Rules of engagement for the war of words

The pro-freedom side of the political spectrum needs to start seriously competing with the anti-liberty left in the marketplace of ideas.

How did the fascist left get the right to decree the meaning of every bloody word in the dictionary?

If there’s one thing every nation’s socialist left has been good at, it’s propaganda and wordplay. Joseph Goebbels, Saul Alinsky, and others were masters at the art of lying with language. (Imagining with amusement, leftists out there losing their collective minds over the fact that we just dared to compare their hero to Saul Alinsky or the other way around, but I digress.)

Let’s face it, the far left has weaponized the King’s English against our individual liberties and rights, and it’s time that the pro-freedom right worked to rhetorically conquer in the marketplace of ideas; the success of recent cultural guerilla warfare victories provides us a perfect opportunity.

There are far more people on the side of freedom than the feudalistic slavery of the left; we just have to use the basic building blocks of communication to beat them at their own game. This starts with how we interact with them, and following a general set of rules in the war of words.

Avoid the poll-tested propaganda phrases of the leftist anti-liberty authoritarians.

This is the most important rule, because they’ve already moved into place on the battlefield of ideas. Adopting these words equates to our retreat. It’s a good bet that they laugh at our gullibility to take the bait every time.

There is a reason why you’ll suddenly see them all use the same word or phrase. It’s all part of the collectivist mindset, but it’s worse than that. Common good (gemeinnutz in the original German) phraseology binds their hive minds together, stamping out individuality.

The fascist far left plays chess while the pro-freedom side play checkers — and they’re playing for keeps. In any debate with the comrades, you must always remember that you are working to change the minds of the audience, not the one you’re debating.

Always keep in mind that if you use their words, they are likely to spring little traps of the definition game on you with these examples here, here, and here. Their words aren’t set in a dictionary, and they will make something up as usual. Therefore, you should always have paper dictionaries from a few years ago along, with links and text files of the common words of political discourse.

Use substitute expressions to negate leftist language.

These set the battlefield of ideas in our favor, and since these aren’t their made-up terms, they can’t complain that we’re using them incorrectly (win-win). If the discussion is on long-established terms like socialism, hard-copy dictionaries that haven’t been corrupted have the final word.

When needed, truncate or edit their terms in referring to them.

This is for those times when we need to discredit or demolish leftist terminology, especially when there isn’t a direct connection between their words and truth. A good example is adding the words “unconstitutional” or using “gun confiscation” to the term “red flag” orders.

You’ll note that whenever the left tries to push these authoritarian abominations, they scrupulously try to avoid the “C-word” (confiscation) and any mention of the Bill of Rights.

Spelling out the actual words of a common term is particularly useful such as National Socialism or National Socialist German Workers’ Party instead of Nazi. Following the example of Stalin, our comrades try to obscure the fact that they are socialists.

Reclaim exploited words like liberal, progressive, etc.

It should be clear by now that leftists have no interest in limited government and individual liberty, and rather than “progress” they want to regress to failed ideas; they are not liberals, and they are not progressives.

True liberals and progressives are not far left, and they get a pass on their tyrannical ideologies when we refer to them as such. It’s time to set things straight with the proper use of political terminology.

Always have them define the words they use.

This avoids the leftist tactic of not bothering to back up their arguments with real facts. Racism and equity are some of their favorites; they’ve been able to weaponize these words without having to properly define them.

Other times, they will claim that a whole slew of text is “rubbish,” so have them specify exactly to what they refer, and why.

Make them answer for their “dog whistle” words.

Finally, it’s time that we call them out for using this time-tested fabrication by applying the same to them. For too long they have merely implied that some random subject or malady is bigoted, simply by declaring it’s a “dog whistle” for racism, or whatever, without ever proving this really is the case. Leftists just assert some tenuous connection and voilà!

For decades they’ve been able to sweep the racism of the founder of Planned Parenthood under the rug. They finally addressed the situation when too many people took notice, but the fact is the connection is still there to this day. So, why can’t we say that abortion is a “dog-whistle” word for the subject of racism? Why hasn’t the left answered for their own little dog whistle dilemma?

Originally published on the American Thinker