If you’re going to San Francisco…be sure to brush up on your Newspeak
San Francisco believes in the power of language to change the world, or at least people’s perceptions of the world.
There’s something to that. Just think about how “illegal aliens” morphed into “illegal immigrants” which morphed into “undocumented migrants” which morphed into “migrants” which morphed into “if you don’t love them and welcome every single one to your shores you’re an evil Fascist.”
Or something like that.
So now that enemy of the Left otherwise known as the NRA is being labeled a terrorist organization by the Board of Supervisors of that city by the bay where we all left our hearts:
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed a resolution declaring the National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization” and urged the federal government to do the same…
“All countries have violent and hateful people, but only in America do we give them ready access to assault weapons and large-capacity magazines thanks, in large part, to the National Rifle Association’s influence,” the resolution says.
The document resolves to assess the relationships that those who do business with the city have with the group and says “the City and County of San Francisco should take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization.”
At this point there’s no chance the federal government will follow suit, but the SF Board of Supervisors is well aware of that. This is a combination of virtue-signaling and a call for economic repercussions—probably part of the same trends that caused Walmart to make a change in its gun policies recently.
The NRA has replied thusly:
This ludicrous stunt by the Board of Supervisors is an effort to distract from the real problems facing San Francisco, such as rampant homelessness, drug abuse and skyrocketing petty crime, to name a few,” the statement said, according to KTVU. “The NRA will continue working to protect the constitutional rights of all freedom-loving Americans.”
The San Francisco stunt underlines just how badly the NRA is needed. And the Democratic candidates are falling all over themselves in an attempt to advocate more and more stringent curbs on gun ownership, including extreme positions such as that of Beto O’Rourke. That’s why I wrote “At this point there’s no chance the federal government will follow suit.” At this point. But after 2020, all bets are off.
Right now the San Francisco powers-that-be aren’t just intent on hardening the language describing those organizations they hate. They are continuing to soften the language used to describe those they want to absolve of any wrongdoing. It used to be illegal immigrants (that is, illegal aliens), but I think they believe their work is complete in that arena. Now it’s criminals.
Excuse me, justice-involved persons, which makes criminals sound like people crusading like Superman for truth, justice, and the American way. This happened in July:
Crime-ridden San Francisco has introduced new sanitized language for criminals, getting rid of words such as “offender” and “addict” while changing “convicted felon” to “justice-involved person.”
The Board of Supervisors adopted the changes last month even as the city reels from one of the highest crime rates in the country and staggering inequality exemplified by pervasive homelessness alongside Silicon Valley wealth.
The local officials say the new language will help change people’s views about those who commit crimes.
That’s what’s so interesting. Will it change their views? Does it change their views? In other words, can you piss on someone’s leg and call it rain, and have that person believe you?
I don’t think most people are that gullible—at least, not right away. Jargon like this becomes something of a joke—at first. But social pressure and habit can get people to use the new language, and the city’s agencies have already adopted it:
The words “felon,” “offender,” “convict,” “addict” and “juvenile delinquent” would be part of the past in official San Francisco parlance under new “person first” language guidelines adopted by the Board of Supervisors.
Going forward, what was once called a convicted felon or an offender released from jail will be a “formerly incarcerated person,” or a “justice-involved” person or simply a “returning resident.”
Maybe soon they’ll greet the “returning resident” with Welcome Wagon baskets.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t calling prisoners “returning residents” make it sound as though prison is their natural, rightful home? Is that really what the city of San Francisco wants to convey to its convicted and incarcerated criminals?
More:
According to the resolution, 1 of 5 California residents has a criminal record, and words like “prisoner,” “convict,” “inmate” or “felon” “only serve to obstruct and separate people from society and make the institutionalization of racism and supremacy appear normal,” the resolution states.
This seems to me to be an admission that a disproportionate number of the people in prison in San Francisco are members of racial minorities. That fact cannot be wished away, but perhaps it can be languaged away by making it clear that these people are not at fault.
San Francisco is already a city so dominantly leftist and the population of that city so steeped in leftist groupthink that one would hardly think they need further linguistic coaxing. But you never can tell. And as San Francisco goes, so go many other blue cities, perhaps, until a critical mass is reached and the Overton Window has been shifted ever and ever leftward.
Newspeak lives.
How do sentient humans, even of the Communist mindset, ignore the ugly realities of the slide into Third World-like suffering and crime on their streets? What kind of mind ignores that by distorting language? It is to weep.
At least the author of that linked San Francisco Chronicle article finds those language changes re criminals risible:
I have been to SF many times over the last two decades.
The last time I was there was in 2016, and I shall NEVER go there again.
If I go to Northern California, I shall choose a route that does not pass within 20 miles of SF.
And since I live in LA, I have recently gotten the following immunizations
Hep A
MMR
TDAP
Typhoid
Flu
and will not go to a restaurant in downtown LA.
This sort of thing is why “red flag” laws are so dangerous. Gun owners who have never threatened anyone, but are NRA members, could be flagged and have their guns confiscated. This could be extended to anyone owning a gun, because such a person is potentially dangerous.
Angelo Codevilla: “Antifa Gives Progressives a Tin-Pot Dictator High”
https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/04/antifa-gives-progressives-a-tin-pot-dictator-high/
I am a lifetime member of the NRA and deeply offended by being compared to real terrorists like members of antifa.
“Democratic candidates are falling all over themselves in an attempt to advocate more and more stringent curbs on gun ownership, including extreme positions such as that of Beto O’Rourke. That’s why I wrote “At this point there’s no chance the federal government will follow suit.” At this point. But after 2020, all bets are off.” neo
Any attempt by a majority democrat Congress to nullify the 2nd amendment is a trigger wire for a civil war that will not end well for the left. That is because they have already eviscerated the rule of law and when legitimate redress of grievance is made impossible, violent redress of grievance is certain.
I betcha they would be appalled if Anti-Fa was named a terrorist group. Even though Anti-Fa is an organization that engages in violence and the NRA isn’t. (I imagine if some lefty read this they would have some warped reason to say NRA does and just blanket denial that Anti-Fa does.)
Speaking of Newspeak, Orwell’s point was that you control the language you control the argument. That’s true to a point. However, Gene Wolfe in his sci-fi novel series The Book of the New Sun had an interesting argument to that. The main characters are fighting a war against a totalitarian society where people can only talk through quotes from party approved literature. Their Mein Kampf or Communist Manifesto. Well, the characters and a prisoner are having a storytelling contest. The prisoner (translated by one of the other soldiers) manages to tell a story highly critical of his society with the language of the party approved literature. Wolfe’s point is that their is a level of thinking that’s beyond language and you can only control a person so much with newspeak.
If anything, the NRA is a moderating influence, which keeps people in the open and social. That said, the right to keep and bear arms… legs, a head, and life, shall not be infringed. The Second Amendment is antithetical to the Twilight faith, established Pro-Choice quasi-religion, but not, in principle, to the liberal (i.e. divergent) ideology. The same with so-called “progressives” (i.e. monotonically oriented), who may be forgiven in this time of the great… well, developing, with fits and starts, left-wing sectarian schism.
Why don’t they just vote to declare the Republican Party a terrorist organization? They can declare all Republicans persona non grata and require security checks with proof of appropriate political affiliation to allow entry.
There’s no limit to the ridiculous extremes…
The NRA focuses on firearm safety and marksmanship. The NRA-ILA focuses on lobbying for legislation that wants harsher senteneces for felons who are guilty of illegally owning a firearm. The NRA-PVT lobbies to support politicians that support the 2nd. Yeah, ‘terrorists’, This attack on the NRA is risible at best, lying nastiness in the worse.
I will never surrender a firearm or a single cartridge to anyone. FOAD.
“Why they just vote..”
Because they don’t want a target on their back. They know, if lucid, they are out gunned. I hope they bring it on. Don’t want to shoot fellow Americans, but they have brought this upon themselves. So be it. Reap what you sow.
Last night on Tucker Carlson, believe it or not, Bill DeBlasio made an appearance. After some agreement on a “robot tax,” Tucker started asking the Worst Mayor in New York History™ about his presidential positions. When they got to gun control, the WMINYH said he thought when it came time for the confiscation of “assault weapons” people would voluntarily turn them in. Tucker was incredulous. Then Tucker went after WMINYH over whether his bodyguards would give up their weapons. DeBlasio kept sputtering on about “But they’re sworn law enforcement officers” and “There’s no reason for civilians to have military weapons.” Watching DeBlasio evade answering the questions was hilarious.
BTW, why does no one mention that the first federal control legislation, the Militia Acts of 1792, required all able-bodied white (blacks were added after the Civil War) adult men to possess a military-grade firearm and ammunition.
There’s no balance in San Fran. Where there’s no significant opposing force, people continue pushing ever further in just one direction until they topple over.
Re Beto’s idea to mandate government “buybacks” of firearms: I can foresee someone protesting the expense of paying people to hand over their weapons, since the government does not pay people for other things it confiscates. Leftists may start with proposing “buybacks,” but I suspect such an event would end up being a compulsory confiscation, without any compensation but an adjuration to “be grateful you’re not getting jail time.”
**I mean, the government does not pay compensation for confiscated contraband, which guns would become under a Leftist government.
OKBecky;
“I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further.”
Re: Richard Saunders’ comment above –
So, if everyone would voluntarily surrender their guns, what NEED would there be for deBlasio’s “trained law enforcement officer” bodyguards to carry guns at all? Could it be because criminals would NOT voluntarily surrender their guns, and deBlasio doesn’t want to be victimized by them?
Every single time someone makes an argument for gun “buybacks” or their out-and-proud-evil sister gun confiscation, they ignore this contradiction. And it’s dead obvious to everyone else. Not everyone is going to want to own, much less to carry, a gun – but if SOME of the good people in society DO, then we all benefit from the deterrent factor of the bad people’s not knowing who might be standing right there and prepared to stop them from doing bad things. It’s like the herd immunity effect with vaccinations: the more trained and armed good people there are, the less of a foothold the bad people can gain.
(I just got my CC permit.)
So gov healthcare was when everyone had to pay for it… except the government which was immune, right?
And now gun confiscation affects everyone… except the armed guards of the political elites?
You American seem to fall for the same con, again, and again, and again, and think internet crazies are the problem. They aren’t the problem.