Diction, AKA Word choice

Here are two words we probably should not use anymore:

Evil, War

First, evil. Using the word evil, or enemy is so general that it is pretty much useless, and only boils down to being an insult. Calling someone, or something evil is like insulting them in any other way. When we say "evil" do we mean; sadastic, immoral, unacceptable, etc. Just throwing around the word evil doesn't do any good. Insults are hurtful and they cause damage. If we mean to say someone is immoral, we should use the word immoral. Lack of clarity on such serious matters is a huge, but easily avoided problem.

Second, war. We like to use the word war a lot, but not in the way that it was originally meant. The actual definition boils down to: a direct conflict between two or more nations. So why do we say things like war on drugs, or war on cancer, or war on... any other abstract concept. You can't declare war on an abstract concept. It makes no sense. Wars can be declared only on countries. Terrorism is not a nation state. Terrorists are not a nation state. By the way, does anybody actually endorse terrorism besides terrorists? Maybe if we just gave other countries more respect, instead of acting like we own the world we could be more effective in helping EVERYONE.

We need to stop making people hate us, and I think it has a lot to do with semantics. Why do we keep making these vast generalizations about groups of other people, and throwing out words like terrorism, evil, enemy, war, and so on. Maybe we should use the words we really MEAN. It would be nice to hear a bit more rational language. For example; instead of calling a murderer evil, let's just call him what he is, a murderer. That is enough. So, if somebody commits an act of terrorism, then they are a terrorist. That's fine to say. However, it's not all right to extropolate beyond the individual act unless there is clear evidence of connection. Not all terrorists are foreign. That's the truth.

I like to say that it is wrong to use fear as a tactic to gain power. That's what terrorists do. But look around, don't you see a lot of our own politicians using the exact same tactics to raise their poll numbers? That's immoral, completely, and uncontestably. So maybe we need to look a bit closer at our own faults, or at least, the faults of our own nation, before we point the finger and call somebody evil. Doing that is just the easy, but ultimately the absolutely wrong way to try to fix things.

Making other countries mad at us... why would we do it when we don't have to? There is PROFIT in war. There is PROFIT in fear. Don't let those who PROFIT from these horrible things have power over you. IN A DEMOCRACY, WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE RULING BODY. REMEMBER YOU HAVE THE POWER. YOU CAN CHANGE THE DIALOGUE.