BrianGarst.com

A lot of phrases are being thrown about in the midst of the current health care debate.  Perhaps the most common is the sentiment that we need to control the costs of health care.

Both right and left agree that it is desirable to have health care cost less.  But controlling costs?  That implies centralized authority, that someone will wrangle greedy health providers and force them to lower costs.  It’s a decidedly statist vision.  Yet even those offering free market solutions often adopt such language. This is a mistake. While it might seem acceptable in the proper context to say that “competition would control costs,” it subtly cedes moral ground to the statists.

Such totalitarian language is common in America.  It’s routinely asserted that our presidents are elected to rule the country or manage the economy.  Both of these assertions are absurd, or ought to be, if taken literally.

There are probably many other great examples.  What other totalitarian terms or phrases have infiltrated and proliferated throughout our vernacular?