A GUIDE TO THE LIBERAL USE OF LANGUAGE:
HOW MEANINGS OF WORDS HAVE BEEN CHANGED BY
LEADING INSTITUTIONS IN THE MEDIA AND ACADEMIA
From "Think a Second Time"
by Dennis Prager
In abandoning many of its traditional values, contemporary liberalismhas redefined many terms. I offer a listing of some of them and their newdefinitions.
1. CONSERVATIVE: A person with selfish motives.
2. LIBERAL: A person with altruistic motives. During more than ten yearsof doing talk radio, I have never spoken to a liberal who believed thata person who voted for Ronald Reagan or George Bush could be motivated byaltruism. Republicans, by definition, "vote with their pocketbooks."
3. ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE: A person who is too conservative.
4. ULTRA-LIBERAL: Term not used; one presumably cannot be too liberal. Iread six newspapers and countless journals. I have almost never encounteredthe term "ultra-liberal" or "arch-liberal," yet oftenread about "ultra- conservatives" and "arch-conservatives."
5. CHRISTIAN RIGHT: Contemptible people who always try to impose their valueson other Americans.
6. LIBERALS: Idealistic people who never try to impose their values on otherAmericans. When Christians try to put their values into law (e.g. preventinggovernment funds from going to what even many liberals would consider obsceneart), they are attacked for trying to impose their values on others. However,when liberals pass laws reflecting their values (e.g. allowing same-sexcouples the same right to adopt children as married couples), that is regardednot as imposing values, but simply as the right thing to do.
7. WOMEN'S RIGHTS: Supporting the right to destroy a fetus for any reason,including personal convenience.
8. ANIMAL RIGHTS: Opposing the right to destroy a rabbit for cancer research.In our liberal age, the intellectual and moral norm is to regard a babyseal as of more worth than a human fetus.
9. FETUS: An unborn child that is to be aborted.
10. BABY: An unborn child that is not to be aborted. When a woman who wantsto give birth is pregnant, no one asks her, no matter how early in the pregnancy,"How's the fetus doing?" We only use the term "fetus"when we plan to destroy it. Otherwise, we speak of the "baby"from the first day of pregnancy.
11. WOMAN, AUTHENTIC: A woman who holds liberal views.
12. WOMAN, INAUTHENTIC: A woman who does not hold liberal views. Thus, GloriaSteinem called conservative Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a "femaleimpersonator" (USA Today, June 11, 1993).
13. CENSORSHIP: The refusal of the government to fund an artist liked bythe radical wing of the arts establishment. Censorship was always understoodas governmental prohibition of expression. According to the arts communityand its supporters, however, censorship now means "governmental refusalto fund" a work of art.
14. CENSORS: Christians who boycott violent television shows.
15. SOCIAL ACTIVISTS: Hollywood actors who boycott Colorado because itsvoters rejected a gay rights amendment.
16. FASCISTS: People who drown out liberal speakers with whom they disagreeand destroy liberal newspapers with which they disagree.
17. PROGRESSIVE STUDENTS: People who drown out conservative speakers withwhom they disagree and destroy conservative newspapers with which they disagree.Thus, the "progressive" students who stole all copies of the conservativenewspaper at the University of Pennsylvania were exonerated, while the guardswho tried to stop them were chastised for interfering in student protest.
18. SOVIET UNION (BEFORE ITS FALL): An alternative system of government,which should not be condemned with such Cold War labels as ""evilempire""
19. SOVIET UNION (AFTER ITS FALL): An evil empire. Since the fall of theUSSR, almost everyone speaks of Communism in the same terms we "ColdWarriors" once used.
20. MILITARISM: The use of force by a democracy against a Third World tyranny.The National Council of Churches has condemned every use of force by Westerndemocracies against Communism, anti-Western terrorism, and Saddam Hussein,but supported "revolutionary" violence such as that of the Africannational Congress and the PLO.
21. RELIGIOUS EXTREMIST: A person who is too religious (usually meaningthat the person holds religious beliefs and applies them to politics).
22. SECULAR EXTREMIST: A term not used; one presumably cannot be too secular:Those who call for the right to mention God's name at high school graduationexercises are "religious extremists," while those who litigateagainst schools that post the Ten Commandments on their walls, like theACLU, are never described as "secular extremists."
23. SEXIST: A man who disagrees with women who hold liberal views. (Forthe term for a woman who disagrees with women who hold liberal views, seeWoman, Inauthentic.) Thus, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, well-known for "womanizing,"was never called a sexist because he supported liberal women's groups. Onthe other hand, men who treat women beautifully and respect them as equals,but do not agree with the National Organization for Women, are likely tobe called sexist.
24. VICTIMS: nearly all blacks and women, but essentially members of everygroup, except heterosexual males and ethnic groups that tend to hold conservativeviews. Thus, Korean- Americans, although they were the primary victims ofthe Los Angeles riots, are never referred to as victims; they hold conservativeviews.
25. PROGRESSIVE VIEW OF HUMANITY: Dividing people by their race, gender,and class.
26. REACTIONARY VIEW OF HUMANITY: Dividing people by their values and behavior.
27. GAY RIGHTS: Society publicly announcing that homosexuality is as desirableas heterosexuality. Most heterosexuals abhor gay-bashing and the treatingof a homosexual as anything but fully human. But this is irrelevant to gayrights activists whose real aim is to have society regard homosexuality,heterosexuality, and bisexuality as equally desirable.
28. HOMOPHOBE: A person who believes that man-woman love and marriage oughtto be society's ideal.
29. BLACKS, AUTHENTIC: Blacks who hold liberal views - in particular, thatAmerica is racist and that racism is the greatest problem confronting blacks.
30. BLACKS, INAUTHENTIC: Blacks who do not hold liberal views - especiallythat racism is not the greatest black problem. Such blacks also are knownas "Uncle Toms."
31. RACIST: A white who does not agree with positions held by the civilrights leadership. To cite one example, a number of black leaders have labeledsupport for school vouchers as racist, although they tend to be supportedmore by inner-city blacks than by suburban whites. But, since the liberalblack leadership is opposed to vouchers, support for it is deemed racist.
32. WHITE SUPREMACIST VIEW OF BLACKS: People who are not to be judged bythe same criteria by which all other people are judged.
33. LIBERAL VIEW OF BLACKS: People who are not to be judged by the samecriteria by which all other people are judged.
34. POVERTY: The reason for murder, rape, and carjackings.
35. GREED: The reason for embezzlement, insider trading, and other white-collarcrimes.
36. MINORITIES: Groups whose spokespeople are angry at America. Thus, Cuban,Japanese, Korean, and Jewish Americans are rarely referred to as minorities.
37. COMMUNITY: A term for groups whose members hold liberal views. "Community"is rarely used to describe a group that holds conservative views (e.g. youseldom hear about the "Mormon community," or "the gun ownerscommunity"). You do hear about the "AIDS community" (liberalviews) but not a "cancer community" (all sorts of views).
38. CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS: Organizations that hold white people responsiblefor the majority of black people's problems.
39. FEMINIST ORGANIZATIONS: Organizations that hold men responsible forthe majority of women's problems.
40. BLAMING THE VICTIM: Making moral demands of any members of a victimizedminority (see Victims).
41. POGROM: An attack by a mob of Christians in Eastern Europe against innocentJews, leading to the beating and murder of Jews.
42. ETHNIC TENSION: An attack by a mob of blacks in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,against innocent Jews, leading to the beating and murder of Jews.
