That's true, but I don't think any other state of affairs is possible. Compare this selection from SPQR:
> The first word of the second book of Livy's History, which begins the story of Rome after the monarchy, is 'free'; and the words 'free' and 'freedom' are together repeated eight times in the first few lines alone. The idea that the Republic was founded on libertas rings loudly throughout Roman literature, and it has echoed through radical movements in later centuries, in Europe and America. It is no coincidence that the slogan of the French Revolution -- Liberté, égalité, fraternité -- puts 'liberty' in pride of place; nor that George Washington spoke of restoring 'the sacred fire of liberty' to the West; nor that the drafters of the United States Constitution defended it under the pseudonym of 'Publius', taken from the name of Publius Valerius Publicola, another of the earliest consuls of the Republic. But how was Roman liberty to be defined?
> That was a controversial question in Roman political culture for the next 800 years, through the Republic and into the one-man rule of the Roman Empire, when political debate often turned on how far libertas could ever be compatible with autocracy. Whose liberty was at stake? How was it most effectively defended? How could conflicting versions of the freedom of the Roman citizen be resolved? All, or most, Romans would have counted themselves as upholders of libertas, just as today most of us uphold 'democracy'. But there were repeated and intense conflicts over what that meant.
> That's true, but I don't think any other state of affairs is possible.
As a proof of this, you point out one of many ways that words can be used to muddy the waters. I would argue a "different state of affairs" (an improvement at least) could be achieved via a concerted effort by multiple influential people or organizations to point out that contrary to the simplistic perspectives and "facts" we're fed by the media, the world is actually extremely complex and we usually only have an approximate idea of what's really going on.
> The first word of the second book of Livy's History, which begins the story of Rome after the monarchy, is 'free'; and the words 'free' and 'freedom' are together repeated eight times in the first few lines alone. The idea that the Republic was founded on libertas rings loudly throughout Roman literature, and it has echoed through radical movements in later centuries, in Europe and America. It is no coincidence that the slogan of the French Revolution -- Liberté, égalité, fraternité -- puts 'liberty' in pride of place; nor that George Washington spoke of restoring 'the sacred fire of liberty' to the West; nor that the drafters of the United States Constitution defended it under the pseudonym of 'Publius', taken from the name of Publius Valerius Publicola, another of the earliest consuls of the Republic. But how was Roman liberty to be defined?
> That was a controversial question in Roman political culture for the next 800 years, through the Republic and into the one-man rule of the Roman Empire, when political debate often turned on how far libertas could ever be compatible with autocracy. Whose liberty was at stake? How was it most effectively defended? How could conflicting versions of the freedom of the Roman citizen be resolved? All, or most, Romans would have counted themselves as upholders of libertas, just as today most of us uphold 'democracy'. But there were repeated and intense conflicts over what that meant.