William Marvel: Forbidden English

Isn’t it interesting how often the words “hate” and “bigotry” appear in political discussion nowadays? They seem to be the verbal weapons of choice among “progressives” — a political faction I try not to confuse with liberals. Many commentators use the terms interchangeably, but liberals in the classical sense are merely advocates of liberty, equality and the application of reason rather than faith, all of which I wholeheartedly embrace. In the lower-case incarnation, liberals tend to be more socially and politically tolerant, and I’m usually still with them there. I can even identify with the term in relation to education, where I prefer broad academic disciplines to the wastefully premature specialization of vocational training so popular today.

So, although I shun political labels, I frequently find myself in agreement with genuine liberals, and with liberalism as an ideology. “Progressives,” in my lexicon, are the folks who have been masquerading as liberals for years, corrupting the term with a virulent social — and now openly socialist — agenda. They have driven much of the population to the political poles. The chief tactic of their campaign has been the demonization of those who disagree, and it has been extraordinarily effective in intimidating those who might otherwise speak out. That, in turn, has exaggerated the appearance of public concurrence by eliminating most of the more vocal opposition and marginalizing disagreement. That was a favorite method of suppressing dissent in German politics between the wars, and in the South during the Jim Crow era. It isn’t any more attractive when exercised by social justice warriors who believe (or at least pretend to believe) that they are crusading for a better world.