Political Correctness
My bias in this blog is a whole hearted belief in the genius of the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2082 protected speech, press, and religous choice in the first amendment is that when those are gone the others don’t really matter.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3480 is a way of dividing and making victims of people who shouldn’t be separated from the whole nor who, in their own right, aren’t defenseless. As long as we are operating, talking, and describing ourselves as Americans it’s hard to identify and isolate specific groups as groups that need more protection than the rest of us or funding for that matter. It’s when we partition people as to race, religion, speech, net worth, income, or education that we create an automatic platform for grievance and special attention. The purpose of the politically correct movement is to identify and isolate potential victims groups in the furtherance of the politically correct proponent’s own legislative or financial agenda. If we can give separate and special causes of action to people because they are of color, or poor, or white and underemployed, or religous or not religous, like animals or don’t like animals, then we have a whole structure to build a system of addressable and redressable grievances that should be paid attention to and paid for by other people. It’s a version of the lottery where sooner or later everyone is both a loser and a winner.
Speech has long been the intellectual conundrum of lawyers and the courts. While I’m clear that I cannot arbitrarily shout “Fire” in a theatre without just cause I am also clear that I should not be prohibited from a wide range of possible descriptions of people or situations that come across my path. The problem with using your sensibilities as my measuring stick of appropriate discourse is that you have all the freedom and I have all the responsibility without any of the protections.
I have long felt that the best form of speech regulation is purely and simply a market based one: don’t listen to or pay to listen or read anything that you find offensive. While there may be situations where the occasional Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake wardrobe malfunction occurs accompanied by the predictable embarassment, it is the exception rather than the rule. Anyone who’s listened to a comedy routine for very long that is filled with four letter references and personally offensive sexual innuendos understands that after a while it is neither funny nor intelligent. It is also not mandatory that you stay.
http://theuncommonsenseblog.com/blog.asp?id=172