The Insanity Of Political Correctness

The Insanity Of Political Correctness
or
How Liberals Killed 13 and Wounded 32 At Fort Hood
(Opinion)

I am, at heart, a simple man with a knack for identifying a solution to a problem quickly. This is due in large part to my chosen profession as a field service technician. It's my job to discover a fault, a reason for that fault and the most logical solution to that fault. It's part of my nature really. It might be a character quirk that compels me to analyze a problem as quickly as possible but whatever the reason I tend to see things in black and white to make the diagnosis of a problem as easy a process as I can. I try to keep the process as uncluttered as possible to minimize potential incorrect conclusions. Since I deal with the public, it is incumbent upon me to get their equipment in working order in a timely fashion both for their satisfaction and to contribute to the company's reputation. Since I recently celebrated my 15th year in the business, I'd have to assume I'm fairly good at it by now.

Why am I talking about what I do for a living? To be honest, how I approach my job is very similar to how I approach life. If, for instance, I see a story on the news about an accidental shooting in a home, I don't immediately think about less guns. I think about better control of guns at home. Trigger locks, gun safes and the like spring to mind, not reducing the freedom of the individual.

Another example that will no doubt raise the ire of some and the acknowledgment of others is the aftermath of 9/11. When I learned that all 19 hijackers were Muslim men, I immediately saw the solution to the problem of future hijackings. Extra airport screenings, better background checks and a more stringent visa policy with stricter enforcement came to mind.

Trouble is, according to the loony left that makes me a bigot and a fear monger. They'd prefer extra screenings on old women and young children just to "make it fair". We musn't give the appearance of bigotry against Muslims. We must punish everyone for the actions of a radical few.

In other words, we must ignore the obvious for the sake of political correctness. Those of you who have read me before know how much I abhor political correctness. It's dishonest and serves no useful purpose other than to quell thought and speech. It's main goal is to make sure that everyone thinks the same thing. That everyone feels the same thing and says the same thing. I find it detestable and more than that, I find it dangerous. Why do liberals, in their infinite wisdom, screech to the heavens about diversity and then ask me to think like everyone else? Why do they ask me to celebrate the differences in our culture and then tell me to put my differences aside? Why must I leave behind what seems like common sense so a few overly sensitive whiners can feel good about themselves?

In a recent post I related the recent firing of Juan Williams by NPR for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor. I'll reprint the relevant parts here to provide better context for what I'm about to say.

"In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

For those remarks he was summarily dismissed via phone call by his immediate superior. He was told the decision was final and that it had come from above her. The person above her is Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR. Schiller later made the comment that Juan's remarks were inconsistent with NPR's journalistic standards and that he should discuss his comments with "his psychiatrist or publicist" hinting that Williams must have been mentally disturbed to say what he did or seeking a juicy sound bite that might garner him some attention in the press. Suffice to say the bulk of the attention has been focused on the ham handed firing and the not so subtle hypocrisy of Schiller's statement about NPR's journalistic standards.

The only standards NPR is currently ascribing to have more to do with political correctness and the obvious notion that Williams had gone off the reservation of liberal group think and must be tamped down. NPR's Nina Totenberg once said of Jesse Helms,

"I think he ought to be worried about the -- about what's going on in the good Lord's mind because if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."

That statement, apparently, is perfectly in line with NPR's high journalistic standards."

As you can imagine, within a few days the entire liberal community was up in arms about his comments. They decried his statement as insensitive, bigoted and ignorant. Now I suppose I could agree with them if I suspended my belief in free speech and free expression. In our modern culture however, free speech isn't exactly free. It's only free when liberals agree with you. When they don't agree, it's hateful and bigoted and anyone caught saying bad things must be punished.

While I could go on for hours about the injustice and overall stupidity of political correctness, it really is peripheral to I'm about to say. What I have to say is far more critical and far more dangerous.

What I'm really trying to say is that liberals are responsible for the massacre at Fort Hood where 13 soldiers were killed and 32 were injured. Personally, I could leave it there and feel quite content that my message has been properly conveyed. Liberals killed 13 and wounded 32. The solution to the problem is no more difficult than that. There's very little gray area in finding the answer. Political correctness allowed a Muslim extremist with the goal of murdering Americans to remain within arms reach of the unsuspecting public. Liberals promote and insist on political correctness. Simple.

A+B=C. You don't have to be Einstein to get that one right the first time.

Nidal Hassan had made comments prior to the shooting that not only hinted but broadcast his intent to kill Americans. The radical Imam he corresponded with was already a suspect on the terror watch list. The government had this information in advance. His superiors failed to do what was necessary for fear of being branded bigots and intolerant of his religious beliefs. That fear stemmed from the pervasive and destructive effects of political correctness. He was allowed to remain at his post with no recrimination for his radical views. Political correctness kills people. End of story.

Is that extreme or extremely honest? Liberals shriek about not singling out Muslims in our society because that infringes on their religious freedom. It seems the only time most liberals give a damn about religious freedom is where Muslims are concerned. Taking the extra time to single out Muslims in airports is profiling and profiling is wrong. Even if it means that some innocent citizens might die as a result. A few dead Americans are a small price to pay on the altar of political correctness.

The government asks us to be vigilant and aware of our surroundings to help them prevent another terrorist attack. What, pray tell, am I supposed to be vigilant for? Gangs of old ladies with C-4 in their knitting bags? A gaggle of children with anthrax in their sippee cups? No, they want me to be vigilant for Muslim extremists who might wish to inflict mass damage on the general public. They just don't say it. They dance around it and make nice for the liberals who might possibly be offended. The latest batch of terror alerts in Europe aren't about motorcycle gangs or lunatic Green Peace malcontents. Those alerts are about Muslim extremists who wish to kill Americans.

It's war. It's an ugly prospect but turning away and pretending it's not true will only leave us vulnerable to a repeat of 9/11. As George W. Bush once said. "The government has to be perfect every time to avoid another terrorist attack. The terrorists only have to be perfect once to pull it off."

I'll use this analogy and maybe it'll convert someone who can't quite grasp why Americans are afraid of Muslims.

Let's say that people dressed in clown suits are robbing banks and killing people. They look like every other clown you've ever seen so you can't tell the good clowns from the bad ones. If you're standing in a bank and a clown walks in, do you get nervous? Do you watch his every move, prepared to snap into action should the need arise? If you said yes, you're a normal human who deals with fear and reality in a healthy and rational way. If you said no, you're a liar...and most likely, a liberal.

Now, the next time you hear someone practicing political correctness don't just shake your head and walk away. Tell them how dangerous it is. Tell them how it killed 13 soldiers. Tell them how easy it is to forget what happened to 3,000 innocent people whose only crime was going to work.

The week in review.

It's been awhile since I've done one of these so bear with me. To say that this has been a tumultuous week in politics and news would be putting it mildly to say the least.

In politics, Harry Reid said in an interview on The Ed Show on MSNBC that, "...but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression." Tall words from a small man in the fight of his life for reelection to the Senate. I find the irony somewhat sweet that the second most powerful Democrat in the country makes a wild claim about saving the world from megalithic disaster while the most powerful Democrat in the country would like to think that honor belongs to him. As usual, no outrage from the media about Reid's claim. They're too busy trying to find something new and potentially more outrageous about Christine O'Donnell. In fact, Ed Schultz never even batted an eye when Reid made that statement.

Elsewhere in politics, there's an ugly voting scandal brewing in Troy, New York. Dozens of fraudulent absentee ballots, cast for the Working Families Party, were discovered to contain forged signatures and false information. Brendan J. Lyons, senior writer for the Times Union of Albany writes,

"Documents at the county Board of Elections show the fraudulent ballots were handled by or prepared on behalf of various elected officials and leaders and operatives for the Democratic and Working Families parties. A Troy housing authority employee, Anthony Defiglio, who sources said oversees vacant properties for the Troy Housing Authority, also handled many of the fraudulent ballots, according to public records and interviews with voters who said they were duped. "

Now, before you go thinking the system is rigged on all sides, the county board of elections is run by, say it with me, Democrats. It would appear those responsible were dimwitted enough to lick the envelopes they used to send in the fake ballots. DNA testing is currently underway on the ballots and DNA samples have been collected from both the board of elections and the Troy city council. It's kind of a cross between the movie "Primary Colors" and the TRU TV show, Forensic Files. The outcome will be interesting at best.

Another interesting tidbit to be exposed this week was the list of the largest contributors in this years election cycle. And the largest is... drum roll please. The unions.

Wait. What? I thought the chamber of commerce was the largest. What with all that foreign money they have. Nope, it seems the Chamber didn't even make the top 5. The Baltimore Sun reports, "The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.

The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending. "

In common parlance, that means corporations as a person... bad, unions as a person good. I know the obvious argument from the left is that donations from corporations may contain tainted money from dark, mysterious forces that might not have our best interests at heart. On the other hand, union money comes from the salaries derived from taxpayers and in turn confiscated by the unions in the form of union dues. In simpler terms, even those of us outside the union are giving money to political candidates with which we have nothing in common. As Alanis Morrisette would say, "Isn't it ironic?"

Is it any wonder that the only sector to have shown explosive growth of jobs in this flailing economy has been the public sector? Watching President Obama grow the size of government so rapidly over the last 22 months, it almost seemed like he didn't have a clue what he was doing. It all begins to make sense now.

In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

For those remarks he was summarily dismissed via phone call by his immediate superior. He was told the decision was final and that it had come from above her. The person above her is Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR. Schiller later made the comment that Juan's remarks were inconsistent with NPR's journalistic standards and that he should discuss his comments with "his psychiatrist or publicist" hinting that Williams must have been mentally disturbed to say what he did or seeking a juicy sound bite that might garner him some attention in the press. Suffice to say the bulk of the attention has been focused on the ham handed firing and the not so subtle hypocrisy of Schiller's statement about NPR's journalistic standards.

The only standards NPR is currently ascribing to have more to do with political correctness and the obvious notion that Williams had gone off the reservation of liberal group think and must be tamped down. NPR's Nina Totenberg once said of Jesse Helms,

"I think he ought to be worried about the -- about what's going on in the good Lord's mind because if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."

That statement, apparently, is perfectly in line with NPR's high journalistic standards. I will expand on this story and add a bit more of my own opinion at a later time. On a happier note, Fox News has offered Williams a contract and an expanded role on the network offering the other side of the ideological spectrum. It seems only fitting for a network who's tag line is "Fair & Balanced". That's more balance than you'll see on MSNBC at least. Remember Ed Schultz?

On a related note, George Soros has donated 1.8 million dollars to NPR to expand their reporting of local politics. Who thinks that money will be used for honest, fair reporting? Soros has after all, collapsed 4 economies in his lifetime and has been the largest single contributor to Democrat/liberal candidates since record keeping began. I wouldn't hold my breath hoping for anything that resembles true journalism coming out of NPR from this point forward.

Well, a little over a week to go until the midterms and it's getting tense out there in the heartland. Rhetoric is currently being ratcheted up, campaign cash on both sides is being flung around like candy from pinata and the climate is one of exuberance on the right and guarded. if irrational, confidence on the left. I must say though through it all, that this is perhaps the most contentious and important midterm election that I can recall. I can't wait until November 2nd. I'm planning on staying up all night to watch the returns in California. I've even made my own little congressional scorecard so I can keep up with how wide a margin the Republicans win by. For a political geek like myself, this is the NFC Championship game and the winner determines who goes to the big dance in 2012.

Let the games begin!

Nudging our way to Utopia

This missive has been months in the planning stages. I sought to coalesce my thoughts before I put them into a tangible format but that proved pointless as the subject and it's ultimate goals were ever changing and shifting. When the health care law was still an idea, I read about a man who would eventually have incredible control over it and every other government program, regulation and law that is currently in play in the country. I was simply doing my own independent research about the people who were shaping the legislation as it made it's way through congress. I wanted to know who those people were and if they might have a personal agenda that would come into play. I read about Dr. Ezekiel Immanuel (special advisor to the President), John Holdren (science Czar), Kathleen Sibelius (Dept. HHS) and one other person who would play a pivotal role in the health care bill's application and enforcement. His name was unknown to me but he is a brilliant academic and a prolific author. Of all the people involved in the process of writing and shaping the bill, he seemed to be more of a dark figure in the background than a prominent player.

Cass Sunstein is a legal scholar and the current head of the Office of Information and Regulatory affairs (OIRA). This position puts him in place to make decisions on budgetary items regarding the cost of a government run health care plan. Let's leave aside his radical views on animal rights, he actually believes that animals have a right to sue for grievances, and delve deeper into his thoughts on how government plays a role in our lives. He has written in the past his belief in the celebration of tax day this way,

"In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency."

This line of thinking presupposes that every thing we have is the result of a generous gift from government. The money in our pockets, the cars we drive and the very lives we lead are all extensions of the government. Now, I may not be a thinker at any level near Mr. Sunstein's but the idea that I owe my very existence to the government scares me more than just a little. This is just a taste of the philosophy he believes and we've barely scratched the surface so far. Let's hear Mr. Sunstein in his own words on the subject of "life years", a controversial idea in which he proposes that some humans are inherently more valuable simply because of their age,

"I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people."

Gone will be the days when we honor the elderly in our society for their past contributions if Mr. Sunstein has his way. All that matters to him are future contributions. I wonder if he could be so callous, so unfeeling if it were his own mother or father suffering needlessly because a government bureaucrat decided that a life extending treatment has been deemed "not in the best interest of the collective". One other vital bit of information about Professor Sunstein is his admiration for noted philosopher, Peter Singer, a bio-ethicist. Singer, a far left-wing animal rights activist, has said that a border collie has more intrinsic value to the collective than does a child with developmental disabilities.

It's the "final solution" without the ugly connotation of fascism.

Of all the appointees to have taken residence in our current President's cabinet, this man is without a doubt the most powerful. His very job is to tweak regulations so as to more effectively control costs our ultimate outcomes of an associated program. The very real problem of his appointment is the ideological baggage he carries into the office. A man who believes that animals have rights might "tweak" regulations for hunters that would eventually make hunting a thing of the past. Now, before you call me an alarmist or even worse - paranoid, listen first to more background on this man.

Of all the books written by Sunstein, the one I find has the darkest undertones is a book written with economist Richard Thaler called "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness"

I'll give you a peek into the ideas behind the book by using Sunstein's own words,

"People often make poor choices – and look back at them with bafflement! We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself."

The upshot of the book is that we can be nudged into making the right choices in life if the right people are in charge of "altering the choice structure" to prevent us from making mistakes. What does Sunstein mean by "altering the choice structure"? I'll give you a few examples that should make it all clear. Recently, a war on trans-fat has been fought by the FDA against restaurants that have menus that offer, shall we say, less than healthy foods. The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said in recent months that he would like to see salt removed from prepared foods in restaurants and would even like to see salt shakers removed from their tables. This is the basic idea behind altering the choice structure. If we remove the salt, no one will have high blood pressure, right? Wrong. We are still able to purchase salt at our local grocery store and season to our overworked heart's content. How long until that choice is removed?

Still another example of having choices removed is in the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program offered by the government. On the surface the program is a good one offering financial assistance to low income families with pregnant women and young children. It promotes healthy eating by only allowing participants to purchase certain foods like fresh fruits, vegetables and juices that contain mostly fruit and little additives. I happen to think the program is an admirable one and when used properly does provide healthy alternatives to the usual fast food and junk food that children are often given as a substitute for a healthy meal. Days ago however, the program's administrator removed potatoes as an acceptable vegetable. Why, you might ask, would the noble and life sustaining potato be cut from the list and made to hang out behind the gym with the "bad" foods? It seems potatoes can be fried. They can also be covered in sour cream and butter and doused with unhealthy levels of salt. Imagine for a moment a world without potatoes. No mashed, baked or golden fried heaven ever again.

That's Sunstein's dream of the nudge. Altering the choice structure in such a way that we end up as bland automatons devoid of the ability to think for ourselves. Unable to discern what we need from what we want. Ask yourself how long Sunstein would allow us to eat meat when he holds the view that animals have rights? How long before an entire industry disappears in a puff of well meaning smoke?

Could a man who holds such radical views about animal rights and the benevolence of the government truly not allow his own personal agenda to influence how he does his job? Can he be trusted to do what is best for safeguarding the freedoms of the American people or will he instead use his position to "nudge" the country to the perfection he believes is attainable.

Stay tuned for part two of Cass Sunstein when we explore his views on the first amendment and freedom in general.

Calling it like they see it.

"...part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared,"

President Obama during a Democrat fundraiser in Boston.


Democrats aren’t running on the administration’s accomplishments like health-care and financial-regulatory overhaul and the stimulus because “it’s just too hard to explain,” Biden said.

Interview with Joe Biden, Bloomberg.com

" Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there's a lot that can be done to manipulate them."

Cass Sunstein, OIRA appointee. (Obama's regulatory czar)


“Elections are not the time to educate people. You win the election, then you educate people afterwards.”

Howard Dean in an NPR interview

Above are a few short examples of recent statements made by high ranking Democrat officials that seem to speak to the apparent low intelligence of the American electorate. In numerous interviews, both in print and on television, there are more and more prominent people on the left that display a thinly veiled disdain for the average person. It's one thing to hear the political punditry routinely call anyone in politics with a conservative bent either stupid or lacking in the necessary "gravitas", to use a term used to describe George W. Bush, to be a leader. It's quite another to listen and watch as more and more of the left describes the American people that way. Day after day, we hear more stories centered around the belief that Americans aren't quite smart enough to understand all the good that's being done on their behalf by the President and his Congress. We don't understand the Health Care law, TARP, the stimulus, financial reform or the multitude of other things that have been foisted upon us.

It's actually quite a departure from the Clinton era when Democrats worried that they "weren't getting their message out" when attempting to explain their numerous defeats at the ballot box and through legislation. It appears now that they're getting their message out, we're just too dumb to get it. We're not from ivy league schools or haven't been to the right dinner parties to truly comprehend the brilliance on display before our very eyes. Unaccustomed, as we are, to the heights of the ivory tower that most liberals reside in, we just go about our lives blind to the stunning intellectual elite that seek only to help us live better lives. Not only is ignorance bliss, it's the American way.

The unabashed arrogance on display by the power structure of the left is at times breathtaking in it's openness and shocking in it's belief that the only smart people in the country vote Democrat. If you believe the left, most of America, left to it's own devices, would simply fall apart if not for the pointy-headed professorial types that currently infest the government.

This kind of downward glance from the left isn't exactly new or all that surprising when one takes into account the more recent exertion of Progressive ideals in the Democrat party. In just a few years, Progressives have managed to co-opt the Democrat party and bring the concepts of social and economic justice to the fore in American politics. Early 20th century Progressives were firm believers and vocal proponents of segregation, eugenics and the concept of disallowing certain groups from polluting the genetic storehouse in an effort to breed a smarter electorate. Since those early Progressives weren't able to implement their own "final solution" one must assume the modern electorate isn't as smart as they'd first hoped. The vast majority of those early Progressives came from intelligentsia so it fits that they would try to weed the weak of mind out of the Utopian garden they envisioned for their brave new world.

The modern Democrat party is almost indistinguishable from the early Progressives in their approach to the very people who send them to Washington DC. They mock them, talk down to them and use them as a battering ram to fulfill their ultimate dream of Utopia on Earth. President Obama has made countless references to the American people as of low intelligence, weak minded and afraid to make his vision of the future a reality. This upcoming midterm election will be a tsunami of rejection that will wash many of those elites out of the comfortable posts they have enjoyed and used to their own personal advantage and enrichment.

It's normal for a liberal to think they're smarter than a group of people, it's suicide to articulate those thoughts in an attempt to calm the poor frightened masses who want only to fire up the X-Box, order a pizza and let someone smarter take care of dispensing freedom to the poor unwashed heathens.