Essentials

I don’t like political correctness, and I don’t relish seeing my party patent and use it. Neither do I enjoy giving the Republicans ammo to use against us. Actually, nobody seems to like political correctness, not even Democrats, but of course, they will add, “I am not against sensitivity and fairness etc.” It seems there is a definitional crisis here, and I have recently been reminded that nobody seems to define political correctness. Well, the dictionaries do, but I was unsatisfied with their definitions, as they seem mostly neutral. It seems to me the term is essentially negative. (I say that with the caveat that not all things referred to as politically correct by the Republicans are indeed politically correct.) So, I wrote my own definition.

politically correct

adj.

Of or pertaining to adherence to socially enforced linguistic or behavioral rules which, though ostensibly established to protect the sensibilities or further the interests of an underrepresented constituency, rely upon formal concerns rather than substance to gain unfair political advantage at the risk of suppressing open discourse.

I would appreciate specific suggestions as to how to improve the definition. As we see, the essential dishonorability is built into the definition, which will in itself distinguish it from racial sensitivity, insistence on fairness, and all the things political correctness could be mistaken for or painted as.

A good instance of political correctness is how that despicable witch Anne Coulter has been recently attacked for using the phrase, “oily Jews.” This sounds pretty bad, but, in fact, the actual Anne Coulter quote goes as follows:

There's no consensus position, but the Democrats are pretty sure the real reason we went to Iraq was one of the following:

* Bush family's connections to the Saudis,

* Halliburton,

* the Carlyle Group,

* something about the Texas Rangers needing more left-handed pitching,

* the neoconservatives,

* the Straussians,

* oil,

* the Jews,

* oily Jews.

Coulter took a lot of heat about this phrase, but obviously she was not calling Jews oily, but was instead insinuating that Democrats are racist. Now, all the people who gave her flak should know this. Well, actually, they probably do know this, but are hoping to apply the overused political correctness juju to the oily Jew comment, hoping that there is someone out there who will play along because apparently there are still plenty of people willing to do so. This is not to suggest that Ann Coulter is not a Nazi, but this is an instance where the formal concerns of politically correct language have interfered with political discourse. In one sense, I could applaud Coulter’s bravery for facing charges of racism and bating those among us lefties who deserve a good bating. However, Ann Coulter’s comments don’t evidence any special courage, since her elitist party of exclusion has all the power right now. If the Dems still had a miniscule amount of power, it could have seriously hindered Coulter’s ability to call Democrats racists with vigorous language, even though she should have every right to do so, not just by law, but by substantive fairness. It is not the business of a vigorous party to try to dictate the actual words used in speech rather than attacking negative meanings.

In fact, the very essence of classic liberalism as it pertains to speech is the phrase, “The solution to bad speech is more speech.” I do not argue against socially sanctioning people for offensive speech. We should not have to hire or buy from Nazis, for instance, if they say, “Kill all niggers!” On the other hand, by the political correctness doctrine, I could also lose my job for using that phrase in this context; that is, I would be socially punished for saying the phrase, rather than applauded for saying we should not have to hire people who actually mean it. That is, the particular string of characters, not the sentiment or meaning, has become an autonomous kryptonite that kills indiscriminately. I would actually prefer to use the term “the N-word” here in order not to piss people off, but it doesn’t make much sense when trying to ask people to not react rabidly to buzzwords. I am asking Democrats to slow down, take a deep breath, and think. We think about other stuff all the time. Now it is time to turn those finely tuned critical faculties upon ourselves.

As we try to rebuild our party, we should try to isolate areas in which Democrats have been politically correct and resolve to learn from the experience. It is true that Republicans have their own version of political correctness that is in fact probably more virulent than the left’s. The left will also claim that the distribution of political correctness was over-exaggerated by the Republicans. It is hard to argue about perceptions and what the other guy ought to do, but today, let’s focus on the left, and I will outline some of my perceptions.

I was in college in a liberal arts major during the whole political correctness heyday, so it didn't look that exaggerated to me. I knew of and knocked heads with real feminazis -- sorry to use the Limbaughism; it fits -- and with racial stupidities. From my experience, I thought political correctness was actually under-estimated. They had all these liberal teachers ridiculing students for religious and political beliefs, actually thinking it was their job to teach what to think instead of how to think. This attitude is what backfired on the left in general and the Dems. It was just arrogance, and people will hate you for it after they get out of your class. Anyone who took Freshman Composition was at risk of being turned off to the Democratic party by closet Marxists and those with pretensions to elitism, who misused their authority by trying to force their views and attitudes on their students.

Teachers were snickering at papers kids were turning in about taking a first deer. Now, they never would have made fun of a Native American taking his first deer. But the white kid was just not going to get an A on a paper about shooting a deer. It is just ridiculous stuff like that, and a lot of it is running unchecked without anyone opening his mouth in opposition. I am an atheist, but I would never presume it was my job to change these kids' minds in the setting of a composition class. Now, I am not going to accept citations like (God), but it is not an English teacher's role to promote secularism, denigrate hunting, promote Marxism, or push any other ideology. This move may, in fact, be covering for a lack of knowledge and skill. If you criticized these methods, like I did, you could end up feeling very unwelcome. I had some problems along these lines, even though I have never voted GOP in my life. I even voted Green back then.

Another thing that flabbergasted me: They take the kids outside, have them line up, and ask them to take a step forward if they have had a privilege and a step back if they hadn't. "Take a step forward if you parents were college educated. Take a step back if anyone in your family lives in a trailer park." They have a list of these questions. Then they tell them to look around at their classmates, and seeing the disparities was supposed to teach them about how the society is unequal. What good does this do? To me, it sounds more like it is perpetuating the inequalities rather than fixing them. There they are, all in the same class, getting an education, and they have to have some bourgeois kid four years older insinuating that they have no chance in life, and in the context of a freshman composition class, it makes no sense whatsoever.

If we want to improve the ability of the Democratic Party to compete, we should raise our voices against these little elitist attitudes and lack of discipline, because the Democratic Party is the party of the kids who hunt deer and go to church, and we college-educated types insult their ways of life at the peril of the Democratic Party. It doesn’t matter if the Republicans are going to rob them blind; they will still vote for them if Democrats act politically correct.

Continue to Purge the Democratic Party!