The word change game is common practice within the beltway, but the current administration has taken it to new and Orwellian heights. For example:
A recession is a transition no matter how long it is. Is a depression a really deep transition?
Individual freedom is slavery, and you will be condemned if you say that it isn�t.
Self-defense using a gun is wrong even though you were under threat of death when you used it. See Justin Trudeau.
A woman isn�t a woman, and you better know which pronouns apply if you meet a non-woman woman.
A vaccine really isn�t to prevent disease, and the COVID �vaccine� may accentuate diseases.
Bugs, not those manure and methane gas creating cows, are food, thus farmers don�t produce food they produce pollution.
Global cooling or global warming no longer exists, there is just climate change and the green agenda. However, as a result of energy shortages that may lead to starvation and death by freezing, nuclear and natural gas production is now green.
Some of our politicians, or are they our politicians, have now made the word �American citizen� equate to some type of evil. �Illegals good, citizens bad� is now the motto of the Democrat Party.
This ever-changing word salad is deliberately confusing. The dictionary is rendered useless as the word changes are so rapid and contentious. All of a sudden, a word can take on a new meaning. (Ever wonder how �woke� became �Woke�?)
Take the latest example of the word �recession�. The historic classical definition of a recession is �a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters�.
In the current political and economic climate, this definition will not do – so it was immediately put under attack and revised to reflect the Biden White house definition. To paraphrase Big Brother, the �oldspeak� definition has been eliminated and the �newspeak� definition has been influenced as follows:
What is a recession? While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle. Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists� assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data�including the labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and incomes. Based on these data, it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year�even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter�indicates a recession.
In George Orwell�s 1984, the destruction of language is deliberate. �It�s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. � —– —– �In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.� —– �Big Brother will have complete control of the people in every way, right down to their thoughts� —– �all real knowledge will have disappeared. The whole (oldspeak) literature of the past will have been destroyed.�
If there is one point this article makes clear it is beware the word change game of the Democrat Party. Do not buy into whatever word they create or modify as that essentially gives them control of language and debate. Use the common definition, not their gamed definition. And don�t respond to any leftist in their terms. If they really want to talk, they can do so with common usage.