PC

2016/07/04

‘Political Correctness’ or ‘Potential Catastrophe’?

Followers of this blog will recognize I have very little positive to say regarding the whole concept of ‘political correctness’.  I maintain the practice stymies clear, concise communications and is largely used by the far left to attempt to camouflage some of their more onerous activities by couching them in less accurate terms.  At a time when we truly need accurate and concise communications more than ever I see ‘PC’ as a real danger.

With this said it has come to my attention some folks chose to believe that my denigrating the practice of being ‘PC’ also meant I favor the deconstruction of civility and basic human respect.  Nothing could be farther from the truth!  I profusely apologize for giving such an impression!!  Above all else I believe in the need for open, civil discourse and one cannot engage in such an activity without maintaining an air of respect for one’s supporters as well as the opposition.  In just being ‘civil’ there is no room for negative remarks based on any facet of race, religion, philosophy, gender, education or culture.  Such comments actually destroy the civility of any debate and generally point to an individual without a solid foundation in terms of comity and respect.  Given this I do not consider such language to fall under the auspices of ‘political correctness’; no, this is simple decorum and courtesy.

My issues with the ‘PC crowd’ center on the use of this maligned philosophy to twist facts and concepts by using inappropriate and/or inaccurate language often to conceal what is really involved or ongoing.  Let me offer up an example of one such situation:  the use of the term ‘entitlement’ to refer to ‘food stamps’, government assistance and similar programs.  These are NOT entitlements; rather, they are governmental handouts – good and needed or not – from taxes collected from the general populace.  True entitlements are things like Medicare or Social Security which involve the return of monies to those who have paid into the programs after meeting some standard.  The far left understood that ‘handouts’ or ‘welfare’ were terms that most tax payers did not embrace so they started using the term ‘entitlement’.  Now you tell me; is this clarifying to call a handout an entitlement?

There are a myriad of such examples around us and they all fall under the umbrella of ‘political correctness’ as far as this writer is concerned.  And the current administration has taken the bar to stratospheric altitudes in just seven years!  We can no longer refer to the ‘war on terror’ although those we were once ‘at war’ with certainly are still slaughtering us by the hundreds!  Our president will not even speak the term ‘Islamic jihad’ although the terrorists themselves regularly refer to themselves using the exact language.  How can we ever expect to defeat the Islamic terrorists if we cannot even call them what they are..?!?  One need only look at the state of our conflicts with the likes of Al Qaeda or ISIS to answer that question.

And then there’s the absolute lunacy of using ‘PC’ as the reason behind some recent incredibly ludicrous definitions.  In this sense I speak to some who think that saying someone is ‘short of stature’ is demeaning and instead would like to refer to them as ‘vertically challenged’.  Someone who commits felony after felony is not a criminal but rather ‘legally unskilled’?  And we should be calling illegal aliens ‘undocumented immigrants’??  Will someone please explain to me how calling illegal aliens ‘undocumented immigrants’ helps clarify their status?  I sure as heck do recognize most people will react less negatively towards the term ‘undocumented immigrant’ but isn’t ‘illegal alien’ more accurate (Hint: they are not legally in this country and they come from other countries)?  So what this form of ‘PC’ is really supposed to do, regarding the last example, is cloud the facts of the matter behind inaccurate words and terms in an attempt to make people doing illegal activities appear to be doing nothing illegal at all..?  And this is improving the clarity and succinct nature of human communication?

I have no patience with this kind of philosophy as it smacks of attempts to manipulate and even control people through rewriting terminology.  And this reminds me all too much of the ‘thought police’ and their ‘double-speak’ in George Orwell’s novel “1984”.  Of all countries one would think America would stand firm against such violations of our language but this has not been the case.  I will grant the PC crowd that maybe two to three decades back there might have been a need for a movement to clean up our discussions and become more sensitive to the rights and thoughts of others.  But in a characteristically ‘bad’ display of human nature a few zealots high-jacked what might have been a sound concept and distorted it, and especially amplified it, beyond recognition to utilize its inherent power.  So now I find myself pondering this question; ‘Should ‘political correctness’ run amok really be the basis for our person to person communications on this world?”

PC Insanity

2016/03/25

The Cheapening of America’s Polarized Culture

As this hellishly long election process grinds painfully to its conclusion I, for one, am both disgusted and exhausted by the process!  Not only has it already been underway for more than a year but the overall atmosphere of the campaign continues to mine new levels of repugnance and revulsion.  Civility is nowhere to be found nor is a substantive discussion of truly pertinent topics like the economy, terrorism, immigration and entitlement reform.  Instead, the candidates of both parties would rather sling mud and bait each other with abhorrent personal attacks; in addition said attacks are now targeting family members!  Just what has happened to the concept of gathering to discuss issues employing decorum and respect?  Apparently this approach has been discarded in favor of rancor and vitriol.

Without question there’s plenty of blame to go around starting with the candidates themselves.  Somewhere along this process the need to be truthful in one’s dealings fell by the wayside; indeed, the need to be truthful at all seems a lost concept.  Apparently it is much more important to make a large impression with one’s ego and bravado than be truthful.  And the lame-stream media fuels this fire by affording the most coverage to the most outrageous actions and comments.  In a culture where few have an attention span longer than 30 seconds and most want information spoon fed to them along with how and what they should think the media willingly panders to such guilelessness as it generates ratings.

But neither of the aforementioned are honestly the root cause of this heinous situation; no, sadly the main reason we’re seeing such coarse and childish behavior is ‘we the people’ want it.  Over the past sixty years there’s been a steady decline in morals and values within the American culture all in the name of ‘social progress’.  Progressives point to this with pride as examples of the advancement of the American people while all the while continuing to willing chip away at so many of the virtues which allowed this country to both grow and prosper.  They view conservatives as Luddites clinging to past behaviors rather than embracing new social miens.  Yet without continued social development and growth our culture will definitely become stagnant and eventually fail.  Conservatives all too often view progressives (aka ‘liberals’) as crazed, morally bankrupt maniac’s hell bent on destroying anything ‘good’.  Those of a more conservative bent will not at least consider, let alone embrace, the idea that as we evolve we must continue to adapt and that implies change.

So our culture has reached a point at which we are fundamentally polarized to extremes.  Neither faction appears willing to just try to undertake a civilized dialog with the other regarding even the most basic of concepts like immigration.  This, by itself, is a recipe for deadlock and thus we find ourselves embroiled in our current situation.  Far too many people have embraced the ultimate lunacy of ‘political correctness’ which is a guaranteed killer of honest, open communication at a time when we truly need clear, concise conversation.  But there’s more as well; it seems that with the advent of electronic communication in the form of email, tweeting and similar we lost the notion of civilized communication.  It’s almost as if because we do not have to face someone we feel we are free to say anything regardless of how disgusting or vile.  Just visit virtually any chat room or forum and you can see endless examples of a total lack of common courtesies and civility.  Apparently many folks have taken the old adage ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me’ to a new and despicable low.

Given all this I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise we have candidates willing to stoop to crass, bathroom humor and insults the likes of which most of us left behind on the grade school playground.  In a very real sense we are getting exactly what we asked for or at least what the majority of Americans appear to desire.  But does this do anything constructive for our political process let alone our culture?  In a sense it really does seem to be one of the polar opposites that defines today’s America; we have this willingness to forgo all aspects of civility and politeness in favor of crass, boorish behavior juxtaposed against the prim and proper miasma of political correctness.  And this is but one example of how polarized American culture has become.  At this point I have to ask; “Is this the kind of ‘social progress’ we desire as a nation?”.

My sense is most folks would prefer not to continue down this path but are either unsure how to redirect our ‘advancement’ or are too overwhelmed by what it takes to maintain a satisfactory lifestyle to care.  But regardless, we are experiencing the unfolding of this situation so we shouldn’t be surprised when our political race turns into an all-out free for all with the candidate most willing to plumb the lowest depths of acrimony and rancor most likely to get the most media attention and, hence, come out a victor.  Yet there is a relatively simple ‘fix’ for this situation; if ‘we the people’ refused to sit enchanted in front of our media source of choice vapidly soaking up such behavior the media outlets would soon stop running the imagery on an almost 24/7 basis.  If we all chose, instead, to read about the campaign from the outlet of our choice as versed with being spoon fed the mindless video superimposed with some equally mindless talking head providing foolish and irrelevant commentary we could affect an eventual change for the better.  But for most people this would mean unplugging from the continual information bombardment of our technological time and instead investing in reading and making up our own minds.

With respect to the larger issue of a dramatically polarized population the answers are not so forthcoming.  Obviously we need compromise but this cannot happen until we are amenable to conversing in a civilized and cultured manner.  And we must put aside past issues and grievances!  History can and will be an important part of any such discussions but a desire to dwell on perceived past wrongs and/or injustices will only poison the well of good intentions.  But perhaps most importantly we must communicate in an open and honest fashion and this means dropping any use of political correctness.  It is far too important to resolve this issue rather than allow such efforts to be torpedoed by concern for a few people’s overly sensitive perceptions.  We have the power and means to begin bridging this polarization but we really need the will!

2015/02/27

Will the Sheep Ever Look Up..?

Across the past few months I’ve been quite intrigued, not to mention disturbed, by the ongoing miasma of miscommunications from our federal government; you know, the same one that is charged with protecting the country from all threats foreign and domestic.  Of course this administration has never been able to put forth a coherent, unified message unless it is lying but then this can be said of many of the recent administrations.  Still and all I believe the Obama administration has done the best job of torturing the truth in recent memory and there may well be a fairly straightforward reason for this observation.  Could it be this administration has sensed that the American public has finally been dumbed down to the point they are incapable of thinking for themselves when dealing with complex issues like foreign or fiscal policies?

I’m sure most of us have seen the videos of folks visiting college campuses, large cities or recreational areas and asking randomly selected people very simple and straightforward questions regarding the American government, American history and/or American leaders only to see truly epic idiocy when those questioned could even conjure up an answer.  Initially such videos were funny but very soon many people found them to be alarming; how could college students fail to know who fought in the Civil War or who lost World War II?  Given the crush of the 24 x 7 news cycle how could someone fail to identify Joe Biden as the VP or Bill Clinton as a former president?  The really sad versions of these programs then demonstrate that these same folks can name any current Hollywood member by their picture, recite the string of boyfriends and girlfriends for the same as well as their current and past acting efforts.  Somewhere something went horribly wrong with this country’s educational standards and we are now seeing the fruit of this sowing.

It is no secret the ‘higher education system’ is staffed largely by academics with strongly liberal views and these are the folks we pay exorbitant monies to educate our college enrolled children.  What has happened across the past 50 years that we now regularly churn out college graduates who are clueless regarding the basic workings of the government that controls the country of their births?  I’m sure there are a myriad of factors which play into this scenario but regardless of what the motivation the fault has to fall directly upon these institutions of ‘higher learning’ and, by default, their staffs.  Sure, it is still possible to get a quality college education but it seems as though this is now the exception rather than the rule.  Just what could be driving this inexorable flow to the mundane and ill-educated..?

Without question tenure is a major player; once attained it is virtually impossible to remove a tenured professor regardless of performance, histrionics or lack of commitment.  But I find it hard to believe a majority of the instructors in our collegiate system are sub-par in terms of teaching abilities.  So just what is happening – and has been happening for at least the past decade – that’s given us college graduates total devoid of a basic background in civics, economics and politics?  I feel that for whatever reason – and I suspect PC is at the root of this belief – maybe 40 years ago colleges began to move away from teaching critical thinking in favor of indoctrinating the students into the necessity of having a ‘world view’ and empathy towards all races and cultures.  After all, if one does think critically about ISIS any sane person will have an extremely difficult time dredging up much empathy for brutal beheadings and the raping of children all based upon the sick perversion of a theocracy.

But back to my original question:  could the current administration have decided the American public is so incapable of rational, critical thought that they can now be led about by their collective noses?  I think this is a definite possibility and I need only look at this week’s swirling direct disagreement by administration members regarding the ISIS threat to support my belief.  Earlier in the week we’ve heard Obama and Kerry (that’s the president of the US and the Secretary of State for you the clueless) both come out and tell us we are safer now than at any time in the past.  Yet following on the heels of these statements the former counterterrorism adviser at the Department of Homeland Security John Cohen said; “The West is facing the most complex and severe terrorist threat we have certainly seen since 9/11”.  Then, a few days later, the FBI’s top counterterrorism official – Assistant Director Michael Steinbach – gave this chilling assessment of America’s attempts to stop ISIS from spreading its ability to recruit new members online; “We are losing the battle”.  All this has been covered, however briefly, in the so called ‘mainstream media’ yet as of this writing there’s been little to no reaction.

How can ‘We the People’ accept such diametrically opposed evaluations of our nation’s safety?  Where is the reaction from the public demanding an honest, credible analysis of our situation?  Without question the failure by the ‘lame-stream media’ to really cover these discrepancies has contributed but this also highlights another supporting observation regarding my concerns about the American public’s inability to think for themselves; if the lame-stream media doesn’t cover it it’s not worth knowing..??  Apparently a majority of Americans cannot read this information and develop their own thoughts, evaluations and perceptions; they must have the so called ‘journalists’ – and I use this term very loosely and with the deepest disrespect – tell them what to think and believe?  If the federal government is looking to push more and more people unto its dole then seeing how clueless the public has become must really put a smile on its face.  This, coupled with the data showing 47% of ALL American households now receive some form of government assistance – and, no, this does not include social security or Medicaid – certainly backs up the suggestion that the American people are losing their ability to think and function independently of governmental support.  Is this what we want to foster in upcoming generations..?

I try to be optimistic but seeing what this administration has done across the last six years – and previous administrations since World War II – I find little to inspire hope.  In a way much of our population has come to mirror the narcissist in the White House; we have time only for our cell phones, ‘selfies’, reading ‘People’ magazine and giving no thought as to where our country is heading.  I would like to think that maybe, just maybe, the horror of ISIS might give us a rallying point but when we have a President and Secretary of State telling us we are safe and the ISIS threat is mainly something manufactured by the likes of Fox News I guess we prefer to accept that view.  And why shouldn’t we..??  After all, this is the administration that gave us ‘Fast & Furious’, Benghazi’, the ‘lead from the rear’ philosophy which worked so well in the recent Middle Eastern conflicts, the Obama Care roll out and similar; what could go wrong..?!?!  Not that I needed another reason to be pleased with my retirement to semi-rural south central Alaska but at least up here people are aware, prize individual strength and the ability to fend for one’s self.  In a way it shouldn’t be a surprise that ‘The Last Frontier’ should be one of the last states to still mirror so much of what made America great…