The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has dictated a new guide on how it wants people to speak. And it has tongues wagging!
The list of politically correct speech parrots the bonkers language of the progressive left and it’s Orwellian doublespeak that has been permeating culture on all levels for decades.
The diktat of Wrong Speak and its ‘suggested’ replacement language, “Preferred Terms for Select Population Groups & Communities,” can be found on the quasi-government organizations website headed by Rochelle Walensky. The intention of the document is for the new terms to be used everywhere from hospitals to schools to government agencies.
HE WHO CONTROLS LANGUAGE CONTROLS THE MASSES
The CDC has put together the bizarre list to protect people from “stigmatizing language.” While some of the suggested changes are only slight and could reasonably be argued to be more polite — the majority of the terms twist and sanitize words to the point of their very meaning becoming, well, meaningless.
Some examples include referring to ex cons as ‘people who were formerly incarcerated; illegal border crossers as ‘people with undocumented status’; and for all homosexuals to be brought under the flag of LGBTQ (or LGBTQIA or LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA2) despite the fact that the gay community as a whole is actually a broadly diverse group with individuals that often disagree and oppose woke culture.
Biochemist Dr. Robert Malone, a critic of the CDC word changes explains that the problem is that the CDC is pushing the idea that there should be no social stigmas. “That if one commits a crime, is in prison, is an addict, or is involved in behaviors that most find offensive or are illegal, it is not ok to use a term to directly describe that activity because societal judgment might hurt someone’s feelings,” writes Malone in a recent op-ed for the Brownstone Institute.
The often censored doctor goes on to argue that the CDC is, “afraid that we might hurt people’s feelings by using unapproved terms, and that this would lead to a threat to public health,” laments the good doctor.“This comes down to a new, popular opinion among mental health care professionals that ‘harmful language ultimately increases stigma on the individual, which reduces one’s belief in the ability to change as well as their motivation to ask for help,’” he concludes.
Eat your Words
THOUGHT CRIME CAN NOT EXIST — IF THERE ARE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS IT
GWU! has collected a clinical sampling of some of the CDC’s strangest perversions of language:
| Instead of this… | Try this… |
| Inmate | People/persons who are incarcerated or detained |
| Criminal | People who were formerly incarcerated |
| Disabled | People with disabilities/a disability |
| Alcoholics/abusers | Persons with substance use disorder |
| Smokers | People who smoke |
| Homeless people/the homeless | People experiencing homelessness |
| The poor/poor people | People/households with incomes below the federal poverty level |
| Mentally ill | People with a pre-existing behavioral health disorder |
| Illegal immigrants | People with undocumented status |
| Elderly | Older adults |
| Rural people | People who live in rural/sparsely populated areas |
| Homosexual/Gay | LGBTQ (or LGBTQIA or LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA2) |
This isn’t the first time that the public health agency has played with definitions. The CDC famously changed the definition of vaccine during the pandemic to leave out the part about a vaccine conferring immunity as the experimental mRNA gene therapy does not.
As 1984 author George Orwell argued, political language can be the most damaging when concepts and words are distorted by calling them something else. “Threats to freedom of speech, writing, and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect, and unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”
