One could say that semantics absolutely matter, and they seem to really matter when we hear things that are being done to us or for us, “for our own protection.” It would be one thing, if that statement was actually true, in which a good Samaritan, for instance, interjected their self into a situation in which they actually protected us from some harm, of which, that does occasionally occur. However, for the most part, when we hear things that are being done to us “for our own protection,” that typically is code for our freedom being taken away or our being denied something that we really want.
That is to say, for example, people use credit cards every single day, of which, a lot of times, the process of using such is seamless but there are also those other times when our credit card has been put on hold or frozen by the issuer and therefore that credit card is precluded from being used for a given transaction, in which, we as consumers, actually really needed that particular credit card charge to go through, right then and there. Those that are bold enough or angry enough, to call up their credit card company about such a charge being declined, invariably find after going through the seemingly endless process of verifying who they are, that their credit card charge was denied “for their own protection,” which absolutely makes no sense when the person so calling is holding the very credit card with their name on it. In truth, when credit card companies tell us that they have declined our credit card for our own protection, they are typically being disingenuous, for they aren’t actually protecting us, they are, in fact, protecting themselves; of which, typically, that particular credit card transaction has been flagged by some algorithm as being suspicious or fraudulent and because these credit card companies don’t want to be caught “holding the bag” of those charges so being made, they therefore declined what has been flagged as fraudulent or suspicious, for their safety comes before our convenience.
So too, those that are authority figures, such as parents or law enforcement officers, have a habit of saying that whatever is happening in which our freedom is being taken away from us, that this is “for our own protection;” but in reality, oftentimes these words are just used as an excuse to control us for the authoritarian figures’ benefit, and seldom for our own. In reality, most people know for a certainty when they need protection and when they do not, and more times than not, the times that we most critically need protection, there is no protection to be found; whereas, those times when we really don’t need protection, we often find ourselves overwhelmed by people that say they want to protect us and then proceed to do so in a manner in which we don’t really have a choice, which typically is not protection, but rather is the equivalency to constraint through coercion.
In life, the least that we deserve is for people to say what they mean, and mean what they say, and most of those that claim that they want to protect us, really want to take our freedom away, in one form of another, which isn’t protection, at all.