Political correctness – groupthink at risk?

We continue to look at the 45 “no speaker” words proposed by the left-wing ThirdWay. They want the Woke and social justice warriors to self-censor. Now, we come to a third group. We looked at eleven on Friday, eight on Saturday, and after a couple of days away from the political keyboard, here are the next eight: “Organizer Jargon.”

Here at TPOL, we have to endure some of these in our daily (supposedly non-political) work and even in our spiritual life. Military acronyms and slang, financial patter, bureaucratese, and even legalese and religious cant is full of jargon. But specific to a particular profession or group, and therefore, difficult for outsiders to understand. This is bad politically: ThirdWay wants the Woke prophets to be understood by the general population. Not only to win them over, but to coddle and numb them.

Again, TPOL presents our thoughts on these words.

1. Radical transparency. Transparency in politics and government is good, right? So “radical” transparency must be better. Even if it makes no sense. Let us consider that “Overton window” weird idea. A window has glass, and that means it is transparent, right? How can we make it radically transparent? Clearly, we bust out the glass. Or we pretend to (by blocking or distorting vision through it. Either way, we are manipulating people and confusing them. Are the Woke fearful we might seem them as extreme?
2. Small ‘d’ democracy. Is this an attempt to divorce the Democratic Party from any idea of “real democracy.” (Which doesn’t bother us in the least; as lovers of liberty, we are opposed to democracy or anything that smacks of two wolves and a sheep having a “democratic vote” on what to have for lunch.) Perhaps it is a matter of branding and deception. Or they fear people might point out that the old parties (Demo and GOP) have been corrupting “democracy” for a very long time.
3. Barriers to participation. Democrats have made this common claim for decades: any policy that they do not like is a “barrier to participation” to various and sundry groups: the non-voters, the minorities, the poor, etc. But we note that many Woke and SJW actions are themselves barriers to participation by people who are opposed to them. Are they afraid that people will wake up to their shenanigans?
4. Stakeholders. We here at TPOL find this a highly-overused, bizarre, and irritating buzzword. Apparently inherited from gambling (someone who has a stake in the game, stakeholder are anyone claiming a right to dictate how someone should use their own land or run their own business. Not just the Woke, but the so-called conservatives and virtually all bureaucrats love this word. But while they claim to want “stakeholders” to speak out and write and express their concerns (and even why they might support something!), their ears are closed: they seem to constantly ignore the comments of the politically-incorrect “stakeholders.”
5. The unhoused. This apparently is contrasted to the more understandable “homeless,” but we actually hear “homeless” a lot more. Maybe they mean both words, which really are synonyms?
6. Food insecurity. (A closely related concept, food deserts, should be added, in our opinion.) This is so politically slanted and broad that it turns people off. If the politically-neutral and the Woke’s political opponents are turned off by phrases like this, they won’t listen to the SJW. And that, of course, is bad.
7. Housing insecurity. Like food insecurity, this term is used by the regressives to include people whom they see as likely to become “unhoused.” Why? Because there is a possibility that they have to earn enough money one week or one month to pay for the next week’s or month’s rent (or mortgage payment, or property tax.) Maybe that is why the SJWs shouldn’t use this word: it might be misinterpreted and applied to too many people: lots of folks who are not part of their privileged big-tent groups. And even worse, people who might recognize that government policies (and greed) are one of the biggest reasons people have to live from month to month. Even when they supposedly own their own house. (Example: In South Dakota (a red state), property taxes even on “middle-class” houses are rapidly approaching $3600 or more per year: that is $300+ per month: A quarter-century ago, that was the monthly rent payment for a fairly nice middle-income house.)
8. Person who immigrated. Surely it is not a benefit to the policy wonks and demagogues to replace a seven-syllable phrase with a mere three-syllable word. And surely they have no problem with such a passive-language phrase. So why? We don’t know: after all, it seems that they want the whole population of the world to become immigrants: Americans to flee the States due to Trumpophobia and everyone else to the States. And while we are at it, why don’t they try to get rid of “undocumented person” at the same time?

ThirdWay points out that these words convey the idea that the Social Justice Warriors, the vanguard of the People, are beholden to groups, not individuals. We are only able to be heard and treated rightly if we are part of a group, whether we want to be or not. Somehow, ThirdWay thinks that is a bad impression for the Woke to give others.

And that is indeed correct: Democrat politics, Woke political philosophy, and government only work well when people are important only as part of a group. Democracy (capitalized or not) is all about groups. Oh, yes, we are constantly told that an individual vote is very, very important. But in reality, that is true only if there is a large enough group that votes the same way. When everything – including all truth – is supposed to be decided by a majority (or a plurality), just one vote out of a hundred, a thousand, or a million has not value 99.99% of the time.

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