Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to re: Oh, I'm sooooo SORRY

"words mean what I want them to mean"
Robert — (archived)

...said Humpty Dumpty. And look how he ended up!

"Treason" has a known and precise definition. If you intend to speak the same English as everybody else, you have to use words according to their common meaning. And by "common" I don't mean cheap, I mean understood-in-common--a shared vocabulary. Debasing the language by trying to alter the meaning of words for political purposes is damaging to a society because it impedes communication and undermines the mutual understanding needed to maintain a shared society.

There are many synonyms for conservative displeasure with dissenting political opinions that aren't burdened with the special meaning of a capital crime. You could accuse your opponents of "disloyalty", for example. That would be a more honest word, too, because you'd then have to specify disloyalty to whom: "disloyalty to the political party in power". Of course, the honesty factor is why there's little hope that conservatives will abandon the sleazy use of "treason". Even Orwell and Goebbels would blush at the pervasive dishonesty of RightWing rhetoric these days.

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