thought that attitude died centuries ago. Maybe not.

And you completely skip the fact that the term "sex worker" is used by some to attempt to dignify and legitimize that which some people do not think should be dignified or legitimized--and they're not all hypocrites. Some of them simply believe the term "sex worker" is an oxymoron, because they believe sex should be reserved as an expression of love, and therefore ideally would not exist as a form of "work." (Because work is what you do to make money, whether love comes into it or not. Believe it or not, some liberals still think of sex that way.)

Now that's what I call FAIL.

but the ones who are legally working in adult films, magazines, websites, and adult stores ARE in the sex industry and ARE legally working in that field.

Perhaps I was not being clear enough; I thought it was obvious I was referring to those people, not mainstream actors, models, etc.

in the context of Dr Ruth?

Right wing word play takes already extant words and RE-defines them to fit their political objectives. Nobody has ever re-defined 'sex worker' from its original meaning to mean something else.

This is not about re-labeling. It is about re-defining. Redefining would be changing 'prostitute' to mean an embodiment of wholesome chastity.

Or co-opting an existing single word or phrase.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree that the difference matters.

it includes, porn, toys, publications, films, websites, swing clubs; prostitution is but one component. A lot of people who work in the sex industry--like my son--never take their clothes off.

:hi:

It's good to see someone else make some sense in here....

Seen you around a few gun threads. In fact, pretty much every one.
We share an interest that way.

So you keep a "list" of liberal redefined terms? Or a general list of both
sides behaving badly just to be fair?

My current hypothesis is that you're a concern troll.
Here's an easy, really easy way to prove me wrong...

Since you have a list, why not give a few more terms in addition to the OP
where REPUBLICANS have redefined terms.

"Faith-based" means leaving needy people to the whims of the private sector rather than providing government programs to assist them.

"Victim of public education" attempts to blame the entire taxpayer-funded education system on the failings of an individual.

If you and I are "old buddies", why do you have a two-digit post count?

You aren't a banned person posting with a new handle, are you?

Too lazy to look, but I go back to 2002 or so. Usually at work and evenings are
busy. However, you I have seen a bit due to mutual interest. Pretty much every
thread I see (guns) you're giving someone a clue stick about how blindly ideological
they are. I had you figured for just being very enthusiastic about a nuanced
position. However, now I see you over here doing the same thing. Much as a
concern troll would do. You responded quite well, so I'm wrong.

1000+ posts is a lot. Do you do the same over with the freepers?

I can't stand the format.

None of those have been hijacked. None of those is even equivalent to what I described. In fact, your list makes it seem that you are one of the people of whom I speak. Funny, that.

:hi:

definitions changed by the left. I spent some time in my OP doing that. You can't just make a list and not show how the words have been hijacked. If you can't, or won't, do that, then I'm done with the discussion with you.

Or to a human who has no knowledge of English other than a dictionary?

It would mean something like "advocating the exercise of options". The term inherently says absolutely nothing about pregnancy or privacy or the rights of women as opposed to those of men.

It's been imbued with special political meaning by people who favor keeping elective abortion legal (of which I am proud to say I am one).

No terms would make sense to an alien outside of our culture.

Pro Choice is far more accurate than "pro abortion" because people who are pro choice believe it is a choice which should be made by the person in question. No one is pro abortion in that they want to get an abortion every time they can. We want to reduce the need for them in the first place by having better sex education, and strongly believe in a woman's right to CHOOSE.

This is still not a good counter example of the OP. sorry.

But pro-choice is intentionally vague.

The only accurate definition is "being in favor of legal elective abortion", or some equivalent phrase.

An abbreviation for "pro-choice", perhaps, but the concept of choice in the literal sense is just one small facet of what the term "choice" means in political contexts.

with the creation of euphemisms. It's a very different thing. The examples you've chosen are nothing like the words I chose for my OP.

Pro-choice is a recently-created euphemism. Christian is a single word, long in use, that once had a meaning that has been changed by some people.

"Common-sense gun laws" is a phrase created in the discussion of firearms control. Patriot is a single word, long in use, that has had its meaning corrupted by the right.

Apples and oranges.

bullshit.

I find this to be the most frightening aspect of the ascendancy of right-wing lunacy in this country. It is the key to the success of those who rob (if not enslave) us in the clear light of day, first they have to destroy our perceptions and they do it with language. They use distortion of language to turn brother against brother, to alter history to give precidence to the unthinkable.

On Edit: Here is a link to George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language". Well worth reading.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

It is supposed to be anyone who uses fear or intimidation for a political goal. Not thieves. Not Militants, Guerrillas, or a blanket statement for anyone opposing you.

Because if they used the literal definition...they'd be hypocrites...they excel in fear.

Also:

"Unamerican"

And my personal favorites that they have redefined "Capitalism" and "Socialism".

Stalin, hitler, mussolini, all the monsters of old, are now strapped to the left. This, with the recent rise in fascist right wing theology, makes us destined to repeat the history they are now actively revising. They have thrown all peer review away. They see equivalency of authority, using clearly biased sources. I fully expect this country to descend into fascism, next time those treasonous liars trick us. They are chomping at the bit already to start the race/class war. And liberals are trying to smile, and golfclap their patriotism. To look all magnanimous. They laugh at our being pleasant. 25% of our population is waiting for their opportunity to go freefire on americans. And we coddle them.

How the right has rebranded Fascism as being Leftist, despite it being completely opposite of just about every liberal and leftist ideal. They confuse things because they see both Socialism and Fascism as being Big Government therefore liberal.

It's like thinking that a pound of food and a pound of dog crap are the same thing because of their similar mass.

n.t.

From there the projectionists police their own herd.

faith based = sectarian

traditional values = white male dominated, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, sexually repressed, imperialistic, anti-Enlightenment paranoid fear mongering

law and order = police state

patriotism = unquestioned obedience to church and strong father figure leadership models. Folks like Obama and Bill Clinton don't deserve said obedience because they represent a challenge to the father figure model.

fair and balanced = drowning out fifteen minutes of facts with a month of lies.

The Right has redefined it and now it refers primarily to property rights, particularly the right to bear arms and avoid taxation. Privacy rights, the right to a fair trial, the right to breathe clean air and drink clean water, the right to affordable health care, the right to live in peace (particularly if you live in an area where big coal is blowing up your mountain home or big paper is clear cutting the forests around you), the right to live free from police brutality, the right to a fair wage that keeps pace with inflation, the right to a decent education, the right to equal opportunities, the right to govern your own body, and the right to refuse to participate in illegal activities (like the Iraq war)NONE of these matter anymore as long as you can stockpile guns and pay taxes only for war.

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