While Political Correctness concerns administrative reprimands for publicly expressing various forms of bigotry, Conservative Correctness concerns the click of safeties and jail cell doors for saying unpatriotic, irreligious and naughty things.
Those Intolerant of Intolerance are More Intolerant Than Those They Accuse of Being Intolerant!
The above convoluted semantic argument is often used to berate liberals for accusing conservatives of various forms of prejudice, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and racism. Though so absurd it seems unworthy of comment, it is still a debate they are winning through every area of the media, for this is the central theme regarding the issue of political correctness. Years before political correctness had a name, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. arrived at a way of expressing the absurdity of all this. I paraphrase from I don’t remember which of his books…
Intolerance was an important issue of debate between my parents. Father was of course, a good fascist, and was intolerant of just about everything, except of course, Nazi’s. Mother would ask that he not bring any of the uniformed, swastika laden soldiers into her home. My father would then accuse her of gross intolerance. My mother, rather than play the semantic game, would get out pencil and paper and begin her list.
Things Mother is intolerant of:
Nazis
Things Father is Intolerant of:
Jews
Communists
Queers
Buddhists
Lesbians
Chinamen
Negroes
Hindus
Japs
Muslims
Unionists
Pollocks
Environmentalists
Arabs
Catholics
Mexicans
Muslims
Liberals
Socialists
Feminists
Albanians
Russians
Then Mother would search around for more paper. Mother always made a big thing out of searching around for more paper.
My Lonely Truth
I have had an inordinate amount of old friends who I know to be liberal, fiercely deny it, claiming to be independents, moderates or libertarians. How depressing that so many now feel obligated to deny what little altruism they once possessed.
Political correctness has become so powerful an issue it has caused millions of liberals to refuse to admit they are liberals. It has moved millions of moderates over the line into the hands of the GOP. So effective is the exaggerated propaganda that it has even moved the blue collar voters away from their own self interest into the bed of those who could care less about them. It is a confusing subject for many, embarrassing for many more, but it has also been the single most successful propaganda scam in American history. Everyone wants to be politically incorrect, for it is the coolest thing an American can be. Not to tone down our history of racial, ethnic and sexist bigotry but to jack it up and celebrate it.
It is my belief that the central issue moving people (mostly the young) away from liberalism is not taxes, socialism or lack of Jesus in their schools, but the daily media barrage of extreme instances and exaggerations of political correctness; all of which has only one purpose, to paint liberals as a bunch of intolerant, anual retentive elitists, feminazis, soccer moms, Nazis, wussies, sissies, fags, queers, homos and uppity Negroes.
The truth is all instances of political correctness directed toward liberals pale in comparison to the conservative correctness awash in this nation. Just the major issues of religion, patriotism and sex show what intolerant, tight ass elitists conservatives are, yet alone all the censorship they dish out in those regards. They are so hypocritical that special place in Hell designed for hypocrites is not Hellish enough for them. Conservative correctness is far more intolerant, fascist, or Nazi (or whatever the conservative polemic of the day happens to be defining liberals) than all the instances of political correctness put together, squared, factored by 10 and multiplied by pi.
Thank you. I’ve been meaning to shout that for a long time.
PC for Dummies
Let us begin by going back to 1979 when we had what so many wish for these days, an honest Born Again Christian President who is now known as the Failed President. What happened was a triple whammy; President Jimmy Carter’s infamous “malaise” speech which the conservative PR machine jumped on it to forever more define liberals as what Spiro Agnew a decade earlier had called The Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. Add to that the taking of hostages in Iran and the failed rescue attempt it lent “weak” and “loser” to the formula. Within a year a new term was added to our American lexicon, Reagan Democrats.
After Walter Mondale was so soundly trounced by Ronald Reagan who won 49 states in the 1984 election, “loser” was added to the definition of “liberal” (tolerance) and the word soon embraced such a negative context it became the kiss of death for any politician to be so labeled, as such another phrase was written into our language, The L Word which expressed such angst that it could no longer be spoken out loud in mixed company.
During Reagan’s second term a little known disc jockey in Sacramento, California was making a name for himself by reading off the names of gay men who had died from AIDS each week while pushing the applause button and laughing (Character Matters.) The success of taking so much joy in so much innocent suffering made Rush Limbaugh the most popular voice on California radio. Limbaugh rode the low road to then take on local lesbian groups, he sparred with GLADD up in San Francisco and soon expanded his misogyny to include all women who wore shoes and were not pregnant. As luck would have it, the spokesman for NOW (The National Organization for Women) at the time was an old, often nasty unattractive woman named Molly Yard, an easy mark for Limbaugh. A caller to his show tossed out the phrase “feminazi”and Limbaugh ran with it to syndication in New York a few months after the Fairness Doctrine was rescinded. Almost instantly he became the top radio personality in America which put feminazi into the dictionary. Within a few years AM Radio had become the most ubiquitous Right-wing propaganda machine in the world.
With Republican control of AM radio began the most successful public relations campaign in American History began with the advent of the phrase,Political Correctness. From the late 1980’s through today the variations of PC whether; political correctness, political incorrectness, politically correct, or politically incorrect flows through radio, television and print thousands of times a day, everyday for most of 20 years. By incorporating the term feminazi and defining tolerance or concern for minorities as McCarthyism, PC became universally equated to Nazism.
An example of how entrenched this has become Richard Melon Scaife has for many years been pouring money into David Horowitz’s organization that is the clearing house for moving political correctness into the mainstream media. Across American campuses both Horowitz and the Cato Institute use Right-wing student groups to search out any and all examples of PC they come across, which they send to Horowitz who exaggerates them and moves them up to Right-wing AM radio. Thousands of conservative radio hosts grab hold, exaggerate it further and push it for weeks until the main stream media has to pick up on it or be labeled… Remember, it cant be said in where children may overhear… The L Word.
Over the past generation working class people pull straight Republican tickets against their own self interest as this emotional issue of Political Correctness causes more damage to the Democratic Party than abortion, guns, flags, queers, and God combined (those people are going to vote straight GOP tickets anyway). Down here in my exburb of Dumbutt, Texas I have heard the refrain that drives it everyday for twenty years. It may be a little different depending on region but it’s the same angry toot.
“No friggin’ uppity Yankee New York elitist know-it-all liberal is going to wag their finger in my face telling me what to do and how to think. I will shoot them or myself before that happens.” And there you have it, the political dynamic of a generation.
This piece was originally titled “A Letter to a Progressive Blogosphere” as I had political correctness recently come home to roost in my little corner of the world. It was a reminder of how it feels to be on the bad end of that nasty stick. If that humorless anual retentive nasty bug gets up your butt, and this being an election year, take the advice of Paul and John and Let it Be until next November.
PC – Grande Nada
Please understand, Political Correctness is a conservative propaganda tool to define liberals as intolerant fascist Nazis.
Political Correctness has been incessantly splashed from the Rush Limbaugh Show to the Jim Lerher News Hour. It pops up in every newspaper and magazine everyday, every week, every month, year after year after year. It is nothing new at all; it is the same old argument with a new face: “It is my right to be as racist, bigoted, homophobic and sexist as I please, and anyone saying otherwise is an enemy of freedom, liberty, America and God.” A new semantic game to defend our same old prejudices.
The few people who still fight against our growing national bigotry and prejudices are on the defensive. The corporate media, conservatives, Libertarians and moderates alike jump on them with endless attacks about their abuse of the 1st Amendment. The odious public pressure against speaking out to the various forms of intolerance causes us to pull back; which as we can see, causes bigotry, racism and violence to increase further.
The Grande Nada of political correctness has even crossed the Atlantic. In an article in the London Times, columnist Bernard Levin equated it with the “destruction of democracy” and “as the inquisitions of Joe McCarthy were the first Time of Cowards, political correctness has now become the second era of the Time of Cowards.” It is worse than McCarthyism. It is fascism in its most ugly form! It is the most abusive instance of repression in American history and is now responsible for the destruction of freedom and liberty in all of Western Civilization!
Through the 80’s, conservative groups and lobbies spent hundreds of millions of dollars re-defining the word liberal to connote the essence of all that is not only wrong in the world, but evil as well. They used the bully pulpit of the White House and pumped so much money into the media with public relations and advertising that they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Such words as bleeding heart (the basis of Catholic art in the portrayal of Jesus and the Virgin) became akin to promography, while those few people who expressed a concern for others, and God forbid, actually did things to help, became known as those Damn Do-gooders. The success of the conservative propaganda in re-defining these phrases as evil over the past decade has lead to the subsequent success in the 90’s of this great nothing we now call political correctness. When the reality is that it is only a defense mechanism used by bigots to rationalize and perpetuate their intolerant views from one eon to the next. I doubt there is a liberal alive who hasn’t been through this conversation with Bubba.
“I hate all them damn nwords and fags.” Bubba tells you.
“That only shows you for the bigot you so obviously are. I would appreciate it if you did not use such words in front my children.” You reply.
“What is this NAZI Germany?! Ever read the constitution? You are censoring me! You are telling me what I can say! You are telling me what I can think! You are the bigot! And not only are you a Godless Socialist, but a damn fascist! Is Adolph Hitler one of your heroes? He took everyone’s gun away too!”
“Gosh…” You sigh and move the conversation back to chasing balls around before the neighbors come by to applaud and carry Bubba around on their shoulders.
Political Correctness is a concept instigated by the Right to attack and denigrate what few individuals and groups still exist who have the moral fortitude to confront intolerance and bigotry. The denigration of these people is far worse for the health of this nation, than political correctness could ever be.
What conservatives seem to hate more than anything is women and minorities seeking administrative reprimands to combat the discrimination, bigotry, racism, sexism and hate speech they suffer at institutions of learning and the workplace. And remember, there is no click of handcuffs or slam of cell doors as when the White Heterosexual Christian Majority hears what they don’t like hearing.
What about the conservative correctness of Christian universities who summarily suspend and eject students over dress codes, interracial dating, suspected sexual liaisons, missed forced prayer meetings, or for writing or saying things contrary to the religious dogma of those schools? I guess those things have become so passé the media no longer comments on them.
Why do you think the phraseology of political correctness is the card most often used by the likes of David Duke, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, William Bennett, Pat Robertson and every single racist, sexist, homophobic, conservative a whole in existence?
Compassion Fatigue
The commonality between those consumed with guns, Rottweilers, and more SUV than they need is that their cowboy hats droop down way past their ears.
Probably the greatest propaganda ploy of the Right in recent history (and tantamount in winning over the sorely misnamed intelligent voting public over the past few years) has been the use of the many aspects of political correctness to make fun of liberals who redefine hard old terms with nicer sounding new ones. Well, I’ll be dipped in Newt-poop if conservatives now using the term compassion fatigue isn’t the most grievous example of such redefined terms ever used. By the way, the conservatively incorrect expression of that is fkem. They even have a new conservatively correct phrase for racism; Demographic disparity.
Suggest talking about masturbation in schools or a discussion of legalizing drugs? You don’t get scolded, you get fired. Say naughty words on stage? You don’t get reprimanded, you get handcuffed and thrown in jail. And there lies the central difference between political correctness and conservative correctness.
Bill Clinton was forced to throw away Jocelyn Elders under heavy political pressure from the GOP. Then back in Arkansas, Republican legislators tried to block any money to the University of Arkansas Medical Center where Elders had gone to teach unless she was fired. University security had to be increased because of the rash of death threats she received. Say the conservatively incorrect thing and you not only get thrown out of Washington and out of your University position, but suffer death threats to boot.
Words Mean Things
Don Rumsfeld is our War guy. He works for the War Department. They do War. We most certainly are not defending ourselves in Iraq. So why don’t we call things what they are? We wouldn’t want to be accused of politically correctness would we? Or is this an example of that insidious conservative correctness at play again? It could be, for I noticed in a recent political argument where all their terms have been conservatively sanitized”
“I am for corporeal punishment.” The Mad Elephant said.
“What you mean to say is you are for parents and schools slapping little kids around.”
“I am 100% behind the NRA.” The Mad Elephant said.
“What you mean to say is you are all for more shooting.”
“I am for Capital punishment.” The Mad Elephant said.
“What you mean to say is you are for executing more people more often for less reason.”
“I am for a strong defense.” The Mad Elephant said.
“What you mean to say is you are for war.”
“I am for pre-emption.” The Mad Elephant said.
“What you mean to say is you are for starting wars.
“I am 100% behind our troops.” The Mad Elephant said.
“What you mean to say is you want our troops to do the killing you are to yellow to do.”
“I believe collateral damage is acceptable to meet our political ends.”
“What you mean to say you find it acceptable to see thousands of women and children have their arms, legs and heads blown off by Americans.”
Though we could go on in this vein for quite some time, that’s enough to say to the Mad Elephant:
“So let me get this straight; you are for slapping little kids around, more shooting, executing people, war, starting wars, American soldiers doing a lot of killing blowing off the arms, legs and heads of thousands of women and children. Where did you pick that philosophy up? Was it Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or have you been hanging out in Hell lately?”
Little Red Riding Hood, Conservatively Correct Version
Once upon a time there was a dumb little broad named Little Red Riding Hood. This was back when people had four names, a few people still have long weird names today, which is good as it serves us in finding out who the problem people are when we can’t actually see them.
One day, being the abject airhead she was, Little Red Riding Hood decided to take a basket of fruit to her grandmother’s house through a wolf infested woods without proper weaponry. Her grandmother, an ignorant bimbo in her own right, had no job, so just laid around in bed all day waiting for someone to give her handouts. Not only was she a lazy bum living off the sweat of others, but she was also dumb enough to not possess a semi-automatic machine pistol which is what makes Gooseland the safe place it is. For as you know, Gooseland has only ten times as many gun deaths as other Oz, Middle Earth and Purgatory.
While Little Red Riding Hood was mindlessly wandering through the woods – as women always do when grappling with nature – unbeknownst to her a wolf got into Grandma’s bedroom, ripped her wrinkly old throat out, and fed on her internal organs until there was nothing left of the unarmed welfare leech but a frilly nightdress. The wolf, with a bent toward being a fag, put on the old lady’s jammies and laid in the bed figuring that sooner or later some other nitwit witch would be by whom he could eat.
By and by, Little Red Riding Hood entered Grandma’s house to see a large bloody mouthed wolf in a dress in Grandma’s bed. So the dumb chick, with her brain obviously wandering in that feminazi fantasyland they spend most of their time in, totally missed the reality of the matter and began commenting on the size of the wolf’s various facial features. The wolf, enraged at having to listen to the stupid broad’s nonsensical ramblings, jumped out of the bed and ate Little Red Riding Hood.
A Woodsman, a firm advocate of supply side economics, 2nd Amendment absolutism, sometimes owl hunter, seal clubber and whale harpooner was in the neighborhood clear cutting the forest and mowing down anything that moved with his arsenal of high tech weaponry. Hearing the slurping sounds of the wolf feeding on dumb broads, he ran into the small cabin and let fly 16 rounds of 12 gauge buckshot from his Street Sweeper, in less than ten seconds the wolf was shot into various hunks of flying flesh.
There is a moral to the story: It is okay to do the world a favor by eliminating liberal leaning feminazi bimbos, but we must for the sake of public relations, draw the line at eating them.