Necessary Evil isn't always necessary or evil

Lately I've come to dislike this term. I understand what it is trying to convey, that we need something, despite disliking it.

Let's start with evil. Evil. Focus on that bit for a moment. Evil is what we use for people like Hitler and Satan. It doesn't mean "mean" or "inconvenient".

Pair this with the necessary bit and it becomes somewhat horrifying. Evil is necessary? What sort of horrifying situation are we dealing with? Are we throwing an infant overboard because we need to take a water filter on a life raft? Or is this the normal functioning of society, in which case we're living in a twisted dystopia.

Maybe I should relax. Clearly the "evil" in question is generally just some sort of inconvenience or something that we mildly dislike. In that case, we're dealing with something that we don't like much, but which keeps things working.

Now this just sounds like whining. Can you imagine designing a building and using this term to describe the need for vertical supports? Ugh, the stupid floor can't just fly and we need to waste all this metal to hold it up. That's so evil! And necessary!

And thus we get to government, that perennial "necessary evil." Ask yourself this, if you regard government as evil, yet necessary, what is wrong with you? Are you personally so horrible that you need something to keep you in check? Or is government to deal with those other dangerous people, in which case, you have a really sad view of human nature. Rather than confront either their worldview or their actions, people decry the "necessary evil". Call it evil to preserve your sense of moral direction, then call it necessary to excuse your active or passive support for it.

Alternatively, maybe these "necessary evils" are not evil, and at times not necessary, but are instead slightly annoying aspects of society and economics that keep things functioning, but rather than attempting changes that would render them unnecessary. For example, hiring people is the most effective way to remove them from the welfare state, pulling them out of Medicaid and unemployment checks. But instead 'job-creators' prefer to demand subsidies for hiring and training, then not hire anyway and decry the burdensome welfare state.

So next time you're tempted to use the term "necessary evil", ask yourself, is it? Is it evil? Is it necessary? And if it is both, can you do anything about this terrible arrangement? Sometimes you cannot, at least not alone.

Openly- as an indicator of societal tolerance

Anytime I see an article about someone being the new highest-ranking gay general/CEO/politician/sports star there is always that prefix: openly.  We only know that they're the highest-ranking openly-gay.  There may be others of even higher rank, still in the closet.

Some are hiding from others.  Some are hiding from themselves.  All are hiding.  They shouldn't have to.  Someday, I hope that we'll see headlines that don't need the qualifier of "openly" because no one will need to hide.

Maybe even better would be when such headlines don't even happen at all because no one will care if someone is gay.

Stand BACK! I have a loaded word and I am not afraid to use it

How much did you earn this year?  Whatever answer you gave is arbitrary.
How much did you make?  Unless you are working on an assembly line and giving production numbers, it's also arbitrary.

We use these words to talk about income.  We shouldn't.  They make it difficult to talk about anything that influences income, such as taxes and salary limits.  After all, if you earned your salary then you're justified in being resistant to any questions about it.  What if instead you just got your salary?  Maybe you earned it, maybe not.  This word choice is neutral and therefore allows us to talk about income without a heavy bias toward the status quo.

Similarly, companies are eager to use the words theft and piracy when talking about intellectual property.  These aren't merely biased words, they're blatantly inaccurate.  If I stole your car I'd have a car but you would no longer have a car.  It is a zero-sum game (assuming I didn't damage anything to get it).  If I copied your music collection I'd have a music collection, and so would you.  It is a positive-sum game.

Both of these ignore the long-term effects, and those are why I'm not a fan of excessive copywrite violation.  In the long term too much copying without payment means reduced incentive to develop new ideas, new designs, and new art.  However this is a different problem than theft, in which one person is directly and immediately deprived of wealth.  They are different problems and require different solutions.  To treat them as similar only makes it harder to fix the problem.

Add these to the pile of words that have been changed so much as to barely resemble their original meanings.  The result is that in the crossfire of political exchanges everyone is missing, and all the onlookers are being slaughtered.