The broader tactic is redefining the meaning of words to claim the moral high ground in a debate. They steal the entire intellectual history of a concept by just redefining it to support their argument.
Yes, language is evolving, and dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. But the idea that you can use words in whichever way you want, and any misunderstanding is the listener's problem, is just shitting at the idea of communication, and nothing but a thinly veiled power grab.
The reality is that when you're in power, you can use words in whichever way you want. This is what power means. Only now has is become so obvious that people can't help but notice.
Without strict controls over who is and isn’t allowed in our culture we’re left with a “at your feet or at your throat” predicament. Subversive individuals are death to a culture (the thing Popper was referring to in the paradox of tolerance - you have to draw the line at life or death, not simply because you disagree). Trust is everything.
Popper was an idiot and his "Paradox Of Tolerance" can only lead to tolerance becoming the only permissible value and therefore decline, since tolerance is the absence of values. His university colleagues held him in such disregard that they threatened to quit unless he was cast out. Truly the patron saint of midwits and leftist.
It's a topic very dear to our hairy little monkey hearts.
Note: as a non-native speaker, I have no idea what is problematic about the word "spade". I have only ever seen it to mean either a tool for digging or a type of sword, but I will take them at their word that it does have some other meaning.
Or maybe it's that it's homophonous with 'spayed', language resists easy categorization.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rand-paul-anthony-fauci-sen...
"Up until recently, the NIH website had a section that discussed gain of function research, providing a broad definition of 'a type of research that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.'
On Oct. 20, the NIH removed that section from its website, replacing it with one that discusses 'enhanced potential pandemic pathogen' research, which it defined as 'research that may be reasonably anticipated to create, transfer or use potential pandemic pathogens resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility and/or virulence in humans.'"
The research funded was forbidden under the old definition, and so they just changed the definition after they did the research.