Ignorance is Bliss

One of my pet peeves is the politically correct alteration of traditional things-especially stories and songs. I scowl when I hear Church hymns changed, for example, from ``let me walk with my brother`` to ``let us walk with each-other`` or ``Men`` to ``We`` or ``All``. This is a bowing of the knee to post-modernism by what should be a traditional institution. Changing to ``more inclusive`` lyrics or wordings really makes me angry, because it means Liberalism has won the hearts and minds, has succeeded in altering our way of thinking. Semantics are important; they subtly determine our manner of thought, and Liberals have always won arguments by changing the usage and meaning of words. It is one of their more powerful techniques.

For example, they have changed the meaning of ``moral`` from following the virtuous religious tenants in a personally responsible way to holding the proper policy beliefs. As a result, Liberals were able to defend Bill Clinton as a moral man, despite his sexual piccadillos and blatantly immoral behavior, because he believed in ``moral`` positions i.e. universal health care, feminism, abortion, etc. The Left has deconstructed the word moral, changing it to mean something it clearly did not.

Another example is the way the Left has flipped the term ``choice`` from meaning deciding between options to meaning the ``right`` to an abortion (another deconstruction, that). Recently they have altered the term ``activist`` to mean, rather than an aggressive proponent of the radical agenda, an original constuctionist.

Patrick O`Hannigan, in a great piece at the American Spectator, points out that the bleeding heart libs have been doing this to our children, also, by changing nursery rhymes and songs. Much of this is done to protect the tender sensibilities of the Children (they worry about the old gray goose being dead, but not about Heather`s two mommies, or the fact that most 8 year olds know more about sex than their grandparents thanks to a sex and violence drenched culture.) But we mustn`t scar their fragile sensibilities; the children must be protected-from such unpleasantries as death and from the past.

Patrick states;

By shielding our children too much -- sealing them off from the ecotones in ourselves and in our culture, or acting as though begrimed splendor is all there is -- we raise journalists who write blithely about "immigration rights" without ever using the word "illegal," nationalists who see no problem with remixing an iconic anthem so that its opening line could be styled "Jose, can you see?" pundits whose friends all vote the way they do, historians who mythologize the "noble savage," priests who never preach on sin, and policy makers who confess themselves puzzled when crime rates go down as incarceration rates go up.

He`s right; only the very naive become Liberals or Democrats, and so it is important to keep these children naive and ignorant. After all, ignorance is bliss!