Words Do Have Meaning

The title of this hub may seems obvious to some. However, "Words do have meaning" does not seem to matter much lately. I will cite a few examples to prove my point. There is a reason for all this and I will try to answer the "why."

-Jul. 2015

From the beginning, since the days of Adam and Eve, words are important. One of the first thing God did after the creation was to name all the animals. Why? Because names and words are the ways of communication between people. That is how a civilization is built. In fact, when God decided to punish people for being too arrogant, he caused confusion among the people in trying to build the Tower of Babel. That's where the source of the word "babel" came from.

Our chosen language is English. We have evolved our language from the British form of English. Our day to day interactions are conducted in English. Our laws are written in English. Our financial and legal transactions are conducted in English. Our schools teach English and all our literature and papers and books are written in English. Our lyrics and arts and movies are all in English. What's my point? Without learning and understanding our language, one would not go very far.

The foundation of our democracy rely on our citizens understanding a common language.

In recent years, some have deliberately try to change the meaning of some words. Here are a few glaring examples.

• Bill Clinton - "It depends upon the meaning of "is" is." when testifying at his impeachment hearing.
• Justice John Roberts - in the Ruling opinion on the ACA act in 2010 said a "penalty" is a tax and therefore ruled the ACA act constitutional.
• The Supreme Court - In a recent case regarding gay marriage, decided to change the long traditional definition of marriage of between a man and a woman. What's the definition of civil unions?
• Illegal Aliens - is a term describing people who chose to disobey our laws by crossing into our borders without permission. In so doing, they are breaking our law. However, the politically correct have decided to change the term to "undocumented immigrants" to make them seem more acceptable.
• Global Warming - Became Climate Change.
• Quantitative Easing - A fancy word for printing money.
• Derivative Swap - Junk Bonds
• Budget Sequestration - Cut spending.

There is also a tendency among politicians to choose names that are more descriptive and "positive" to gained mass appeal. Some recent examples are the following.

The Patriot's Act - Post the attack of 9/11, our government passed the "Patriot's Act" to increase surveillance on potential terrorists here in the US and abroad. What could be harmful about "Patriot's Act"? As it turns out, because of a whistle blower named Ed Snowden, we've learned that the NSA has been spying on the general public under the Patriot's act illegally.

The Affordable Care Act - otherwise known as Obamacare is a total revamp of our healthcare system. It was passed in 2010 by Congress without most of the Congressmen even reading it. Who could vote against something called "affordable?" As it turned out, it is costing the American taxpayers more money to provide health insurance for some people who could not afford them.

I started thinking what will be next if words can be re-defined willy nilly.

• Lois Lerner "pleading the 5^{th" -} could just mean "I'm really guilty but I destroy the evidence so you can't prove it."
• riots and looting - could be "income redistribution action."
• NSA spying on emails - could just be "helping to weed out computer viruses."

You get the idea. The opportunities are endless.

A nation is defined by its people, its culture, its language, its border and its laws. Every country has those attributes in one form or another. What is the value of a citizenship if there are no distinctions?

By distorting the language of a nation, you weaken it. That seems to be where we are headed.

Recently, a new word has appeared in our lexicon. "Grubering" refers to the actions of Jonathan Gruber, an MIT Economics professor who was instrumental in the design of the ACA act. What does it mean? It is the counterpart to a whistle blower. A whistle blower exposes corruption in government or industry from the inside and often are punished. That is why we have whistle blower laws to protect them and the IRS also rewards them for reporting frauds. Grubering, on the other hand, is someone on the inside who reveals some "deceitful" practices that are not public knowledge and brags about it privately to his colleagues "off the record". This, by it self, should invalidate the ACA law in my way of thinking. If a law is passed with deliberate deceit, the court should rule that it was made under false pretense and therefore illegal.

In my definition, "grubering" is just another word for "lying."

The answer is not complicated. It is no different than what God did in Babel. It is to confuse the public so as to bring about a new "order." One that is more aligned with their agenda. This is true of both political parties in Washington. That is my honest opinion.

In Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion on the latest Supreme Court ruling on the ACA act, he wrote “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State'." It's a sad day in America when a Supreme Court Justice makes that admission.

The Supreme Court does not have the final word. There are numerous examples where they have got it wrong in the past. They are not infallible.

My hope going forward is that, we the people, hold all accountable for what they say and what they write as laws. Without that, we are hopelessly lost.