The Most Pointless Political Buzzwords and Phrases

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Hi all. Let's talk about political buzzwords.

A buzzword is a word/phrase that sounds nice on the surface, but is really meaningless. I totally understand why people use buzzwords in political debates. If you are in a political debate and you are starting to feel emotional, it's hard to think. Thus, you can make the debate easier if you rely on buzzwords ... even though this lowers the overall quality of the dialogue.

Word of Advice: If you are in a political debate and you feel the urge to fall back on meaningless words and phrases, it's best to just get out of the debate for a while and do something completely different to cool off your head. I won't judge you for that. Really.

Today, I want to talk about some of the most meaningless political words and phrases that I'm sick of hearing. I'm going to cover both the right and the left here because I'm not a left-wing fundamentalist.

Right-Wing Buzzwords

Self-reliance: I went over this in another thread. The right-wing concept of "self-reliance" is wonky and raises too many questions. Hunter-gatherers are, arguably, more self-reliant than capitalists. Strangely, most modern right-wingers have little respect for the wild huntsman even though he is a living embodiment of self-reliance. Additionally, most modern right-wingers seem to respect the CEO more than the farmer even though a farmer can theoretically be completely self-reliant whereas a CEO cannot. A hard-working farmer can theoretically feed himself using only his own home-grown food, whereas a CEO is nothing without his employees and his customers.

Family Values: The phrase "family values" is almost always a cover for homophobia. Some gay kids get rejected by their families for being gay. Is that "family values"? When Abraham nearly sacrificed his own son, was that "family values"?

"Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn A man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household."
- Matthew 10:34-36

Free Market: In "socialist" countries like Sweden and Norway, people buy and sell things all the time. Apparently, a "free-market economy" is an economy in which poor people are starving. The economy in Victorian England was fairly close to a free market. It was horrible. Socialism was created in response to this system. In other words, if you want a "free market", you want to recreate the social conditions that inspired the Communist Manifesto in the first place. Nowadays, communism has become a fringe ideology because starvation is no longer the main flaw in the capitalist system.

Climate Skeptic: The vast majority of people who call themselves "climate skeptics" are people who refuse to believe in anthropogenic global climate change in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. Skepticism and denial aren't the same thing. The scientific community has already concluded that anthropogenic climate change is real and extremely dangerous. The scientific community isn't always right, but they have a better track record than any other source of truth because they rely on evidence and careful experimentation.

Left-Wing Buzzwords

Diversity: Science has proven that race isn't real! https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Racialism

We have science on our side! We don't need to hide behind silly buzzwords!

Additionally, algebra was invented in the Middle East. It was originally called al-jabr. Mexican immigrants are good for the American economy because they do so much work. Transgendered people literally have different brain structure due to abnormal fetal development, which is why gender dysphoria can't be "cured".

See? We have facts on our side! We shouldn't just mindlessly repeat terms like "diversity" and "tolerance". We tolerate human diversity for a reason! We have facts on our side and we should use them!

Love: I don't like it when aging hippies use "love" in a political context. Yuck. Our society should be grounded in logic and reason, not love.

Diversity is our strength: I've never liked this phrase. It implies that we are forcing diversity. We aren't forcing diversity. We are allowing it because we have no right to supress it. Diversity isn't really good or bad. It's an unavoidable part of the human condition. Supressing diversity is pointless and takes too much work. When people are allowed to do as they please, they will naturally do their own thing.

Mother Earth: Nature is not feminine. Nature is ridiculously manly. It's full of violence, pain, death and decay. Nature is very strong and can survive almost anything ... but individual species are delicate. Global Climate Change isn't killing nature. It's making nature mad at us.

I might add more when I can think of more.