You mean, like "football"?

Jan

Heck yeah. Nice pun.

Jan

Related to this, but not about misuse of the word as such, is Arthur Ekirch's excellent history, The Decline of American Liberalism. http://www.amazon.com/American-Liberalis...

The art of politics is to to get people to vote for something they have no understanding of. The word "Progressive" has the root word of progess in it. Progressive used to be associated with something new, upbeat, the continuation of an idea or thing. Somehow the politicians change the definition to represent a political movement dating back to William Jennings Bryant describing the unfairness of capitalism. The irony in "progressive politics" is there is now progress. The speeches given today decrying poverty and accusing the rich of taking from the poor are the same argument made 110 years ago. Their point is still the same. The only way to make equal is to take from the rich and redistribute, through government, to those in need. akin to from those with abilities to those in need. That doesn't sound like progress to me.

They are also good at redefining the other side of the argument. A "Conservative" originally meant a politician or person that wants to conserve the intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. How easy it has been for them to see a wealthy person purchase something inexpensive (cheap) and define him as conservative (cheap). If you tell a lie enough times, it begins to have the ring of truth.

Add to that a laziness in the listener and there is magic. For example; I have met many people that claimed to want to become millionaires. A closer look revealed they really wanted to be in position to spend a million dollars, which is the inverse of becoming a millionaire.

As to "liberal", I think libertarian has assumed the position of "Classic liberal" and the shopworn term liberal is whatever definition pop culture media chooses for it.

One of the most egregious examples of this is the definition of racism to include the requirement that you be part of the 'power group'. This means, of course, than only whites can be racist. Blacks who evidence hatred of other racial groups aren't racist under this definition.

Of course, implying that only whites can be part of the power group IS racist.

The deception of the voting masses has always been of paramount importance to the body politic. Thus they change definitions, say one thing and do another, and generally lie - all for a love of power and the wealth that goes with it.

When you control language you control thinking. It is critical that we be clear in our lanquage (even taking the time to define exactly what we mean -- I got in trouble a couple weeks ago here when I used the term "one percenters" w/o defining what I meant).. For example, so-called "progressives" actually want to REGRESS society to the point where masters rule over peasants/slaves again. Politicians love to use terms without clear/specified meanings. Senator Dick____ Durbin loves to talk about so-and-so's "fair share." He never defines it. I suspect for Dickyboy there is no upper limit to what is "fair" for someone else to pay in taxes. The abortion lobby uses the terms "women's reproductive health" and "pro-choice" I think it was in either "animal farm" or "1984" that political terms meant virtually the opposite of what they mean in any dictionary sense. If you look at the names of bills before congress then you read the bill to see what it will do you will see we are at that point. The "affordable care act" is a prime example. Common Core -- as in a list of core things students should know might be a pretty good idea. What is in the law has little to nothing to do with "core" knowledge or principles. Governmental agencies (Energy, Education, HUD for example) one would think would be there to promote what their name says; instead they generally hinder the functioning of the relevant industry.
Take time to call a spade a spade. A REGRESSIVE a Regressive. An Illiberal and illiberal. A censor a censor. A fascist a fascist.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, news reports in the USA called the unbending communists "conservatives" and those who wanted to try the capitalist approach "liberals."
I was amused by a coworker who complained about such labellings of Russians with great irritation.
To him, a liberal was always a communist or at least a pinko.
He just could not wrap his mind around any international term applications.

In Australia, the Liberal party are the conservatives, with the Labor party having socialist goals, so I guess the classical meaning still applies there.

The modern theft of the word "liberal" by progressives was started under President Wilson by George Creel, chairman of the Committee on Public Information, and promoted by Edward Bernays (author of the book "Propaganda" and one of Joseph Goebbels favorite political thinkers), also a CPI member.

These same figures also established many elements of political correctness. Their work was admired and adopted by the Nazis and the Communist Party. It is unsettling to see how unashamedly Democrats have relished using these tools of tyrannical (and yes, I include Woodrow Wilson as the first American tyrant) regimes.

The "liberals" have been controlling the language for 100 years. They are no longer members if the Democrat party, it's the "Democratic" party. And they have all the great anagrams and names locked up too, ACORN, Move Forward, Students for a democratic society, America First and the best one Progressive. Who doesn't want progress?

The Progressives hijacked the term 'Liberal'. Hijack: (v) to take surreptitiously.

Progressives accomplish this by constantly changing the meaning *THEY* assign to common words. Then berating the rest of us for not using their shifted meaning.

50's and 60's. Post WW2 the progressives did not want to be associated with the horrors of the Holocaust even though they were basically, from a philosophical perspective, the American version of the fascist or nazi parties in Europe. And, in fact, had implemented eugenics policies here. They were trying to backpedal and distance themselves from their earlier activities.

I think that Newspeak is what we hear and read every day. No longer Orwellian - now current events.

Jan

Interestingly, the current use of the term "progressive" seems to imply anti-technology. That is to say, it seems to mean incremental change in the direction of the user's philosophy that does not include an improvement in technology.

Jan

I also find the use of these words confusing..It baffles me. All I know is that if a elitist communist looter say she is a modern progressive, then that must be a bad thing.

A geographic difference, had not thought of that.

Thanks for the Lexicon reference, I just looked it up.
I agree about "selfish" and "altruism" being misunderstood, I think often intentionally just to avoid facing the logic of Rand's ideas. There would be a feeling of safety, I guess, when going along with the consensus that selfishness is bad instead of understanding it can be a virtue.

"Progressive" has always seemed to me a weak term. "Progress" is neutral (non-directional) and can be used for "movements towards" literally anything. I never use the word progressive, but I try to use the word "progress" in sentences with opposite meaning... making progress towards freedom of choice... progress towards debt reduction... etc. Probably a losing battle, but it might just weaken the brand a little.

Nice pun with pro/con :)

Seems to me Progressives/Liberals use terms for propaganda purposes. Whatever works for them they use it. I had a hard time figuring out what I am. I finally started saying I'm a Classic Liberal/Fiscal Conservative. If I have to explain, I'm in many ways Socially liberal but I'm also a Small Government Conservative

Hello Salta,
This post is very interesting because I keep running into the same thing.

I can't say for sure when the term "liberal" was hijacked but SaltyDog touched on the culprits. If i'm remembering correctly the progressive movement in the late 1800s began to use the term to lend credibility to their ideas. They are just now returning to the use of "progressive" because the negative connotation is all but gone. (Except for Salty. Lol)

I have mentioned the destruction of language in a few other conversations and, to me, it is a very important topic. I don't know if there is any way to stop it but it is important to understand it, recognize it and call it out whenever we see it happening.

From the Ayn Rand Lexicon; "The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends"

The most well known word (to Objectivists anyway) is selfish which is regularly utilized to lump the Bernie Madoffs and the Bill Gates' into one basket.
The most contested seems to be altruism which is equated with charity (to say otherwise gets people fired up) and is used to impose a duty upon people. (It takes a village)
I'm sure most of us on here have had the "two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner" discussion whenever someone blurts out "we live in a democracy, after all".

Don't forget that we don't know what the meaning "of the word is is."

It seem that these last few years that the left is even moving away from the term liberal and using progressive instead. The connotation, I'm sure, is to suggest that their ideas represent progress and anyone who disagrees is nothing more than a hairy knuckled Neanderthal.

I prefer to think of it as the opposite of pro is con, so the opposite of progress is congress.

Actually the term "liberal" outside the US often still means classical liberal and financial conservative.
The term has been stolen only in the US political propaganda.

I wouldn't count on it, the progressives use rhetorical tricks as one of their primary tools. This is why Orwell had Newspeak as one of his key mechanisms of control of the population.