"[3] The Southern California Law Review, Volume 51, Part 1, describes the use of such clichés as "to capture the vehicles of thought and communication; 'Doctrine over reality' (which includes the rewriting of history and reinterpretation of one's past)" and as a property of "ideological totalists".
[3] Two criticisms made by various journalists are that the cliché tends to halt debate and restrict or censor freedom of speech, or tends to be synonymous with language that would be used by totalitarian states as Lifton originally identified with Communist China.
Chancellor Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany is remarked to have employed such clichés and platitudes to justify his actions prior to and during the events of World War II.
David Volodzko in The Diplomat in 2015 characterized China's justification for persecuting Tibetans, Uyghurs, Falun Gong, artists, and journalists (including Liu Xiaobo), summed up as "for security reasons", as a thought-terminating cliché, going on to say "that's every bit as vapid as 'God moves in a mysterious way' or 'support our troops'.
"[16] An example of the cliché in use provided by Chaz Bufe is "the admonition given to Catholic schoolchildren to recite the Hail Mary or rosary to ward off 'impure thoughts'.