The concept of language manipulation is nothing new. Five times in his Federalist Papers writings James Madison felt the need to explain what a republic is. The Constitution had two foes; the anti-federalists who feared the creation of a central government, and the nationalists who felt the creation of the federal government did not go far enough. The latter, in an attempt to sabotage the new Constitution, and move the system closer to a pure democracy (which is a transitional government to oligarchy, once the voting public is convinced to vote away individual rights and liberty), worked to convince the public at large that there is no difference between a republic, and a democracy.
Andrew Jackson finally convinced a large portion of the voting public that we are indeed a democracy, or at least we should be, and under his drive for a more democratic system, Thomas Jefferson's party, the Democratic-Republicans, abandoned the republican standards it had been known for, and changed its name to the Democratic Party.
Even Karl Marx recognized the usefulness of democracy to tyranny. He said, "Democracy is the road to socialism."
The Federalist Party, the party of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, sought to manipulate language with the very naming of their new political party. Federalism was a concept that emerged from the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The Federalists, however, were nationalists. To hide their big government tendencies they chose to be called Federalists, to make it sound like they embraced the Constitution. In reality, their goal was to subvert the Constitution through concepts like implied law and judicial review.
The term liberal has also been manipulated by statists. During the Progressive Era, the term "progressive" was losing steam as the policies of the statists were seen as a failure to the voting public. The liberals, classic liberals that were strict constitutionalists, were seen in a more favorable light. The limited government principles of the liberals were successful, and popular with the voters. So, the progressives hijacked the word for themselves. Now, a hundred years later, the new liberals are working the word "progressive" back into the lexicon, since they have soiled the term "liberal," and nobody remembers the failings of the original progressives.
In today's society, through political correctness and political preferential treatment, language is experiencing constant change. The word "gay" has gone from "happy," to "stupid," to "homosexual." Marriage is being redefined to fit a political agenda (some may say "undefined"), and one can never seem to put a finger one what a politician is saying anymore. One thing is for sure, government has decided it is their job to define language as they please, in turn redefining rights, liberty, and who their enemy is. Once the voting public is convinced that those who stand for liberty are the enemy, they will raise the red flag of tyranny willingly and enthusiastically themselves, while sacrificing those who in truth are all that stands between them, and bondage.
“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.”
― Philip K. Dick
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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