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So the Center of Disease control has been forbidden to use the following words: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” See this Washington Post article.
This has created a big uproar amongst the elite, apparently. But you'd be hard put to put together a better list of politically correct vocabulary. These are the buzzwords of the "inner circle".

I'm not a Trump fan, but this has got to be a good thing. If you have to assert that what you are saying is evidence-based or science-based it probably needs to be propped up. Truth should be self-evident. Fetus is a term that removes the human aspect of an unborn child. A fetus is just a tumor in a woman's womb and within her power to remove if she considers it "malignant". Call it what it is--a BABY! Transgender is technically impossible in most cases, and is only a product of people's wishful thinking. Vulnerable? Those poor people need MY help--just another way of degrading part of the population. Entitlement? I have my rights. It may be at the cost of everyone else's rights, but I'm entitled to them. Diversity? I'll tolerate anything except intoleration. Don't try to take a stand for Truth around me, because that isn't politically correct anymore.

So we are being dragged back in time 150 years according to one commentator. Well, it might do a lot of people a lot of good to regain some old fashioned values.

The use of bureaucratic civil authority is a very, very poor method of promoting good values.

PeterG wrote:The use of bureaucratic civil authority is a very, very poor method of promoting good values.

Oh I agree with you. But I found this a unique admission of politically correct vocabulary and its uselessness.

I agree, Lester. An academic peer I admire and who fled the socialism and communism takeover of Europe in the 1950s made an interesting comment about politically correct phrases and terminology. In 1993 he said that the legislated PC speech was very much like how the USSR in how it attempted to control public thought and speech. "Thought police" he called them. Like you, I'm glad to see that forced verbiage hit the curb.

lesterb wrote:

PeterG wrote:The use of bureaucratic civil authority is a very, very poor method of promoting good values.

Oh I agree with you. But I found this a unique admission of politically correct vocabulary and its uselessness.

I'd like to see how the CDC uses these terms before rushing to judgement.

Let's consider each of these words, how they are used on the site, and whether it is useful as it is actually used. I haven't read any articles or heard any news stories about this, but I'm a little surprised by some of the words on the list, given what the CDC does.

Any idea why "evidence-based" and "science-based" are on this list? I would actually hope that any scientific association working on medical issues would promote these values. Here is how they use the terms on their site, do you find any of this objectionable? evidence-based, science-based. Does anyone find this kind of description objectionable?

University of North Georgia (UNG) offers an accredited entry level program leading to the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree. The curriculum consists of nine semesters, 130 semester hours, and utilizes a hybrid Problem Based Learning format. Evidence Based Practice and the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Core values are emphasized throughout the curriculum and are role modeled and practiced in the UNG Faculty Practice.

Given the fact that this is the Center for Disease Control, isn't "vulnerable" an important word to use? After all, vulnerable populations is a pretty important concept here. These three seem pretty important for thinking clearly about the kinds of things the CDC researches.

Let's look at how those other terms are used by the CDC on its website.

entitlement looks like it is used primarily to describe enttitlement programs, which is a legal term under U.S. law:

Entitlement program is a federal program that guarantees certain level of benefits to persons or other entities who meet the requirements established by law, such as social security, farm price supports or unemployment benefits. This program does not leave any discretion with Congress on how much money to appropriate, or which entitlements carry permanent appropriations.

Since the CDC does research into disease control, they use the term primarily to describe entitlement programs that affect medical outcomes.

That leaves "fetus", "transgender", and "diversity".

I agree that a child in utero should not be aborted, but clearly, "fetus" is the term used throughout scientific medical literature to refer to a child in utero. And the CDC is all about scientific medical work. When I look at their use of the term on the website, fetus does not seem to be used to take sides on the abortion debate, but to describe things using standard medical terminology.

I also agree that people are born male or female and their bodies know what they are doing, but people who consider themselves transgender face significant health risks that need to be communicated to them. I think that's a lot harder to do if you aren't allowed to use the term transgender. What alternative would you suggest? Here's how the CDC site uses the term transgender now. I disagree with some of the things they are saying, but I think it's important to be able to warn about health risks, and that's what most of these pages do.

The CDC is, of course, a federal agency. And federal agencies are url=https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversig ... n-2016.pdf]required to have[/url] diversity and inclusion plans. As long as that is true, you would expect the term diversity to be used on the CDC site, and precisely in the way it is found there.

PeterG wrote:The use of bureaucratic civil authority is a very, very poor method of promoting good values.

I agree. And lists of banned words make me nervous. Looks like some official from the Trump Administration waltzed into a meeting and presented the CDC with this list. Forbidden terminology is a hallmark of authoritarian government, not of free thinking.

The CDC is generally much less political than the people who are telling them what words they are allowed to use. This doesn't look like democracy at work, or like letting experts choose how best to describe their work.

lesterb wrote:

PeterG wrote:The use of bureaucratic civil authority is a very, very poor method of promoting good values.

Oh I agree with you. But I found this a unique admission of politically correct vocabulary and its uselessness.

Pardon my grouchiness, but, on the contrary, to me these kinds of prohibitions just look like an alternate form of political correctness.

I know that the way politics uses these terms is wrong, but to get technical, no one complains about calling the baby an embryo or a zygote.... All of those are a baby but they define differing stages and has been politicized.

Its like saying IUD's don't cause abortions... that depends on when the conceptus becomes a baby in your eyes...

lesterb wrote: I'm not a Trump fan, but this has got to be a good thing.

PeterG wrote:Pardon my grouchiness, but, on the contrary, to me these kinds of prohibitions just look like an alternate form of political correctness.

Anti-PC is well on its way to becoming the new PC.