How Conservatives Manipulate Language to Gain Power

Conservatives, the modern version anyway, aren’t good for much, but they retain a marvelous talent for manipulating language.

June 16, 2011 | As kids we learn that sticks and stones can break our bones, but words will never hurt us. Some time later, sophomore year in college for example, we learn that Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “names have the power to slay.” As an aside, Nietzsche also said “Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive,” which is a good observation, even though Oscar Wilde would have found a better way to say it. Conservatives, the modern version anyway, aren’t good for much, but they retain a marvelous talent for manipulating language. How else do you explain the fact that a bunch of people who managed to effectively destroy the world economy and are in a rush to eviscerate the social programs, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, that millions of Americans depend on for basic survival, are unashamed to call themselves “conservatives” while liberals, who were on the right side of both history and economics, try to hide behind “progressive”?