The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

More entries keep coming in, and they are of pretty high quality. Herre is a anotheer good one, this from Kate Shaw:

One of the words (next to "disenfranchised") that causes me to grind my teeth is the word "disadvantaged". The dictionary defines 'advantage' this way:

advantage: noun. 1. advantage, reward; benefit resulting from some event or action; "it turned out to my advantage"; "reaping the rewards of generosity"

Yet those who use the word "disadvantaged" seldom mean "lack of benefit due to NOT performing some event or action (such as getting up, getting dressed, packing a lunch and heading off to work)." They mean that the 'disadvantaged' person lacks Goodies that, by implication, they are owed. This follows on another permutation of the same ilk: "less fortunate", and invites us to believe that "fortune" and "advantage" is something that is sifted down upon us from Heaven, regardless of our personal actions, and our "disadvantage" is due solely to the fact that we happened to be standing in the wrong place when the Cosmic Lotto Tickets were scattered from On High.

People who lack Goodies can be many things: poor decision makers, lazy, uneducated, broke; they may even have decided to spend their money on cigarettes, beer, hard drugs or the slot machines instead of on those Goodies of which they are "disadvantaged". But more likely they are simply envious and jealous of those who have "advantages" without having any idea how those advantages were gained.

"Disenfranchised" means "deprived of the right to vote." However, when Race Warlords and Liberal Social Workers use this word, they generally mean something much more like "not being permitted to advance up the social ladder." Again, this disenfranchisement is something that is simply sifted down upon some people by an uncaring Heaven, and has no relationship to anything the "disenfranchised" may be doing or not doing.

Those are my two and I'll be interested to see what other people come up with.

Yes, and I will get to the remainder in the rest of the week.