political correctness, which IS an organized systematic arsenal of weaponry of character assassination
Faith, this is a serious question and not an argument against your position. But I am having trouble understanding what, in your mind, political correctness actually is.
It gives me a headache to think that anyone would have a problem with it, but I'll do my best to make it as clear as I can.
To me, it means we avoid speech that is insensitive and degrading to a particular group of people.
That's part of the rationalization, but I have never used such speech here and yet I'm called a racist and a bigot. I give reasoned analysis of the problems with illegal immigration and I'm called a racist and a bigot and a xenophobe; I give a solemn warning about the dangers of Islam and I'm called a racist and a bigot. I've never once said one racist thing or bigoted thing. I'm simply not allowed to have the nonracist political thoughts and opinions I have. The Left is programmed to see them as racist no matter what. It's an evil horrible imposition on personal rights and freedom of speech, but oh how righteous they all feel about it.
My daughter was in 3rd or 4th grade and we were talking and I said "Indians", and she said to me very seriously "Oh, Dad, we don't call them Indians any more, they are 'Native Americans'." I was a bit taken aback, but I was like, "Oh, OK."
That actually turns my stomach. Yes, it's a perfect case. Somebody is "offended" by a term, God knows why it's such a big deal, but while your talk with your daughter was quite reasonable, you can bet that someone else using the same term would be raked over the coals by snooty haughty seslf-righteous leftists and treated like the devil's own progeny worthy of being beaten to a bloody pulp, which is how the protestors are treating Trump supporters.; Same thing.
And since then, I have tried to not use the term 'Indian' to refer to Native Americans. Is that the kind of thing you are talking about that is Marxist and evil?
See above.; It's an innocent term that goes back to a time when that's all anyone knew. Making a moral/criminal offense out of it is evil, and as with all political correctness it's designed to intimidate and shut up far more than it has any actual beneficial effect on anybody for any purpose. There is no grace in Marxism, it does nothing but kill.
(I have a problem with "Native American" myself. How does anybody know who was "native" here, whether there were earlier peoples who deserve the name. The term itself is Marxist PC propaganda. I also have a problem with "Afircan-American.: There is nothing African about American blacks. They're Americans.)
It also means to me that we don't use terms like n*****, porch monkey, slant eyes, spic, wetback, faggot, queer bait, kraut, paddy, and so on... You certainly don't find it troubling that it is politically incorrect to use derogatory terms like these, do you?
That's a false problem. Rude and uncivil terms are not the aim of Political Correctness, as I say above, since I have never used such terms or anything close but I'm called racist and bigoted and all the rest of it anyway. That claim is a red herring. I'm not allowed to give a reasoned discussion of the nature of Islam or the problems of illegal immigration, both perfectly acceptable intellectual topics in a sane world.
However. I will say that it's a species of PC mentality that serves nothing good to object to the names of sports teams. To my mind that is sheer idiocy and yes a species of mind control. We've4 got a team called the Patriots. Should serious patriots get all pushed out of shape? How about a team called the Pilgrims? I see no genuine problem with any of this.
s it not better to err on the side of sensitivity?
It isn't ABOUT "sensitivity." It's about mind control, it's about one set of arrogant self-righteous people telling another group what they are allowed to think. Listen to the tones of angry huffy moral condemnation if you doubt this. In the name of sensitivity and kindness they are anything but to people who fail to go along with their agenda. They are full of hate, they haven't one shred of basic human tolerance or respect in them, all because of being indoctrinated in what is, yes, a Marxist-originated ideology.
Should we not do the best we can to not make ANY group of people feel marginalized? That is what politically correct speech means to me.
You know what, this is really the dregs of intellectuality the world has sunk to, how far we've fallen from any ability to actually think about things that we have to elevate such banal psychobabble concerns to the heights. Offended feelings is now the criterion for everything? Whatever happened to critical thinking?
Civilized people naturally have sensitivity to people's feelings, you shouldn't have to be upbraided for not following some formula about it; but Marxist PC has no respect for anybody and in reality, again, it isn't about sensitivity, it's about controlling us, shaming us, putting us in our place and shutting us up. Blech.
So, in all seriousness, could you please define, without using political accusations, what "politically correct" speech means to you. And why you find this so troubling.
PC is recognized by just about every conservative as THE Leftist program to control people and destroy people. Horowitz discusses it in that video in my OP. If you listen to any conservative sources you will find it discussed as Leftist tyranny.
I know I've posted this before and it may not add anything to the discussion but I'll post it again: William Lind's famous essay on PC as derived from Cultural Marxism / the Frankfurt Scholl that had such a big influence in the universities in the sixties:
(If you find yourself being offended by anything he says, I would say that's a measure of how you've been infected by PC yourself):
The Origins of Political Correctness, written in 2000.
Where does all this stuff that you’ve heard about this morning — the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it — where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic.
We have seen other countries, particularly in this century, where this has been the case. And we have always regarded them with a mixture of pity, and to be truthful, some amusement, because it has struck us as so strange that people would allow a situation to develop where they would be afraid of what words they used. But we now have this situation in this country. We have it primarily on college campuses, but it is spreading throughout the whole society. Were does it come from? What is it?
We call it Political Correctness. The name originated as something of a joke, literally in a comic strip, and we tend still to think of it as only half-serious. In fact, it’s deadly serious. It is the great disease of our century, the disease that has left tens of millions of people dead in Europe, in Russia, in China, indeed around the world. It is the disease of ideology. PC is not funny. PC is deadly serious....
Interesting he traces its origin to a comic strip, which he doesn't name, rather than to Mao.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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