Words mean things. That Rush Limbaugh quote would seem to be a self-evident truth, until one considers how outrageous is the leftist penchant for inventing new words or continually changing the meanings of common words
What does “gay” mean? It means happy, but leftists brilliantly redefined it as “homosexual,” because they knew if people used a positive word for homosexuality, they would soon start to see homosexuality positively. And so it happened. What does “cake gender” mean? Nothing in reality. But those who use the term are totally controlled by the propagandists who invented it. “Love is love” is a meaningless tautology, killing babies isn’t healthcare, and the Inflation Reduction Act drove inflation. These are all examples of the sort of dangerous word manipulation that Rush warned us about.
“You know, I popularized way back in the early nineties a tiny little phrase: Words mean things,” Rush said. “The left has succeeded in really bastardizing common, ordinary, everyday English words to where now they have entirely different meanings… Traditions and institutions which define the greatness of this country have been under assault for decades.”
What the leftists understand, which too often conservatives do not, is that they can control Americans’ minds by controlling their vocabulary. This is especially true if most Americans only have a very vague idea of what they mean by the words they use. The less one understands and thinks about platitudes, the more susceptible one is to propaganda.
Rush cited the fact that Founding Father Noah Webster’s influential dictionary faded out of common use. Americans no longer understand our founding principles. Rush quoted Steve Deace: “‘Noah Webster’s influence has waned as well. As a result, even though our letters and spelling are the same as they were in Webster’s day, the definitions are decidedly different.’”
Definitions matter. For instance, the French and American Revolutionaries used the same words but with radically different meanings; hence why the French Revolution turned into a Reign of Terror while our Revolution created the greatest nation in history.
Related: Remembering Rush Limbaugh, America’s Anchorman
Rush said, “Here’s Webster’s 1828 definition of rights: ‘That which justly belongs to one… Just claim by sovereignty; prerogative. God, as the author of all things, has a right to govern and dispose of them at his pleasure.’ Rights come from God. This was fundamental in our founding. It’s all over the Declaration of Independence.”
But now leftists have taken God out of the equation and inserted themselves and their Marxist ideology instead. “Here’s today’s definition of ‘rights,’ and see if this doesn’t comport with what you think most people, particularly young people, think rights are,” Rush said. “‘Access to what I want when I want it… especially if I can rally a particular group (mobocracy) and the media to bully others into agreeing with me… the full realization of my desires and preferences, which you must then pay for.’”
One could compare any number of fundamental concepts, including morality, which in Webster’s day was objective and in our day is considered entirely subjective. The point is that leftists try to change the meanings of words so that they can control people. We cannot allow them to do so. If we know the correct definitions of words and teach others, we will have built up a mental wall against the Marxist onslaught as strong as the Founders built up against George III’s propaganda and false promises.
