Neology

Political types sometimes exaggerate, mislead and flat-out lie. I get it. Happens on both sides, or so the narrative goes. But frankly, one side has this down to a fine art.

Latest example: calling the Health Care Reform legislation "Health Spending".

But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things.

Other examples abound.

• Death Panels
• Death Tax
• Rendition / "Tough" Interrogation

And of course:
H1N1

Certainly, there was recently the "refutiate" Twitter typo by Sarah Palin (or more precisely, whomever writes her Tweets.) I give her a pass on this, because everyone knew what she meant, and it was amusing.

In contrast to Ms Palin's typo, the other neologisms are politically calculated to mean the opposite of what they actually say. And consistently, they are meant to inspire fear.

Fearmongers today often invoke Thomas Jefferson's quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants". Those fearmongers apparently did not read the entire letter, because the main point of the essay, unlike the bumper-sticker out-of context quote, argues that it's imperative for a democracy to have a well-informed populace. The neologisms above are precisely what Jefferson was arguing against.*

Perhaps this snippet from the same essay would be more appropriate: "Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying."

* (Not to worry, the conservative school boards are making sure every reference to Jefferson is removed from their history books.)