Merriam-Webster ‘Wokeness’ Betrays Founder’s Principles on Language and on Guns

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Yesterday, while delivering highly charged testimony during his homicide trial, Kyle Rittenhouse broke down sobbing while retelling the events that led to his shooting and killing two people during the Jacob Blake riots last year,” Not the Bee reported Thursday. “This was the response from Merriam-Webster, a 190-year-old U.S. corporation…”

Embedded into the report was a tweet from the publisher, linking to its “Words at Play” article titled “9 Words That Will Leave You Bamboozled Words to describe flimflammers, hucksters, and charlatans,” directing readers to the section that said:

The term ‘crocodile tears’ (a superficial display of anguish) comes from a medieval belief that crocodiles shed tears of sadness when killing their prey.

“Could not love you guys any more than I do,” a left-wing publicist tweeted in reply. “I love when @Merriam-Webster gets political … without getting political. Very clever,” another fan chimed in.

Since when is that the purpose of a dictionary, to “get political” and publicly presume a defendant is guilty before the jury has weighed in? To do so by attributing fabricated motives to his actions without evidence and that reflect nothing but their own subjective prejudices and politics?

It’s understandable when you see the mob being stirred up by perpetually disgruntled megamillionaire athletes like LeBron James, or idiot celebrities who would otherwise be waiting tables or parking cars if they hadn’t won the stage prop lottery.  It should not be so understandable when a supposedly non-biased academic reference source joins in.

Except it is when you consider how the venerable dictionary has been letting its inner-Marxist show for some time now, with this being but the latest low in a slide that’s been going on for years. So, while vigorously denying “promoting any particular viewpoint,” we see Merriam-Webster expanding their definition of racism to include the “systemic” narrative spin. The argument could be made that systemic racism does indeed exist—and has been weaponized to discriminate by conflating patriots who believe in liberty for all with “white supremacists.” Further conflating them with “domestic terrorists” sets the stage for the public to not just accept, but demand, the disarming of “extremists.”

We also see them “[t]aking a page straight out of 1984” and redefining “assault weapon.” While, as Founding era leader Tench Coxe observed, the people are entitled to “every terrible implement of the soldier” as a birthright, infringers in government who want all the power for themselves think otherwise. Lumping in rifles limited to semiautomatic fire allows treasonous politicians to further define them as “weapons of war that have no place on our streets,” and that in turn is an evolution of a strategy of calculated deception first plotted out in 1988 by the Violence Policy Center:

“The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

We see the further betrayal of that neutral “viewpoint” pledge in Merriam-Webster’s “Examples of assault weapon in a Sentence- Recent Examples on the Web.” They give two, one from The Los Angeles Times relating how “encouraged” Shannon Watts was with “voter response” to being swindled out of their rights, and the other a citation from The Christian Science Monitor blaming the end of the Clinton ban for a spike in Mexican border town violence.

We know the murderous Operation Fast and Furious “Gunwalker” plot such coordinated accusations were exploited for, and all the lies that were told in a sick attempt to disarm Americans that relied on guns being found next to dead Mexicans. Having gotten away with it by virtue of no one going to prison, the whole “blame lax gun laws” scam is being resurrected, with Bloomberg’s The Trace’s fingerprints all over it,  to spook low information/short memory voters.

The curious thing is Merriam-Webster’s obsession with perverting the language and its hostility to the uninfringed right of the people to keep and bear arms stands in direct contrast to the principles of its founder, Noah Webster. Back before the Supreme Court handed down its Heller decision, attorney, scholar, and author Stephen P. Halbrook used Webster’s writings as the authoritative source for defining the words in Second Amendment.

“For the answer, turn to Noah Webster,” Halbrook documented. “Modern contortions of language can’t change that meaning because we can still refer to Noah Webster.”

Historian and author David E. Young elaborates on Webster’s views on an armed citizenry:

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in American cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”

Old Noah sounded just like what the worthless woke heirs to his name would call an “insurrectionist” (and worse), doesn’t he? It’s surprising no one has demanded to tear down his statue, and that his name be “vanished” from his dictionary. As apologists for and promoters of tyranny, new management stands in direct opposition to their founder’s principles, just as so many in government are demonstrable enemies of that which they have sworn to uphold. Pointing that out does not make one “anti-government,” it just makes them anti-traitors in government.

Turning the language upside down and reversing its meaning is a key strategy used by totalitarians to achieve and maintain power, and keeping any opposition off balance by gaslighting and (remember the tactic VPC advised?) confusing a critical mass of the public. It’s what lets cultural Marxists get away with calling themselves “progressives.”

Or as George Orwell observed:

“The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.”

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.