Confucius had it right. Today we see efforts to change the meaning of words to make them less offensive. The Political Correctness Police are out there trying to remove negative connotations from our language.

'Differently-abled' rather than handicapped or crippled. 'Vertically challenged' rather than short. 'Gravity challenged' rather than fat.

It's starting to sound a lot like George Orwell's 1984. 'Ungood' rather than bad. 'Plus-ungood' rather than really bad. 'Double plus-ungood' for really awfully bad.

If all negative meaning is removed, then there is no possibility of telling the difference between good and evil. This self-esteem crap the PC Police are pushing is something that should be quashed because it has no socially redeeming value what so ever. There are plenty of convicted murderers in prison with good self-esteem. There are plenty of airline pilots without self-esteem. In that context, self-esteem is highly overrated.

I want language to allow me to offend someone who richly deserves it. I want to be able to point to an evil SOB and say out loud, "That's one evil son-of-a-bitch! He/she should be taken out!" I want to be able to say, "This is not right and we can't let the bastards to get away with it!"

Whew! Sorry 'bout that. It's just one of my pet peeves. It cranked up my 'limited tolerance for the socially clueless PC crowd' anger.

It goes to show you that Confucius was way ahead of his time.

As I understand it liberal originally meant generous, as in "liberal quantities of alcohol". In other words it meant generous with your own money. Now, of course, it means generous with other people's money.

Isn't liberal derived from liberty ? Which makes it's use by socialists akin to the slogan "slavery is freedom".

Julias Shaw coined the term "Classical Patriot" a few days ago in an attempt to re-capture at least one word from the Orwellians.

Thucydides (Greek general and historian) came at it from the opposite direction, noting how after the revolt at Corcyra things got so bad that words completely reversed their meanings.

Can't remember the exact quotation, but it's Thucydides 3.81 or thereabouts.

Yes, 'liberal' means that befitting a free man, not a slave. So a liberal education used to mean an education for someone who didn't need to work, i.e. classics. Now it probably means social policy or social justice or some crap like that.