Excellent article on the pit falls of tolerance carried too far. Political Correctness, or not calling a spade a spade, is a hallmark of our times all over the Western world today. And, it is the club with which evil is infiltrating and taking over our societies.
The European countries have been ahead of us on the politically correct, disallowing the freedom of speech, bandwagon. As a result of not allowing free and honest discussion of their problems Europe is being overwhelmed, overrun and taken over by Islam and the demand for sharia law and total intolerance!
Last week a court ruled in Italy that the crucifix must not be shown in schools. Italy is the seat of Christianity and the most Catholic country in the world, but due to political correctness and the claim to not offend those of other faiths their courts like ours have been infiltrated by liberals and Marxist and Muslims. The crucifix can not be shown in Italian schools, but Muslims can wear their religious symbols and are allowed time to pray five times a day.
In the name of political correctness the United Nations has passed a mandate against hate crimes, or hate speech against religion. BUT, the only religion mentioned is Islam! Everyone is permitted and in Muslim countries even encouraged to say anything they please about any other world religion.
It is certainly time that we Americans come to some understanding of just what this political correctness movement has done to us as a nation. We have to open our eyes and see that while we were being politically correct evil had an open door to come in and corrupt.
We are a civilized society. One of our cardinal rules of coexistence is that we (try always to) judge people only by their actions and not by their identity, whether racial, religious or sexual. This is our great strength as a society, and also, in the present circumstances, our great weakness: How to address the threat posed by the fact that, of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in our midst, there are a few (perhaps many more than a few) who are so radicalized that they would kill their fellow Americans? Must we continue to be neutral in handling all people from different groups even though we know that there are differential risks posed by people of one group? The problem here is a heightened version of the airport security problem, where we check all people–including Chinese grandmothers–regardless of risk profiles. But can we afford that on a grand, national scale? (And I mean that question not merely in a financial sense, but also in terms of the price we’d pay in failing to detect a threat in time.)
This being America, we will insist on going a long way to preserve the appearance of equality, and that is no bad thing in terms of moral principle. But like all values, the appearance of equality is not infinite in its appeal–especially if it flies in the face of common sense and self-preservation. A short time after the shootings at Fort Hood, President Obama asked us not to jump to conclusions. To many Americans, this was a grating request, of a piece with the political correctness that was responsible–it has emerged–for the hands-off treatment by the Army of Maj. Hasan. How else could he have been left in the position of treating U.S. troops, given the stories we’ve now heard about his incendiary statements and apparent incompetence?
This is the same mindset that led the FBI to deny the possibility that the Fort Hood massacre was linked to terrorism even before they could have had any idea that was the case. We don’t have to be paranoid about Arab males; we just have to avoid the opposite: Being fearful of coming across as Islamophobic, and thereby failing to look straight at a situation.
