While the Administration is busy high-fiving itself over the death of Qaddafi (who is, I grant, not someone I will miss), I thought I’d take the occasion to stroll down memory lane and let Stephen Colbert take a look at some of the Orwellian doubletalk put forward by the Obama Administration to describe this particular war (in Colbert’s inimitable style):
What the Administration did (though it will be forgotten in the glow of having killed a despot) was engage in the venerable pastime of liars, politicians, and evildoers (but I repeat myself) known as “euphemism.” Euphemism is the practice of replacing an old and short English word like “war” with one or more longer terms like “limited kinetic operation.” The idea is to make the ugly thing the liar is trying to hide smell nicer by perfuming it with something that sounds softer, or scientific, or otherwise more palatable. So, for instance, the ante-bellum South spoke of slavery, not as slavery, but as “our peculiar institution.” Likewise, the Bush Administration replaced the old and plain word “torture” with the much nicer and more scientific sounding “enhanced interrogation.” Funnily enough, the Gestapo did exactly the same thing.
Speaking of the Gestapo, totalitarian states have been past masters in the art of euphemism. For instance, the mass murder of European Jewry was given the pleasant and efficient title of a “final solution.” Similarly, the Commies liked to speak of “liquidating” rather than “killing” political opponents. In the East, Chinese Commies had a charming way of giving happy talk euphemistic titles for the mass murder of citizens such as “Great Leap Forward.”
Of course, today terms like “final solution” inspire exactly the horror that the more plain-spoken “mass murder of millions of innocent Jews” used to inspire. Likewise, when we speak of the government “liquidating a high value target” we all know that this means “killing a human being.” “Euthanasia”—which was concocted to cover up the unpleasant fact that a doctor was murdering a patient, now simply means “a doctor murdering a patient,” so new euphemisms like “death with dignity” are being put forward to relieve the terror inspired by “euthanasia.” And the term “abortion” (which was originally intended to give a gleaming scientific-sounding clinical cover for the old term “child slaughter”) now simply means “child slaughter” again. That’s why pro-abortion zealots don’t like to be called “pro-abortion” but “pro-choice.” They require a new euphemism to sanitize and remove the stink from the old euphemism.
This is what is known as the “euphemism treadmill.” A euphemism is a thin piece of perfumed paper wrapped around the stinking corpse of an evil moral act. The problem is, the corpse’s stench overwhelms the scent as the bloodiness of the deed soaks through the paper. So a new euphemism is required to be papered over the old, bloody paper. Our Nobel Peace Prize-winning President might make a phrase like “kinetic action” stick as a euphemism for his ever-proliferating
“limited kinetic operations” (75 and counting). But if he does, “kinetic action” will quickly need a new euphemism because everybody will just hear “war” when he says it. Likewise, “abortion” eventually gets dumped for “choice” or “reproductive care intervention” because pro-abortion people don’t want to be called “pro-abortion.” But these too will eventually become soaked with the stinking blood of innocents shed by those who slaughter innocent children. No matter how many ways and times you tell a lie, it’s still a lie.
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“A thin piece of perfumed paper wrapped around a a stinking corpse of an evil (moral?) act”—-WELL DONE—-beautiful job of ripping the wrapping off and exposing the truth
This is perceptive.
Colbert is priceless
Is it wrong that the president has military personnel in Uganda as “consultants”?
Speaking of euphemisms: “mass murder of millions of innocent Jews” is a pseudo-euphemism to hide the inconvenient fact that at least 11.5 million Christians, mostly Catholic, died in the Holocaust because they opposed Hitler, were part of the vast underground smuggling Jews out of Europe, or simply because they were a burr under the Nazi (or Stalinist) saddle of someone. Refusing to acknowledge this fact is a slap-in-the-face of every Christian who died trying to save Jews, undermine the occupying forces, and oppose what the Nazis and Stalin did and an insult to the survivors.
wish you could have uploaded a better quality video. This one is done busted.
Like Mark Shae I hope in the future when they catch evil ba*&^&tards; and ask them where the bomb is planted, etc, the bad guys will simply tell us the information. No need to force them to talk! Just like the cops, when making an arrest simply ask the perp to walk into jail. They NEVER have to force them (often with physical pain compliance/encouragement).
Life is rainbows and butterflies!
Mr. Brandlin, you are correct, but you should also add that many Christians /Catholics were killed, like the Jews, because of their ethnic origins, especially Poles, Czechs and other Slavs. Hitler wanted to eliminate not jut the Jews, but all “non-Aryan” peoples. (He was most virulent about the Jews, of course).
“The idea is to make the ugly thing the liar is trying to hide smell nicer by perfuming it with something that sounds softer, or scientific, or otherwise more palatable.”
Holy mixed metaphors, Batman! :O I counted all five senses in that sentence! Ugly - sight, Smell/perfume - scent, sounds - obvious, softer - touch palatable - taste.
Please, please tell me that was intentional!
??°?°??? ???
So the Obama Administration uses euphemisms - but how is that news ? So do all governments. So does the Church. It’s impossible to see how the fact that the current Presidential administration in the US makes use of euphemism tells against the current Presidential administration in any way that is unique in kind.
To criticise Obama or his administration for things which might reasonably be described as deserving of criticism, is one thing - to criticism him, or it (or indeed any other President or administration, or any nation or government, for that matter) for adopting the same verbal conventions as they do, *while not faulting them*, is grotesque.
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Obama & his administration, whatever their flaws, seem to be nothing more than the current Aunt Sallies for their critics to turn on - that seems to be inseparable from being Top Politician. It used to be others who wetre the hate-figures,and after him, it will be somebody else. So it’s hard to attach much importance to this latest sample of Obama-bashing. McCain is no more Jesus Christ than Obama is - if McCain had been elected, he would have been the Antichrist *du jour*, & all else that US Presidents seem to be. He was lucky not to get in. (And even Jesus Christ copped a lot of criticism…)
“So the Obama Administration uses euphemisms…So does the Church.”
Examples please. Please show all work…
Examples of the Church using euphemisms(duh)...
“Refusing to acknowledge this fact is a slap-in-the-face of every Christian who died trying to save Jews, undermine the occupying forces, and oppose what the Nazis and Stalin did and an insult to the survivors.”
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## But - since when was Christianity in the game of having its ego patted and not being slapped ? If Christians have been able to do any good, what of it ? “7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’””
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This itch to be given credit really is not a good idea. Any good that Christians do is matter for praising God - not them. If God has saved lives through the actions of men, excellent.
www.ocarm.org/en/content/lectio/lectio-luke-177-10
www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke 17.7-10&version=NIV
Two other widely used euphemisms for abortion are “pregnancy termination” and—the height of illogic—“pregnancy interruption,” as though one were writing about fetal surgery, wherein the womb is opened long enough to perform life-saving surgery on the unborn baby.
Its a scary thing to think our leaders are so bereft of principled behavior.
At Mass we have to pray devoutly, “Grant us peace.” —-A large number of government leaders are diabolically deluded and think ‘war is good’ for the economy & will create a distraction from government ineptitude. All economies are collapsing & many people are trying to start another world war.
In the days when physicans actually swore the Hippocratic Oath, and when the classic form of the Hippocratic Oath was in effect (“I will not give a woman a pessary (a drug) to cause an abortion”), among respectable circles, the word abortion would imply spontaneous abortion, which was the correct medical phrase for miscarriage. (Miscarriage being considered by men of science to be a rather quaint expression for the same occurence.)
When the abortion was procured intentionally, it was called criminal abortion and, if caught, was punishable by fines and prison time for the practitioner as well as the mother, just as if a mother had dealt death to a born infant.
Marion—
It seems to be a well established fact that, in America at least, no woman was ever prosecuted for procuring an abortion. It was the abortionist who was sentenced to prison for the abortion.
Back to the main theme: “abortionist” was the favored term of pro-abortion propagandists of the 1960’s until it got to have very negative connotations; then “abortion provider” became the euphemism, but it seems to have moved down the treadmill itself and now we see “abortion doctor.” But the trend seems to be to get rid of this secondary euphemism because everyone knows it is the same thing as “abortionist.” “women’s reproductive health care professional” seems to be the way to go now.
But I predict that even “women’s reproductive health” will eventually be recognized as a euphemism, and the new euphemism will be “women’s health”. But as people catch on, they will use the term “gynecology” to denote anything to do with women’s health that is not directly connected to abortion, and so even that euphemism will lose its efficacy.
Don’t forget “selective reduction” for those who after destroying several “blastocysts” to get pregnant decided they didn’t want two (or more) children after all. Sigh.
You’re exactly right. Euphemisms are our way to soothe our consciences, so we can still think we’re all “NICE PEOPLE” when we are commiting crimes against our fellow human beings.
The pro-abortion euphemisms are the worst, but one other one that I intensely dislike is “collateral damage.” What that really means is, “Innocent people we killed trying to kill people we think are guilty.” While I think most military people sincerely regret any loss of innocent lives in war, I think we should man up and not use this objectifying euphemism. It dishonors the victims when we call them “collateral damage.”
Anyway, my favorite euphemism right now (*sarcasm*) is the way the bills that are out to destroy our religious freedom are called the “Such and such and Religious Freedom Act” as in Illinois’s bill. What it really means is the “Pro-Homosexual Anti-Christian Freedom Christian Marginalization Act” But they don’t have the nerve to say that now do they??
Mark,
Reading your comment box is hilarious! It’s like you are trying to make these powerful moral and political points to a room full of grammar nerds!
“Well, I agree that killing babies is wrong, but that is definitely a mixed metaphor you used right there!”
“Examples of the Church using euphemisms(duh)...
They are legion, but my personal favorite, from my bishop, “Fr. X transgressed the boundaries of a youth.”
Of course this confirms the main point that euphemisms can conceal great evil.
ah, my favorite linguistic tidbit. I often tell people about this when the topic of political correctness comes up.
I finally got around to reading the link about the Gestapo and the most chilling part was the end: the Norwegian court sentenced people to death for using techniques which were in no way life-threatening, at least as described in the article.
Thanks to the opposite phenomenon from euphemism [Is there a word for it?] it looks like no one sees the execution of these people as a grave injustice, simply because the word “Gestapo” has been completely demonized in our culture.
Dn. Thomas E. Brandlin -
Oh man, I know where you coming from! I’m a Jewish convert to traditional Catholicism and I can smell one of YOU from the next room. And NO I’m not a ‘progressive’ in any sense of the word. My Jewish ancestors reverenced our Habsburg Emperor and prayed that God protect him.
“Choice” is already on the way out. “Reproductive Health” is the new euphemism for killing your children.
As for “transgressing boundaries” that is not a Church euphemism, but comes from the world of psychology. Yes, using it is not what I would call the high point of a bishop’s speech, but I would bet that was on the advice of his lawyer, not the Holy Father (who is quite frank about abuse).
Planned vs. Unplanned? More like Wanted vs. Unwanted.
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