Changing the English Language Options

[ComradeRed]

It's amazing how something as simple as language can change over time. Some things I noticed about how our language has truly evolved since before the Soviet Union collapsed. Cherish this as it is -- ten years from now, we might not be able to even have a debate because we will no longer have the words.

Bombing and otherwise killing civilians
Old: Civilian Casualties
New: Collateral Damage (Other countries kill civilians, America only damages them)

When you engage the armed forces of another country, with the intention of destroying them and capturing territory or other objectives
Old: War
New: Police Action (Because war has such a negative connotation... and the police are always right, aren't they?)

People hired for money to go to foreign countries that you have recently invaded and perform support work for your army
Old: Mercenaries
New: Civilian Contractors (Mercenaries are evil people with big swords ready to cut your head off -- civilian contractors are nice people who shoot you instead)

Invading other countries with the purpose of getting them to convert to your beliefs
Old: Imperialism
New: Nation-Building (This sounds much nicer. I mean it's like building ... nations!)

Using tax dollars to pay for electricity and water in other countries, especially ones that you have recently invaded
Old: Socialism
New: Nation-Building (See previous)

*Note: nation-building can be used to describe just about anything where we don't want to use the word because it would make us sound too much like the Russkies*

An armed force of one country forcibly placed into another country
Old: Occupational Force
New: Peacekeeping Force (People resent being occupied, but who doesn't like peace?)

Invading a country, displacing the natives, and living off the fruits of their labor
Old: Colonization
New: Immigration (We want to be nice to illegals seeking welfare, because that would imply they provide a scapegoat for our problems, don't they?)

Where a single body of multiple nations decides to dictate domestic policy, such as business taxation, to an individual nation
Old: Imperial Hegemony
New: The United Nations (After all, the United Nations can't really um ... hegemonize)

A draft
Old: Slavery
New: Responsibility (Why change the Constitution when you can just change the meaning of the words in it?)

Coining more money than is necessary in order to manipulate the economy
Old: Fraud
New: Monetary Policy (But what if your monetary policy is fraud?)

Penalizing one race in order to benefit another
Old: Institutional Discrimination
New: Affirmative Action (That sounds so much more affirmative, doesn't it?)

When a country invades another country, and the people of the invaded country fight back with whatever means they have against a vastly superior occupying (peacekeeping!) force
Old: Resistance; Partisans
New: Terrorist Attack (Because people wanting to defend themselves must obviously be terrorists)

People in your own country who are so upset at the government, they decide to speak out against said government and inform their fellow citizens of the abuses in order to protect their country from their government
Old: Patriots
New: Domestic Terrorists (See Previous)

Blindly following one's own government
Old: Apathy
New: Patriotism (I guess you could say a patriot is someone who doesn't care enough to hate anything)

Trying to take away the guns of your citizens
Old: Tyranny
New: Gun Control (Because if you have gun control, it sounds like you're only trying to control the Guns, when you are, in fact, trying to control the people)

Using drugs, buying a gun, eating food that isn't approved by the FDA, etc.
Old: Freedom
New: Crime (Most people don't know what 'freedom' means any more, but crime is very concrete -- something you can be arrested for)

An agency that has the license to kill without severe reprisal, can listen in to your private communications, and enjoys the force of law behind its actions.
Old: Secret Police; Organized Crime
New: FBI; Crime Prevention (See previous, since most people regard crime as bad, anything to prevent crime must inherently be good -- even if it is crime itself)

Forcing people to pay over a half of their earnings to people who have declared themselves fit to govern you.
Old: Serfdom; vassalage
New: Income tax (Actually serfs were only required to pay 1/6 of their earnings to their masters, not 1/2)

Someone in your own country who is accused of doing something against the law
Old: Accused Criminal
New: Enemy Combatant (After all, the accused still have rights -- if only Hitler would've called the Jews 'enemy combatants' -- they could've avoided all of that Nuremberg War Crimes bullsh*t)

Someone who, despite $25,000-$40,000 a year in government aid, is still addicted to drugs and cannot get a job, a girlfriend, or his life back together.
Old: Bum
New: Economically Disadvantaged Person (Calling a person a "Bum" implies that the person is a moocher that is too lazy to get a job. "Economically Disadvantaged" removes this stigma, and implies that he would be a perfectly normal citizen if only the government would give him more money).

A place with frequent violence, probably drug dealing, poverty, lack of education, and all around not a good place to live
Old: Ghetto
New: Economically Disadvantaged Area (Same rationale as the previous one)

When people decide to leave these aforementioned Economically Disadvantaged Areas in order to improve their own lives
Old: Opportunity-Seeking
New: White Flight; Greed; Racism (After all, if we didn't have white people to blame in economically disadvantaged areas, maybe we'd actually have to WORK! And get JOBS! And go to COLLEGE! The horror!)

When an organization takes much of your money, "invests" it in a fund and promises to pay you back later, but then doesn't give you the amount of money you put in, meanwhile, said organization takes money from other people to pay you, and so forth and so forth until it ceases to have people to rip off
Old: Pyramid Scheme; Fraud; Swindling; Crime
New: Social Security (We can't be too secure, can we?)

When the government gives special tax breaks, contracts, and subsidies to corporations with political clout
Old: State-Capitalism; Fasicsm; Monopoly
New: Contracting (It's one of those offer-you-can't refuse type things)

A WORD FROM THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH: It's perfectly fine to bomb the hell out of Muslims, just make sure you don't offend them along the way.