Just What is (and what is wrong with) Political Correctness?

Where are you getting this from? Political correctness has nothing to do with labeling or judging people based on their particular personal merits or behaviors. Someone who is rude deserves to be called on it or avoided because of it, but you can't know that he is rude until you observe it. If, however, the man was in the same ethnic/racial/whatever category as the last person who was rude to you and you automatically assumed that he would be rude as well and you expressed that to him or to someone else (i.e. "All Albanians are rude...") then that would be considered "politically incorrect" and quite ignorant, to boot. The assumption itself is silly, but not under attack. It is the public expression of that assumption that falls under the "PC" umbrella.Yes, many people have been working to try and break some of the negative presumptions about various groups of people by changing the language, changing the media and pop culture representation of certain groups and encouraging people to judge others on a case by case basis. I don't find this to be a bad thing.For example, some people in my family held to many stereotypes and/or had a very negative view of gay people until I came out to them. They hadn't really known a gay person (who'd come out to them) and when they were confronted with someone they loved and cherished it made them rethink alot of things and even the most adamantly anti-gay has done a complete 180. I didn't try to change them. My revelation did all the work for me. All it took was a flesh and blood example of the opposite of everything they believed about homosexuals to change them. (BTW, gay jokes are perfectly fine. I don't find them offensive at all unless told with malice. Just like I know the difference between someone jokingly caling me a "dyke" and some guy screaming it out of his car while throwing a bottle at me. I think you will find that is usually the case with most "PC" people. It is the intent behind the words/statements and not always the words/statements themselves)Encouraging people to engage others on their merits and not based on misguided notions about the group they belong to is the goal. Not mind control. You can entertain all the fantasies about Thought Police you want, but you will be wrong.

Yeah, I guess my "revisionist" history books got it all wrong and it has actually been the white Christian conservatives who have had all of their rights denied throughout American history. And it continues today, what with the War on Christmas and all. That's it! I'm gonna sue for receiving a false education.

Hmmm...I wonder what could have possibly been going on to insprire legions of young black people to become militant. Many of them tried the non-violence route and that indeed get the attention of the media (crowds of young, peaceful marchers being gassed, hosed and beaten, the silent dignity of Rosa Parks, the passion of MLK, etc) and the public, but people can only be beaten down (literally) so many times before they start to fight back.As for the "out and out thuggery", you do not have a leg to stand on. I do not personally condone any actions of unnecessary violence, but comparing the "thuggery" of the Black Panthers (only one group of "black activists" and not representative of the whole movement, btw) to the centuries of enslavement and violence against black Americans and the more immediately preceeding decades of lynchings, church/house/business burnings, rapes, and mob violence (i.e. the violence done to the Freedom Riders and other organizers in the south, especially Mississippi, the jail torture of activists, the "mysterious" dissappearances, the intimidation of people trying to register to vote) is reprehensible.Poor you. The blacks and the feminists and the queers were finally dishing a little bit back and now you get to run around whining about oppression and abuse. Give me an ever loving break.Oh and you do know that S.C.U.M was not a "group" but, rather, the name attached to a manifesto written by the same woman who shot Andy Warhol, right?

ROTFLMAO!!!!Now really, schraf, that was totally un-PC of you to stereotype the rich, white, SUV-driving, Republican, conservative, Christians as rich, white, SUV-driving Republican conservative Christians like that

You are unbelievable, Faith.So you believe that black Americans were not enslaved for over 300 years? That after they became "free" they were not still denied the right to vote? That Jim Crow laws never existed? That lynchings of black persons were not commonplace for something as minor as talking to or even looking at a white woman? That young black (and white) college students were not murdered or harassed simply for driving through Mississippi? That hundreds of black students were not attacked and jailed for riding on buses (Non-Southern blacks were "allowed" to ride wherever they wanted to on buses per federal law after 1961, but the good ol' boys arrested and beat them anyway)? That black churches and black businesses and black homes were not destroyed in retaliation for their support and housing of out of town activists or just simply because? That hundreds, if not thousands, of blacks (and whites who supported them) were not beaten for eating at the counter of a diner? That black citizens were not met with guns and intimidation at courthouses where they were trying to register to vote or denied a card because they did not know what in what year Congress gained the right to prohibit the migration of persons to the US(although if you were white and failed the literacy or civics tests you could be passed on merit) or because they did not possess "good character"? That non-violent demonstrators were not met with chemical weapons and water hoses and sometimes beaten within an inch of their lives?The Black Panthers and other more militant civil rights groups did not become violent because blacks had separate water fountains.You cannot deny that you wouldn't have fought tooth and nail against such unspeakable hatred, violence and oppression if that was you. Some chose to use violence (many after years of non-violence - Stokely Carmichael, for example - and, at first, in self defense or in response to the lack of response from authorities, most of whom ignored, condoned or participated in the violence against black citizens) and some chose to remain non-violent. It is terrible and unfortunate that David Horowitz's friend was murdered, but in the face of the horrors of being black in the American South (and to a lesser extent in the North and West), there is no comparison.Oh and I have read some of David Horowitz's works. I find his journey from left to right fascinating in some respects, but his extremist views (from his participation on both sides, mind you) are irrational and very antagonistic and he often concocts falsehoods or exaggerates to support his (often conspiritorial) claims. He is very much a fervent ideologue, but he has just happened to switch ideologies. Like Omni said, an intellectual whore.Edited by Jaderis, : misspelled congress

I hardly think that is rude. If I wanted to be rude, I could have done alot better than that.I was astounded, yet again, by your ability to handwave away anything that contradicts your claims. In this case your implication that the alleged murder of Betty Van Patter by the Black Panthers and your feelings of uncomfortability when confronted by extremist (yes, extremist...your examples of blacks and feminists and gays were extremist and not the norm) views was somehow morally equivalent to the hundreds of years of terror and oppression experienced by black Americans.I was also astounded by the fact that apparently you believe everything you read if it comes from a conservative. Your understanding of the history of the Black Panthers and black nationalism cannot only come from a zealot flinging exaggerated and unsubstantiated allegations of murder and "thuggery" and from what was portrayed by the establishment media (i.e. frightened white folks) at the time.And you accuse me of being propagandized?

I concede that you directly made no such moral equivalence, but, in my favor, I did use the word "implication." It was implied by many things, but especially by your description of the "hate war" and your supposed abuse and oppression at the hands of the left and your unwillingness to acknowledge that the violence of the black nationalist movement was in direct response to the centuries of terror and oppression experienced by blacks in America that was still being expresed at the time the BPP formed. And yes, there was oppression and bigotry in SF and Oakland, especially coming from the police. I'm sure you don't believe that, but it is true.

Most of the stories on the SAF website are just whining about the teacher expressing their political beliefs or knocking Bush, not about stifling dissent in the classroom. And in some of the "legitimate" cases, how is one to know that the grade they received was not earned? If you remember being in school, you will remember the kids who very much deserved that "F" but refused to take responsibility for their failing and blamed it on the "fact" that the teacher did not like them. Happens all the time.These neo-brownshirt techniques are quite chilling. Some teachers have resorted to taping their lectures in order to have evidence in case any claims are made against them. Professors (and librarians) are being smeared as having some sort of alliance with radical Islam and accused of being seditious simply for critiquing US foreign or domestic policy.Many of the stories about abuse touted by David Horowitz are completely false. He has even admitted to that! They are fabrications meant to further his agenda of expelling progressive thought from campuses (and primary and secondary schools, now, too), which (oh the irony kills me!), essentially entails an "affirmative action" program for conservative professors.As for your right wing abuse stories...I have a couple of my own. The first being in 1st grade when my teacher forced all of us to pray before walking to the lunchroom. She was fired.The next being in 11th grade and writing a book critique of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and I devoted one short paragraph comparing the protagonist's travails to that of homosexuals. My conservative Christian AP English teacher had a fit and gave me an "F." I took the paper to the head of the English dept. at my high school and (not telling her what had happened yet) asked for her opinion. I used the pretext that I would be having her the next year and wanted her constructive criticism. She said she would have given me an A- the minus due to a couple of small grammatical errors. I also took it to my teacher from the previous year and she said the same thing. I then contacted the principal and confronted my teacher with this knowledge and she said I would have to rewrite the essay. I did so and fixed the grammatical errors and essentially just reworded the paragraph in question, retaining the exact meaning. She gave me an A. I remained an A student in her class, but we were constantly at odds over interpretations and choice of reading material.My third isn't necessarily a "right wing" bias example, but my Algebra 2 teacher quit in the middle of my 10th grade year and was replaced by a man who refused to call on the girls in the class. We got him fired.I have had both very liberal and very conservative professors at the college level. Most of them made their beliefs loud and clear during discussions, but none of them stifled any kind of dissenting opinions (although my strongly conservative Ancient Civilizations professor was definitely very creepy).