By Don Todd
Ever wonder why those on the left who are opposed to personal choice on every level other than abortion refer to themselves as pro-choice? That’s simple, because it sounds better that what it really is, pro-abortion. In the mass media there is no such thing as pro-abortion. Through this sleight of the rhetorical hand those opposed to the taking of an innocent human life are labeled as anti-choice.
One of the keys to leftist success is the manipulation of the language. Moral issues become social issues. The Strategic Defense Initiative became Star Wars as in science fiction. Tax raises become revenue enhancements. Although women outnumber men in America they are linked to minorities.
Had anyone ever heard of a Transgender person five years ago? Certainly we had all heard of transvestites and cross dressers. The Collins English Dictionary defines them as follows: 1. (Psychiatry) a person who seeks sexual pleasure from wearing clothes that are normally associated with the opposite sex 2. any cross-dresser. See cross-dressing.
What was once viewed as a psychological oddity has now been relabeled and turned into a movement. We now have the spectacle of the federal government by edict taking control of school restrooms and showers under the guise of equality.
The left claims it is the ideology that believes in science except when they don’t. The American College of Pediatricians put out a statement in March of this year stating, “Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: ‘XY’ and ‘XX’ are genetic markers of health — not genetic markers of a disorder. The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident.”
Another example of the left manipulating the language is the United States Congress banning words the left does not approve of from the United State Code and changing them to more politically correct terms. They are calling this, “modernization.” House Resolution 4238 reads in part, “Office of Minority Economic Impact.—Section 211(f)(1) of the Department of Energy Organization Act (42 U.S.C. 7141(f)(1)) is amended by striking ‘a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent’ and inserting ‘Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native.’” The Congress is now the language police.
Also a part of the leftist language agenda is the constant calls for the renaming of streets, schools, sports teams like the Washington Redskins and anything thing else that offends their tender feelings. This gives them the opportunity to take a false moral high ground while schooling the rest of us on our moral failings for not recognizing how right they are. It also subtly attacks western culture and history. The irony of this coming from an ideology responsible for more human misery and death than any other political movement in history seems to escape them.
The way to fight this is not to go along with the cultural distortion of the left through the modification of the common vernacular. There is no such thing as social studies in schools. It is history. Social issues are not social issues they are moral issues. There is no pro-choice movement it is a pro-abortion movement. People are not trans-anything they either male or female. If they think otherwise they are mentally ill. If you accept the leftist language distortions you are accepting the premise of their arguments.
Don Todd is the Director of Research of Americans for Limited Government.
