Video Shows Stomach-Turning State of Portland Courthouse After Leftist Rioters Were Finished
The meanings of words can change over time.
Dictionaries, in keeping up with the cultural use of language, will update definitions for words so that they might more accurately reflect their definitions.
The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, states its pages are “updated on a quarterly basis.”
The OED adds: “The material added to the dictionary includes revised versions of existing entries (which replace the older versions), and new words and senses both within the alphabetical sequence of revised entries and also across the whole A to Z range.”
But some words change quickly, especially when used to shape a media narrative about a neo-Marxist revolution and its intentions to destabilize and destroy American cities.
Words such as “peaceful” and “protest” are now being used to describe mass gatherings of violent leftists.
Since May 25, when George Floyd died in Minneapolis after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest, protesters have taken to the streets to demonstrate against a perception that law enforcement and the criminal justice system are biased against minority Americans.
Groups such as Black Lives Matter and the loosely organized coalition of so-called “anti-fascist” groups known as antifa are leading the protests, which sometimes could be more accurately described as riots.
Nowhere is this more true than in Portland, Oregon, where 75 days of continuous protesting and rioting have left once-beautiful properties in ruins.
Despite the carnage and property damage, we’re told the leftists behind the violence are “mostly peaceful.”
A video of the federal courthouse in the city, shared online late last month by KGW-TV, shows the absolute devastation brought to the property by ever since these “peaceful” protests started.
The building is currently sitting behind barriers, but the video shows an up-and-close perspective of what law enforcement are fighting against.
WARNING: The following video contains images of vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive:
The words “peaceful” and “protest” might not seem fitting to describe the actions of these violent demonstrators after seeing what they have done to public property.
Merriam-Webster defines the word “peaceful” as “untroubled by conflict, agitation, or commotion” or “devoid of violence or force.”
Sure, the damaged Portland federal courthouse might be devoid of commotion in the video, but it’s in the same way the ghost city of Pripyat in Ukraine is silent following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986:
But neither site indicates anything mostly peaceful occurred.
Nonetheless, the activities on the part of antifa that have contributed to the state of the Portland courthouse seen in the video are apparently a mere myth, per Democratic New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Perhaps it’s time update the meaning of the word peaceful so that rational people can make sense of the media and the Democrats’ depiction of some events.
In the context currently used by the left, one could argue that the U.S. defeated Japan to end the largely tranquil Second World War 75 years ago this week, after dropping a pair of mostly peaceful atomic bombs.
What else were U.S. military leaders supposed to do?
Japan’s military was engaged in a prolonged and “mostly peaceful” protest of its lack of resources, land and global influence.
Japan, of course, was not peacefully protesting. And although the damage wrought by Japan during World War II was far worse than anything that’s happened in 2020, the violent leftist rioters in Portland surely aren’t peaceful either.
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