-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.26/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.26/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times </A> ----- Laissez Faire City Times June 28, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 26 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Newspeak by Sunni Maravillosa Ayn Rand was right when she repeatedly pointed out that words have precise meanings. While it is true that many words have more than one meaning, a good wordsmith will make the intended meaning clear by context and careful use of words. Words are the tools of communication, and, just like any other tool, they can be wielded skillfully or ineptly, used properly or twisted to fit the purpose of the writer. Today�s climate of political correctness provides an excellent example of twisting words into new meanings�welcome, Orwellian Newspeak! Such obfuscatory use of language is not new; it�s a favorite and well-worn tool of propagandists everywhere. Unfortunately, today�s liberals (now there�s a good example of a word twist) use it to give the appearance of valuing individuals and liberty while snatching more and more choices from a person�s grasp. (Conservatives don�t try to reinvent language so much as simply repeat their tired old phrases, hoping against hope that someone will eventually take them seriously.) One of the more insidious results of language-twisting is that over time, the culture absorbs the new usage and it becomes accepted. Protests against the shift are apt to be labeled as �old-fashioned� or �purist�, and tend to be dismissed. It�s through this process that America has become a huge welfare state, that taxes (often labeled "fees") have been largely accepted, and that our freedom has been eroded. Although pro-freedom ideas do make their way into mainstream culture in various media, they are vastly outnumbered by the collectivist ideas�consider how successful "public good" arguments are, for example. A more recent example is the change from "minimum wage" to "living wage"�as if the words make any difference to those struggling to live on that salary! So, what�s a freedom-loving individual to do to try to counteract these linguistic games? Rather than trying to win on the Newspeak playing field, we are better served resurrecting some words and adding them to our arsenal. Used precisely, and with explanation where required, these thought-bombs can help spread our ideas, and possibly even open the eyes of some who currently swim with the prevailing statist current. A Few Choice Words The first suggestion I have involves an old Soviet term: refusenik. The refuseniks were individuals�mostly Jews�who were denied permission to leave the Soviet Union. Many continued to re-apply until they were finally permitted to emigrate; the longest period on record is of a refusenik who waited 20 years before being able to leave. Their lives�already unpleasant�became more challenging once it became known that they wanted to leave the country, but for most the desire to live in freedom surpassed the obstacles placed before them. It was their refusal to cooperate�to live under the communist system�that led to the state�s refusal to allow them to leave. We who value our freedom can refuse to cooperate with freedom-destroying laws, and become refuseniks in our own right. Don�t like how the second amendment has been gutted? Call yourself a gun-control refusenik. Can�t abide by arbitrary laws that limit your freedom of choice of mind-altering substances? Become a War-on-Some-Drugs refusenik. Dislike all forms of tyranny? You�re a control refusenik, a New World Order refusenik, or somesuch�you get the idea. The term refusenik is a particularly good one, because many people think they know what it means�almost everyone knows it relates to the Soviet Union in an unflattering way. That linkage gives the term extra mileage for our cause. By presenting the choice to ignore laws that stifle liberty as a personal refusal to cooperate, the freedom-enhancing aspects of the choice are emphasized over the law-breaking aspect. If every individual who took issue with some aspect of the state�s use of force to control its citizens adopted this nomenclature, and started using it in e-mail signature files, on web sites, and in letters to congresscritters, its spread would be phenomenal�and unable to ignore. Using this word highlights how authoritarian the United States is becoming�like the old Soviet Union was. What a great way to give the statist scum some well-deserved heartburn! Abolitionist is another word with a valuable historical link that ought to be used more frequently. When they hear it, most Americans think of the Civil War, and of the abolitionists who worked to free the slaves. While it appears to many that freedom triumphed, the actual result was to make slaves of us all, in terms of affirmative action, hate speech as a crime, discrimination, and reverse discrimination. The first draft and more taxes were results of Lincoln�s policies during that war as well. Our current system of government has made slaves of each American through taxes that steal our life, through unnecessary regulations, and through paperwork requirements that grant us permission to conduct our business, marry, and perform other routine activities that no one should be involved in except the parties involved. This is not overblown rhetoric: what else describes a person not fully in control of his life? What else can you call it when someone else determines what use will be made of the fruits of your labor and will use force against you if you resist? To the degree that a person cooperates with these coercive mechanisms, that person is a slave. Freedom-loving individuals are seeking to end those coercive systems and the destruction they inevitably cause�to abolish the tyranny that results from some having power over others. To call ourselves "abolitionists" is to evoke a morally strong, uncompromising position that bathes the fight for freedom in positive light in almost everyone�s eyes. How about some revolution? Although this word has recently gotten a negative connotation, largely due to bloody insurrections in other countries, it too can be used to create positive associations to historical events. In fact, in my dictionary, the "bloody overthrow" definition comes after the "complete change of any kind" definition. The word revolution as applied to politics relies on the concept of circularity. In that context, the idea is that change in government is justified if it �revolved� back to its original and correct form. Emphasizing that the revolution we want to see is a revolution of ideas, and a peaceful�if possible�change in the form of coercive governance in the US to something better, pro-freedom individuals can make great use of the mythos of the founding fathers. Indeed, we can accurately state that we as revolutionaries are setting out to complete the work of Thomas Jefferson; his comment about revolution being a good thing can help frame our use of the term in a favorable way. Drawing parallels between the American Revolution (phase one) and the current revolution (phase three, in my opinion; phase two was the Civil War, which failed to advance liberty) in terms of the principles involved will capitalize on patriotic feelings individuals may have, and will focus on our current lack of freedom in a more palatable way for those who are new to the freedom philosophy. These are three words that came to me in quick order; I�m sure there are many others that creative friends of freedom can similarly resurrect and use to counterattack the Newspeak creators. I invite anyone who finds value in this idea to share your thoughts and words with me. In fact, I�ll create a page (or pages, if this project attracts a lot of contributions) on the Liberty Round Table web site that focuses on this idea, and will list all the suggestions I receive. Thus pro-freedom individuals will have a resource of valuable words that will convey powerful memes to mainstream folks. To participate, please send your ideas to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED], or use the "Comment" form on this page to share your thoughts. While I won�t be able to acknowledge each contribution, I will send an e-mail notifying each contributor when the page is online. While it may seem that this is just another "word game", using the most powerful tool we have for sharing and promoting our ideas�language�is a very a strong way of getting the freedom philosophy more widely disseminated, in a variety of ways. Rather than playing by the rules of the Newspeak crowd, by choosing and using our words carefully, we highlight the differences between hiding behind language and truly communicating effectively with it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunni Maravillosa is a psychologist and web mistress for the Liberty Round Table (URL http://home.lrt.org/ ). -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 26, June 28, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. 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