Some Useful Definitions to Understand Our Modern Progressive World1,2
Broccoli
Definition: Something they can’t “mandate” you buy but apparently can still tax the hell out of you and
make you buy. See also "difference without a distinction."
Failed Policies of the Past
Definition: Limited government, free markets, personal responsibility, liberty.
We Are All In This Together
Definition: For the love of God who do we tax back to the stone-age to get out of this!?
Social Darwinism
Definition: Essentially a darling concept of the progressive left of the first half of the 20th century (along
with eugenics its even more vile cousin). It now is defined as "any attempt by conservatives and
libertarians to rein in the unsustainable spending of out of control government."
Fairness
Definition: A word used to motivate making sure outcomes do not match abilities or effort. Note, pre1970 it meant roughly the opposite.
Social Justice
Definition: Redistribution based on group affiliation, regardless of anything the actual individuals in
question did, or even their specific ancestors did, but instead based on the actions of other individuals in
the past who just kind of looked vaguely like those in the relevant groups being discussed now, both
victim and oppressor. Also applies to redistribution of any kind, whether based on actual unfairness, or
on simply outcomes liberals do not like.
Alternative definition: Unspecific. Just a meaningless phrase that screams “I am liberal and this phrase
sounds liberal and nice with just a hint of revolutionary sexiness.”
Antonym: Justice (which, even if it must be applied broadly to address real group-wide wrongs, is
always and everywhere an individual notion)
1
Many written sarcastically as a faux left-winger, some just conservative/libertarian interpretations of what the left
really means.
2
For more of a slightly more serious nature please visit www.stumblingontruth.com.
The Phrase “Deny Access to…”
Used in a sentence: “It is unfair to deny access to healthcare to 26 year olds living off their parents.”
Definition: When a person isn’t given something they want for free, and they have not found a way to
steal it yet, they have been “denied access” to it. In general it is the “1%” that “denies access.” See
“1%” below.
Entitlement
Definition: Something provided by other men and women’s labor that some claim as their right,
sometimes claiming to have paid for it during their lifetime, when all forms of modern mathematics and
accounting reject that notion.
Rights
Used in a sentence: “I have a right to healthcare.”
Definition: A more extreme form of “entitlement” defined above. Note that modern usage throws out
the long tradition of natural rights only of a negative nature, that is, the right not to have something
done to you, for rights of a positive nature, that is, the right to certain goods and services, like health
care, Apple products, and soy milk. Since, no matter how important these items are, these modern
positive rights must still be produced and taken from others, essentially the word “rights” now often
stands for a system of slavery and theft.
Main Street
Definition: A place liberals used to ridicule as Mayberry but now pretend to love.
Regular Americans
Definition: People who support me.
Special Interests
Definition: People who support you.
Fat Cat
Definition: Something a politicians calls someone with 3x more money than the median voter who
supported the politician in question.
Alternative Definition: Someone the same exact politician hits up for cash.
The 1%
Definition: Those who pay more than 1/3 the total federal income tax and are never thanked but instead
vilified for it. More generally, they are responsible for all evil in the world today (unless they work in
Hollywood or hi-tech in which case they are “honorary 99%-ers” regardless of income, tax rate, and
lifestyle).
Middle-Class
Definition: A focus-group tested better word than “the poor” for progressives to use to advance their
statist schemes. Some speeches by progressives now consist of just saying it over and over again in
different hypnotic musical tones.
Income Inequality
Definition: What occurs when a free and productive economy includes people with different abilities,
work habits, and, of course, luck. Also, one of the main reasons anyone actually works at anything.
A Fair Tax System
Definition: One in which the “rich” (i.e., those making more than the speaker of these words, or those
voting for the speaker) pay 50% more than they currently pay, and the speaker and his constituents get
to pay 50% less than they currently pay. These figures remain unchanged despite any starting tax rates.
If this change pushes the “rich” to over 100% or the non-rich to below 0% more the fairer.
Julia
Definition: The person living the ideal progressive life where no responsibility is taken, no risk is taken,
the government perks are endless, you never see who pays for it, and the tyrannical hand of big-brother
never makes it into the cartoon narrative.
Synonym: Sheep
Antonym: Men
Citizens United
Definition: The ultimate evil Supreme Court decision (narrowly defeating Dred Scott) which expanded
free speech, thus allowing those with money to, uh, speak freely.
SCOTUS
Definition: A delicious breakfast treat that goes well with English Breakfast tea and clotted crème.
Conservatives prefer theirs in the traditional 9 pack, liberals enjoy up to 15.
Elizabeth Warren
Definition: An “Elizabeth Warren” is any brilliant scholar who both thinks we can fix the U.S. financial
system simply by adding another giant bureaucracy with near unlimited power, and who can, by dancing
vigorously in a circle, make it rain. Both equally as likely.
The IMF and/or the World Bank
Definition: Nobody knows. See SMERSH and KAOS for similar definitions.
The European Financial Crisis
Definition: A complex multi-year dance whose sole purpose is to see how much money can be shaken
out of the German middle-class.
Medicare for All
Definition: The system formerly known as universal health care.
Universal Health Care
Definition: The system formerly known as single payer.
Single Payer Health Care
Definition: The system formerly known as socialized medicine.
Socialized Medicine
Definition: Something Democrats claim they don’t want, as they simply want Medicare for All.
Nobel Peace Prize
Definition: A prize awarded to the left’s favorite person that year.
Antonym: Any prize having anything to do with actual Peace, or frankly accomplishment of any kind.
Stimulus
Definition: Taking money from current and future Americans to undertake projects that didn’t make
sense before, don’t make sense now, will net cost jobs as the stimulus must be paid for privately, but
since the job losses will be hidden, and the direct hires put on the evening news, might let those in
charge keep their cushy jobs a bit longer.
World War II
Definition: Mainly important as proof that Keynesian stimulus works (side note: also led to defeat of
Nazis and Imperial Japan). Since it is the only such “proof” ever, and we all have nuclear weapons now,
different options are being considered for future stimuli. Actually, since World War II ending did not
crash the economy as Keynesians predicted at the time, frankly we’re rethinking the whole thing.
Cash for Clunkers
Definition: What we came up with to replace World War II as stimulus. Many perfectly good cars
destroyed, no Nazis defeated.
Quantitative Easing
Definition: The act of printing pieces of paper to purchase other pieces of paper and thinking it matters
at all for anything. See “dogs chasing cars” for related examples.
Austerity
Definition: Spending much more than ever before but slightly less than you had once thought you might
spend which itself was a completely insane amount to spend.
Synonym: Profligacy
Paul Ryan
Definition: A “Paul Ryan” is a Hollywood monster which kills and devours old people simply by showing
them a preliminary reasonable plan to grow spending slower than we currently are, while keeping any
obligations already made to the elderly.
Grand Bargain
Definition: An agreement to raise taxes now while tacitly agreeing to waive the corresponding spending
cuts later. Usually done in at least a 10:1 ratio as waiving 10x the future cuts is a particularly effective
amount of waiving.
Reform
Definition: To make something (e.g., government) bigger, more intrusive, less efficient, and more
dictatorial.
Bipartisan
Definition: We found one old sap from the other party dying for one last shot at relevance who will add
his name to our highly partisan effort.
Dodd-Frank
Definition: A verb, to “Dodd-Frank” something is to use the perpetrators of a major crime to fix things
for next time. Like taking ex-computer hackers and putting them in charge of your security (this
example is not perfect as this might actually work).
Used in a sentence: “We really Dodd-Franked that financial reform.”
See also “Searching for the real killers.”
Right Wing Extremist
Definition: Someone objecting in any way to left wing extremism.
Conservative
Definition: Moron
Liberal
Definition: A word that when applied to yourself conveys an instant halo of goodness that does not have
to be justified with actions, logic, or even the slightest examination of what the policies you support
have wrought. Works particularly well for rich hypocrites (Wall Street) and rich morons (Hollywood).
Progressive
Definition: A rebranding of “liberal” post-Dukakis, going back to an older word, that means essentially
the same thing, but contains the very positive word “progress” within it, and the always welcome “ive”
ending.
Libertarian
Definition: A philosophy held by annoying bastards who happen to be right about nearly everything.
Fortunately, due to the frustration that comes with being right about nearly everything, in a world
wrong about those same things, there are only 19 of them, and we’re going to find the bastards soon.
The Party of No
Definition: Legislators who are rightly demonized by the press and progressives for being elected to
bring down the size of government and then actually trying to do so. Sons of bitches.
Synonyms: Obstructionists, Do-nothing Congress
The Buck Stops There
Definition: Something Barack Obama says about George W. Bush.
Foreign Policy
Definition: A process where the USA makes amends to the rest of the world for being more successful
than them, footing many of their bills, and shedding our blood to keep them safer and freer.
Due Process
Definition: Something progressives get misty over when Henry Fonda is being denied it on the silver
screen and when in power they deliver at the end of an explosive drone after Judge David Axelrod
pronounces the target guilty.
Climate
Definition: A non-linear chaotic system that is a near-perfect example of something that is very very
difficult, even using modern methods, to explain or forecast. This in no way takes away from the
possible reasonableness of man-made climate change described below. Though, one might note, we get
frustrated by weathermen as they can’t forecast the climate today.
Global Warming
Definition: What we now call “climate change”. Global warming was phased out as it also leads to
things being too cold, and sometimes being just right. Mama Bear has been replaced with a highly
volatile mix of all three bears.
Climate Change
Definition: The fact that over time the climate, uh, changes.
Man-Made Climate Change
Definition: The entirely reasonable idea that seven billion industrialized humans may be affecting the
climate.
Krypton Seven Seconds Before Kal-El Was Launched Into Space
Definition: The stage liberals are certain the Earth is at.
Jor-El
Definition: Both a character once played by Marlon Brando and coincidentally the fictional character Al
Gore pictures himself as. Nobody listened to Jor-El and look what happened! A fascinating additional
coincidence is that when Brando was alive, Marlon and Al alone actually omitted ¼ of the USA’s
greenhouse gases.
Infinity
Definition: The amount progressives will spend to combat man-made climate change without any
assessment of the costs and benefits of these actions.
The Green Agenda
Definition: The additional use of man-made climate change, even if it’s fully true and it makes economic
sense to sacrifice to fight it, to have government and its anointed priests take over much more of our
lives. Any questioning of it is absolute proof of evil. Children must be indoctrinated in it in grade school
before reading or writing or arithmetic. They must then be sent to spy on and lecture their parents.
Resistance is futile.
Ronald Reagan
Definition: Right wing extremist President who kicked people off welfare which progressives said would
be a holocaust, radically broadened free trade which progressives say has since killed American
manufacturing, and whose administration perpetuated the horrible banking deregulation progressives
say brought on the financial crisis.
Bill Clinton
Definition: The guy who actually did those things right above (though Reagan did some other cool
things). Oddly today’s Democrats insist that it’s Republicans who’ve changed and gotten “way more
extreme” since the 1990s.
Trickle Down Economics
Definition: A brilliant marketing phrase for denigrating the truth: that a freer economy helps everyone.
Not to be confused with “trickle up poverty” a perfect definition of socialism.
Democracy
Definition: An excellent form of government where if you can cobble together 51% of the people, by
promising them other people’s stuff, or scaring them that you’ll take away their stuff, you can rule as a
dictator. It is decidedly not the form of government originally chosen by the United States of America,
which is a constitutional republic with limited government. Thankfully we’ve mostly done away with
that nonsense.
Socialism
Definition: A word that is a hate crime if used about an American politician who wants us to be more like
Europe. Or, alternatively, a word used by many European politicians to define themselves.