john santangelo (July, 2010) Language and Politics: How the use and mis-use of words affects our freedom
The last couple of years, I am sure you have noticed, that words either don't mean anything or do not mean what we grew up knowing and believing they mean.
Words that we considered “good” are now being used against us.
And, it is our fault.
We have allowed the morphing of good to bad or evil.
In the day of our founding fathers words were used to communicate.
The power of the word was to convey an idea and ideal, integrity or direction through the proper use of vocabulary in speech and the written word.
Let's take a few minutes to look at several words that are being misused today. I have taken some time to research ‘original’ words in a Webster 1925, 79 and 87 dictionaries as well as an online.
The first problem we run in to is: Political Correctness.
Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term which denotes ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, disability, and age-related contexts.
However the term politically incorrect has been used as an implicitly positive self description.
So, in this context, we see ourselves as politically incorrect even though being open, honest and making accurate statements should, in fact, be politically correct.
PC is the most manipulated term directly affecting our lives today.
So, I will follow with a few words that particularly come to the forefront.
Deserve: the dictionary definition
To earn by service; to be worthy of (something due, either good or evil); to merit; to be entitled to; as, the laborer deserves his wages; a work of value deserves praise.
Prior to the 70’s society used the word in its true meaning. Examples: If a person owns a home or a car or appliances or whatever it is something they could take pride in. They saved and paid cash. They earned it.
After the 70’s we started to see through advertisement and various media, that as Americans we deserved the items we wanted. We took out loans, started using credit cards. We deserved everything the magazines, TV or print media pitched to us. We lost sight of the pride of ownership and for working hard toward a goal of buying with our hard earned money.
This words has lost it’s merit. This word is now used by government as a right. Many people who believe they deserve whatever new right the government has now said they are entitled to, have not earned or labored to receive it. This in itself has cheapened our society.
Rights:
According to the law or will of God; conforming to the standard of truth and justice; righteously; as, to live right; to judge right.
That seems forthright. Our rights do not come from government sources. Never should have. We have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as enumerated in the Constitution. They come with great responsibility. What we make of those rights are our independent choices and judgment.
Entitlement:
Definition: A right granted by law or contract, especially to financial benefits from the government”.
Entitlement is over exercised word today.
By definition this word is being used as stated but to our great detriment as the determined government is creating new rights. So, you may say the unworthy may now deserve the entitlement.
Bully:
A noisy, blustering fellow, more insolent than courageous, who threatens, intimidates, or badgers people who are smaller or weaker than he is; an insolent, tyrannical fellow.
Bullies seldom execute the threats they deal in.
Do you feel bullied lately? This is not the first time in our history that we have had a bully government. But, the bullies are everywhere.
Racism:
Racism is the belief that the genetic factors which constitute race are a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
As a practice, it means the same thing as racial discrimination. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or receive preferential treatment.
We, in this room, are being considered racist by our government. How is that? And we sit quietly by and allow this. Does any one here actually believe that a person is flawed or less that a human being based on race? We are allowing the bullying and the government believes we deserve it so is this now an entitlement? To be politically correct we need to walk the walk, speak the truth and be the people that our founders' were, to over come this tyranny being waged against us.
Democracy:
Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people. Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic. Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of government. The principles and policy of the Democratic party, so called.
Republic:
A state in which the sovereign power resides in the whole body of the people, and is exercised by representatives
Rule by majority without tyranny to the minority. In a republic form of government there are rules protecting the minority.
Such as: our County Council has a rule that allows a minority of three to call for a public hearing. In the legislature 12 members can call for a role call vote and 18 can call any bill or resolution out of committee.
That is what makes us difference from a democracy. The minority view is always a part of the solution.
Is that what is happening now?
It is our responsibility to not give up on our republic.
Resilience:
The act of springing back or rebounding. The power or inherent property of returning to the form from which a substance is bent, stretched, compressed, or twisted; elasticity.
In the big government environment of today, that requires change to the smaller, the more sensitive, change to the more accountable and ethical.
This change can only be brought about by resilient people. What I mean by this is the people who are financially independent (not buried in debt) who have a reality to see the true dangers and are prepared. We going to go through hard times and we need to be that strong individual who have helped themselves and who can now reach out and help another. Whose word is his bond, means what he says and says what he means. A person of integrity.
If we will become independently strong this way and join together we can then affect the real change America needs: RESTORATION.
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Having said all this I would like to take a few minutes to relate to you what can happen when real, resilient people who have integrity whose word is their bond can effect change in a harsh and challenging world.
This started by them pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
The Declaration of Independence
I feel it would be prudent to recollect the day which gave rise to the time of the ultimate penning of that great document, and also of the great sacrifices that were put forward to give birth to this great nation.
Have we as a people forgotten what sacrifices were made so that we can live the life of freedom, which is our privilege today? Can we honestly say that we would defend our freedoms with the same zeal and fervency with which our forebears fought to secure them for us, their posterity?
A letter from Dr. Benjamin Rush (signatory of the Declaration of Independence)
".. [Concerning the celebration of the 4th of July, 1811,]
Scarcely a word was said of the solicitude and labors and fears and
Sorrows and sleepless nights of the men who projected, proposed,
Defended, and subscribed the Declaration of Independence. Do you
Recollect your memorable speech upon the day on which the vote was
Taken? Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence, which pervaded
The house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of
The President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at
That time to be our own death warrants?..." A letter from Benjamin
Rush to John Adams
It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from
the southeast. Up especially early, tall, bony, redheaded young
Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three
pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife,
who was ill at home.
Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was
72.5: and the horseflies weren't nearly so bad at that hour. It was a
lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were
comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but
they would not be used today.
The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room
became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling
voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the
windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of
horseflies. Jefferson records that "the horseflies were dexterous in
finding necks, and the silk of stocking was as nothing to them." All
discussion was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.
On the wall at the back, facing the President's desk, was a
panoply--consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort
Ticonderoga the previous year. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had
captured the place, shouting that they were taking it "in the name if
The Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"
Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure
about which there was discussion but no dissension. "Resolved: That an
application be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a
supply of flints for the troops at New York."
Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole, The
Declaration of Independence was read aloud once more, and debate
resumed. Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had
been somewhat verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They did a
good job, as a side-by-side comparison of the rough draft and the
final text shows. They cut the phrase "by a self-assumed power."
"Climb" was replaced by "must read," then "must" was eliminated, then
the whole sentence and soon the whole paragraph were cut. Jefferson
groaned as they continued what he later called "their depredations."
"Inherent and inalienable rights" came out "certain unalienable
rights” in" and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant
change.
A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated,
leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of wrangling, the document
was put to a vote.
Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: "I am no longer a
Virginian, Sir, but an American." But today the loud, sometimes bitter
argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to
south by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration
of Independence was adopted.
There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered.
The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the
full calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they
worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day.
Much to lose
What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who,
by their signing, committed an act of treason against the Crown? To each of us the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock,
and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers.
Who were they? What happened to them?
I imagine that many are somewhat surprised at the names not there:
George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Patrick Henry.
All were elsewhere.
Ben Franklin was the only really old man.
Eighteen were under 40;
three were in there 20s.
Of the 56, almost half--24--were judges and lawyers.
Eleven were merchants,
9 were land-owners and farmers,
and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.
With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property.
All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities.
They had economic security as few had in the 18th century.
Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it.
John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head.
He signed in enormous letter so "that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward."
Ben Franklin wryly noted: "Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately”.
Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts:
"With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone."
These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging.
And remember: a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.
They were sober men. There were no dreamy eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here.
They were far from hot-eyed fanatics, yammering foreign explosion. They simply asked for the status quo.
It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought.
They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.
It was principle, not property that had brought these men to Philadelphia.
Two of them became presidents of the United States.
Seven of them became state governors.
One died in office as vice President of the United States.
Several would go on to be U.S. Senators.
One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers (it was he, Francis Hopkinson--not Betsy Ross--who designed the United States flag).
Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776.
He was prophetic is his concluding remarks:
"Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to
devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living
example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted
shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose. If we are not this day wanting in
our duty, the names of the American legislators of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and
ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens."
Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and
it was not until August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration.
William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the Signers’ faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage.
He saw some men sign quickly, "but in no face was he able to discern real fear." Stephen Hopkins, Ellery's colleague from Rhode Island, was
a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: "My hand trembles, but my heart does not.
"Most glorious service”
Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason.
All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes.
All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.
Francis Lewis, New York delegate, saw his home plundered and his estates, in what is now Harlem, completely destroyed by British soldiers.
Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality.
Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.
William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they
lived as refugees without income for seven years. When they came home, they found a devastated ruin.
Phillips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home.
Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.
Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken.
For seven years he was barred from his home and family.
John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in
the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his Homestead.
Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home,
he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away.
He never saw them again.
He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.
Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton.
The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college.
They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.
Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The
family found refuge with friends, but a sympathizer betrayed them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton's parole, but his health was ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the Revolution.
His family was forced to live off charity.
Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington's appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made
and raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton.
In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry.
George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home,
but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.
John Morton, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania.
When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him.
He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were:
"Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I rendered to my country."
Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland.
As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.
William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.
Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the
military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage.
He and his young bride were drowned at sea.
Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege
of Charleston. They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for indignities. They were
exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their large land holdings and estates.
Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in
Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters
into Nelson's palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched.
Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and asked,
"Why do you spare my home?" They replied, "Sir, out of respect to you."
Nelson cried, "Give me the cannon!" and fired on his magnificent home, smashing it to bits. But Nelson's sacrifice was not quite over.
He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress
refused to honor them, and Nelson's property was forfeited.
He was never reimbursed.
He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.
Lives, fortunes, honor
Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war.
Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment.
Several lost wives, sons or entire families.
One lost his 13 children.
Two wives were brutally treated.
All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes.
Twelve signers had their homes completely burned.
Seventeen lost everything they owned.
Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word.
Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create, is still intact.
And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark.
He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to the infamous British prison hulk afloat in
New York harbor known as the hell ship "Jersey," where 11,000 American captives were to die.
The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father.
One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won,
no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request
When they offered him his sons' lives if he would recant and come out for the King and parliament.
The utter despair in this man's heart the anguish in his very soul must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer:
"No."
The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast
when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history.
"And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence,
we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."