General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: STOP Calling Social Security & Medicare Entitlements! [View all]still_one
(92,187 posts)to those benefits.
THAT IS WHAT IT MEANS
The word "entitlement" has developed a negative connotation because people DO NOT UNDERSTAND the word. The connotation has been twisted by right wing groups to imply a meaning of "sense of entitlement", to say they "don't truly deserve it", and that is right wing bullshit.
Social Security and Medicare are called entitlements because anyone who meets the criteria to receive them, has a RIGHT to receive them. They are, in fact, ENTITLED to these benefits.
Why some seem so willing to be manipulated by the right wing propaganda machine on things like this is absurd.
It is similar to what they did with the word liberal, to equate it with a negative connotation, or this so-called liberal media.
When a republican refers to the Democratic party as the "democrat" party, it is time to call them out when that occurs, and correct it right then and there. That occurred during the Cohen hearing when a republican House member did that, and unfortunately, Cummings should have stopped him the moment he said that, and corrected it. Allowing republicans to define us has been one of our major errors.
That is the problem, we tend to let these things slide, and they get distorted and misrepresented. You have to stop it in its tracks.