>Someone tell me why, apart from the principles and precedents of it all, any of this matters?

Like you, I feel I might not understand this in its entirety, but I think the answer is...face saving. It’s counterintuitive but I believe these words are being banned from the budget to allow both parties to pass a maximum CDC budget which may be controversial politically for the GOP to pass and they might otherwise not support.

For example, if these words were not censored than you would have an electorate/media (more importantly tea party/primary opponents) that would be able to point at the elected GOP and question why they would pass a budget that includes research for transgender issues, research on fetuses, supporting science based research (rather than faith based), etc...

My understanding is the money would still be allocated and budgeted to support all the same issues (which is good). If my interpretation is correct, it might not be so far off from a budget to combat extreme Islam (drones, intelligence, secret courts, etc...) but censoring that phrase publicly because it allows some face saving for political purpose.

This is an interesting use of the term "face saving". I typically understood it to mean trying to maintain perceptions rather than a way to execute an underhanded agenda.

As a person of Chinese descent who grew up in America, face saving has no general negative connotation in Chinese culture -- but the fact that you think it does is very interesting. (EDIT: misread your comment, but this applies to GP)

I've observed that face saving behavior at all levels of society in America, but very few instances of people willing to point it out or discuss it, except sometimes to accuse people of 'covering up bad behavior'.

When you visit someone's house and they serve you food and ask if you liked it, unhesitatingly saying 'yes' is face saving and also just simple good manners.

When your boss makes a bad decision but you don't call them out in the next team meeting, and instead first bring it up in private, that is face saving. You're trying to avoid openly embarrassing someone and reducing their social standing.

In this case, face-saving just makes sense -- let's get a budget deal passed (which is in everyone's best interests), and then mollify the crazies in the base who refuse to see it that way.

I guess pointing out face-saving in the US is itself potentially embarrassing, because it implies that person might actually be worried about their social standing, which can itself negatively affect their social standing?

The reason for this cultural paradox is because face-saving is associated with dishonesty. That is that the behavior is not aligned with the spoken motive. This is interesting to see, because this sort of dishonesty is common in American culture where the values are primarily kindness and productivity.

I find it interesting from my perspective as long time military guy where in the military subculture honesty is highly valued and kindness is not (it is just rolled into respect or otherwise ignored in favor of other virtues).

Your conclusion seems fairly accurate. I think it's weighs more heavily toward a concern about the appearance of weakness rather than social standing though.

My perception is that the appearance of strength is intertwined with social standing in America. (I'm not saying it isn't elsewhere, just that it is here.)

I think you misread my comment. I was saying that I thought it didn't have negative meaning, but that the person I responded to did.

I didn't actually see a negative connotation in either of your posts.

What does either of these words have to do with face saving or combating extreme Islam groups these are words used to describe things such as medical research and cures and programs to help people in need these words have nothing to do with combating extreme Islam groups you make absolutely no sense at all. Vulnerable Entitlement Diversity Transgender Fetus Evidence-based Science-based

Because words and the way we use them change the world. HN is probably mainly a place of realism, but social constructs are playing an increasingly effective part in the world of politics.

On top of that it's another level of bullshit that distracts you from all the other terrible things the US government is currently doing. "They are censoring words???" - mean while the worst tax reform in US history is being passed to increase inequality to revolutionary levels.

> HN is probably mainly a place of realism

Not far above that comment is the following:

Pretty much everyone who is not part of the elite ruling class is influenced by the Dunning–Kruger effect. We all think we have it figured out, and that there's no way they could pull the wool over my eyes like they do to those rubes, and don't realize that we are those rubes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937896

Tax policy is generally bad over the past 40 years of very low top tax bracket rates which need to be much higher.

U.S. diverging income inequality trajectory https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBGK...

Western Europe diverging income inequality trajectory https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBGK...

Full article. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/this-is-what-happene...

>mean while the worst tax reform in US history is being passed to increase inequality to revolutionary levels.

You may be putting too much credence in the hysterical propaganda that sometimes passes as “news”.

Being Scandinavian I think I can safely say that I haven't put too much credence into what Americans pass for news. :)

I have studied history and economics though, and typically you wouldn't want inequality to grow too far unless you want a violent redistribution of wealth. Considering America was already collectively crazy enough to elect Trump, I'd hate to see what happens when things get even worse.

I totally agree with your assessment and it will get much worse if we do not impeach

This administration has a penchant for creating drama. I can’t see any other purpose to this policy.

Also, 7 words[1]. Not 6, not 8. It could be coincidence but I really feel like we’re being trolled.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words

I think they'd use 14 if they wanted to troll better.

Pretty much everyone who is not part of the elite ruling class is influenced by the Dunning–Kruger effect. We all think we have it figured out, and that there's no way they could pull the wool over my eyes like they do to those rubes, and don't realize that we are those rubes.

What makes the "elite ruling class" immune to the Dunning-Kruger effect?

I don't know anything about them other than they seem to have control of the masses down to a science, so I did not make a comment about them - only about those who are not a part of them.

> But this is about the words the administration is soliciting from a department for an elaborate marketing document. Someone tell me why, apart from the principles and precedents of it all, any of this matters?

Because there is a real danger of it spreading to other documents.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article1298372...

Its a slippery slope we've seen at the state level.

This is being done for the sake of political expediency in a Republican-controlled government that has many people in it who do not like the issues that these words represent. It's not "batshit" to try to word things in a way that minimizes political holy wars. In fact, it's somewhat logical, and seems to me to be aimed at ensuring CDC gets all of the funding it needs.

Budget documents are about setting and justifying priorities. It may very well be worth mentioning when a finding is backed by experiments in mice fetuses but further trials might be necessary.

A nitpick. Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements. One is a mandatory pension plan that people pay into and whose benefits are based on what you put in. The other is a mandatory health insurance plan that people pay into. As such it is wrong to call them entitlements.

> Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements.

SS and Medicare and the buy-in attached to them is what the term “entitlements” (in terms of government programs) was coined to refer to.

Later, Republican opponents of those programs started using the term for general welfare programs in order to attach negative emotional loading to it and discredit SS and Medicare by association.

Yes. But I use terms as they currently mean in the common political discourse and as such Medicare and Social Security are not entitlements.

In current political discourse, “entitlements” refers to all of the public benefit programs, whether buy-in or means-tested, that are not considered discretionary spending, Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment, Medicaid, and Welfare. You probably mean to say that the first three differ from the last two, which is true; the first three are contributory entitlements (the original sense of the term), the latter two are noncontributory entitlements (which, along with contributory entitlements, are included in the newer, broader definition.)

As I've heard the term used in the vernacular it is synonymous with 'welfare'. I attempt to clarify that there is a huge difference between a mandatory retirement pension plan whose benefits depend on how much you pay into it vs. say food stamps. Therefore I point out that Social Security is not an entitlement since that word has become distorted in the last 30 years to be synonymous with welfare. It connotes getting something without paying for it. Therefore I think it is wrong to call Social Security an entitlement. The meaning of the word has changed or is in the midst of being changed.

No, that is the actual definition of the term “entitlement”: people are literally entitled to those things.

If you don’t pay into SS then you don’t get retirement benefits from it. You are wrong on Social Securty. With Medicare you are entitled to enroll in it when you reach a certain age, even if you haven’t ever paid Medicare taxes, but you still have to pay the premiums. Medicaid is the entitlement.