We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode 232:  The Post-Election Battle -Disinformation Is Given Free Reign

232: The Post-Election Battle -Disinformation Is Given Free Reign

2020/11/7
logo of podcast Life Matters

Life Matters

Shownotes Transcript

Brian Johnston continually reminds us that the battle for the right to life is actually rooted in the battle of ideas. And in this battle of ideas they must be expressed through language, ideas must be embodied by words. 

Because of that, there is an ongoing battle over words and their meanings. It is a battle reaching a crescendo, an ongoing battle in which our entire culture is now immersed. 

Disinformation is the intentional relaying, retelling and re-emphasis of false information: false facts, false ‘truths’ and principles. We are currently witnessing a concerted attempt at a culture-wide disinformation campaign aimed at abandoning the foundational principles of our laws, culture, and society.

Brian examines, in-depth, the recent appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court. He examines the actual facts surrounding US Supreme Court appointments and the deliberate disinformation that has not only been inserted into the public debate, but is being re-emphasized and reenforced as somehow true.

Those who have been given the fiduciary trust to inform the public, not only news outlets and social media providers (who declare they offer a public service to the community of mutual communications (perhaps akin to the telephone system), but now these same public utilities of communications closely monitor and control what is said on this public communication system, social media. 

Most evident is the disinformation and redefinition of terms regarding language and knowledge which is so common now in the academic community.  The academic community and other factual information gathering agencies that have historically been focused on objective facts, were politically disinterested and moored in avoiding specific ideological battles. 

Alarmingly, even the most historically pristine outlet of communication, the dictionary, and other educational tools, are currently involved in this contorted effort to silence dissenting thought.  We are seeing outright disinformation and intentional manipulation of the words and subsequent thoughts in which the public engages. 

Nowhere is that clearer than the recent alacrity with which the English language itself was intentionally assaulted with great vigor and animus. 

During the Amy Coney Barrett Senate Judiciary hearings, Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii declared that Mrs. Barrett was a bigot and an unworthy justice due to her use of the term, “sexual preference” in describing homosexuals. She asserted this as a disqualifying matter of her nomination.

Mrs. Barrett responded that she was sorry as she was completely unaware that the use of this term was somehow judgmental or bigoted. Yet Mrs. Barrett reflected the cultural norm, such that even pro-homosexual and gay publications had used the term earlier in the month. It was not used as a prejudicial or slanderous term, but a self-described term. 

The very night of Senator Hirono’s accusation, the online version of the Miriam-Webster dictionary changed the meaning of the term “sexual preference,” and delineated that it was a bigoted and prejudice slander of LBGTQ individuals. The dictionary was changed seemingly in concert with Sen. Hirono’s political attack!

The English language reflected in the Miriam-Webster dictionary itself was intentionally altered and declared outdated and bigoted - with the click of a mouse.  

A widely respected and heretofore accurate, politically disinterested compiler of English usage was intentionally and immediately used for the creation of political newspeak. George Orwell‘s description of a dystopic cultures language patterns was employed before the eyes of the world. 

Disinformation - intentional confusion, emotional punishment, slander and cultural banishment have become extremely common tools of the pro-death, anti-life culture which seeks to destroy our foundational ways of even thinking and reasoning. 

Brian reminds us that the war of ideas is very real and one of the principle tools is to create linguistic confusion, to twist the meaning of words and force cultural assent to these newly twisted terms. 

Etymologically speaking, the word “war” is an English word derived from Indo-European languages and specifically German Gothic. The word “war” in Gothic-German literally means “confusion.” 

It is vitally important that advocates for life and objective truth understand this tool of language and confusion in this war of ideas. 

The Goths themselves were the only nation to have defeated the Roman empire in battle. They used confusion. That is their meaning of “war.” 

The Roman empire and its impact on civilization is built on order and principles. This was reflected in the Roman legionaries method of war - working as a cohesive unit marching in phalanxes,  locking shields and repelling all comers. 

This could not be used in the forest of Germany and specifically at the battle of the Teutoburg forest in 9AD.  Three legions of Roman soldiers were completely destroyed as the Goth warriors used the confusion of forest warfare and “concerted disorder” to overwhelm those in the habit of thinking and operating logically and in an orderly fashion. This loss of so many Roman legions was the starting point of Rome’s decline as an imperial power although the implications were to be felt over centuries. 

Confusion and disordered thinking, lack of clarity in the use of words and language, and charged emotional exchanges are the methods regularly used by those who seek to overcome objective facts and self-evident truths. In the right to live is the first and foundational premise of the self-evident truths.

It must be fought for and defended in this battle of ideas.