Words Matter

I keep running to the most asinine statement. It gets phrased in different ways: It's just words. Rhetoric. Semantics. Idiots - Words Matter. Here, try some:

I, Kirk Spencer, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

How about...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Maybe you like...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Perhaps it's a mere phrase: "We have not yet begun to fight." "I will fight no more forever." "Here I stand. I can do no other."

Words are what we use to communicate. To pass along not only facts but our hopes and fears, our loves and hates. Dismiss "mere words" at your peril, mortal, for it is the words we have wrought which live beyond ourselves.