“The purpose of Newspeak was… to make all [unapproved] modes of thought impossible.” — Appendix to 1984.

How many who read my last word of the first paragraph of comment @6 instantly comprehended that I was using liberal in its original meaning? Even at this site with so many intelligent contributors, how many of you had to double-think before seeing it? And in the general public, how many would not comprehend at all?

Already near every one in “The Excluded Middle” has had his language despoiled so that corrupted words and self-censoring fog his thinking.

Ironically conservative, unlike liberal, has not changed nearly so much because it already encompasses contradictory meanings. The majority of conservatives in revolutionary America were Tories. There were sound — conservative — reasons to stay loyal to King and home country and not make waves. It wasn’t the conservative movement which found edicts and taxes from afar that ran roughshod over the majority of colonists a problem worth revolting over.

The red coats coming to confiscate a few guns certainly seemed reasonable in NYC even then.

And if a few quid could buy for the crown the allegiance of some former heroes (like the guy in charge of a key premonitory point on the Hudson), well that’s just politics, right?

Where exactly, Belmont Club members, has conservative leadership been in protecting culture and language and even borders? And has that leadership been tolerant of lesser conservatives who disagreed with their positions? HELL NO!

THIS is the movement Wretchard worries has adequate seating the table?

So Wretchard, isn’t this news item simply the enemy boldly heralding its next step towards stemming opposition down there in Oz?

List Clubbers. W may be constrained, but today Americans are still permitted to remark at how liberal has been so perverted and narrow that contemporary liberalism tramples nearly all the rights that classical liberalism champions. You are free to note that conservative has always been a conflicted term. But the majority won’t know what the hell you are talking about, and so your warnings have been effectively neutralized.

That is in large part because the watchdogs of American heritage, including its language, told you they would conserve that heritage. They failed that vital function because they were willing to compromise. These “conservatives” found by compromising they instead conserved something even more important: their acceptance at “progressive” social circles and a seat at the table of power.

This is who Wretchard sees with a seat at the table in Oz. You too America?