We all know about PC, or political correctness. It’s been around 50yrs, maybe more, taking to task our daily conversations, butting in when insensitivity/intolerance rear their ugly heads. But to be clear, potentially offending someone without realizing it could be ignorant or clumsy and not a mean-spirited dig. Back in the day we had Orwell’s 1984 and his thought police. Instead of Scifi we now have an arbitrary 3rdparty authority {liberalism} electing itself to be judge & jury, telling us what it thinks we mean when we say things a certain way.
Take an old battalion chief congratulating the graduating class at a Fire Dept, addressing them as firemen, not fire fighters. Could be an oversight, maybe a Freudian slip, but a deliberate dig? Only the chief knows for sure.
There are countless examples of male-female which don’t stem from willful exclusion but simply from age-old male-dominated occupations. PC goes beyond such gender sensitivities. Can we ask for egg salad in vegetarian eateries; say grace at a meal for Jews, Christians, Muslims or atheists; ask an Asian what country he’s from; compliment a black on his diction or vocabulary; ask why black lives matter more than all lives? Is this really about offending someone or just liberal-speak changing our culture?
White Europeans came to dominate the world, no question, and in doing so exhibited/exerted various biases and prejudices proclaiming superiority over those they colonized. It was reality 500 years ago. PC supposedly challenges that long-ago perception, rejecting it out of hand as insensitive, cruel, racist and totally inappropriate for today’s world.
But we know yesteryear’s truths don’t hold. Same with broad generalizations about physical conditions, policies and illnesses, like climate change, gun control, border security, kids’ psychia-trics, benefits of giving psychotropic drugs and so on. All have opinions on these and other things but in a given moment we may be among the like-minded or not. This gives rise to a questionable PC where truth is in the eye and mind of the beholder.
Then there’s microaggressions: ask a Swede if he’s Norwegian, an African-American what country he’s from, a man why his beard is so long, a woman why she pierces or body-arts herself, a Mexican if he prefers hamburgers or tacos, a pregnant lady why she’s having that glass of wine? All are nominally confrontational making some of us judgmental, the others put-upon.
There’s no limit to these melodramas. Hypersensitivity attains free reign in the victimization process. Lines between curiosity, constructive criticism and personal insults are blurred. Are we so thin-skinned we can’t take a joke anymore? Can’t laugh at ourselves, admit to cultural differences or share delight in an unintentional faux pas? PC has become PI – politically Incorrect. In this oppressive aspect its absurd and needs to be curtailed!
Next controversy EC; the electoral college. Most of us know this is a constitution-driven procedure called for by the 12th Amendment when electing presidents. It came into being after 1800 when Thomas Jefferson tied with Vice President Aaron Burr and it took some thirty-odd recounts before he finally won.
This embarrassment to the new republic needed fixing, so a method was proposed independent of the popular vote which 1) offered an equal voice to the smaller states 2) offered a representational/proportional outcome in the final majority 3) eliminated the potential for tampering or manipulation of the electors who were only momentarily involved in the vote.
The controversy grows because twice in the last five(5) election cycles the popular vote has been over-ridden by electoral votes and millions of voters became unpersuasive/nondeterminative in their majority. At face value it seemed illogical and unfair. At the same time it supported the voting interests of the smaller states. A quick glance at a map showing America’s reds v. blues bears this out, the majority being red.
I’m one who is highly dubious of majority rule. I like democracy but worry, given today’s demographic trends, immigration policy, weak voting-booth integrity, voter apathy and uninformed, under-proxied electorate, such rule is open to manipulation or fraud. I’m also loath to any process that helps 2-3 states like NY, FL or CA decide who will be president, cycle after cycle, which their simple majorities do. Urbanites or city folks are not an adequate sampling or cross-sectional slice of America.
Last controversy BRC; birth-right citizenship. Here we have an ongoing debate between constitutional scholars no less, let alone we ordinary citizens who are affected the most. In brief, the argument goes to the 14th Amendment, 1868 and language therein. One side relies on old British/English common law under which persons born in a monarch’s realm become subjects of the monarchy, in perpetuity.
The other side cites our Declaration of Independence and its legal authority as social compact which in and of itself released us from the subjectship of monarchy and made us citizens, by consent. So, we can’t become citizens except by consent, which newborns exert through parents, they being legal residents of the United States and subject to its juris diction.
Originalists argue language was clear but the Supreme Court mis-ruled a case in 1898 upholding the archaic interpretation, giving it contemporary meaning and invalid pedigree/authority.
We can get lost in these constitutional weeds or view the practical/pragmatic side of the issue. How does the policy affect our daily life or compare with other western democracies?
At the moment there are thirty-three countries using BRC or about 17% of world bodies, the only other western democracy being Canada. Past 50Yr trend has been to abandon it in favor of tighter controls, most noteworthy England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Russia and Scandinavian countries never had the policy to begin with.
BRC can be had by a simple illegal crossing, a tourist situation, an expired green card or student visa overstay or any other transient or temporary status where a child is born on American soil to a non-citizen mother regardless of legal status.
A poll several years back showed 65% of us are opposed to BRC, whether legal or illegal. It’s estimated that more than 300,000 such births are recorded each year, that there have been about 4-5million in the past 10Yrs and that its costing us roughly $50B to feed, house, educate and care for these individuals, year in and year out.
Promulgating or promoting BRC gives rise to chain immigration, a path to citizenship that wouldn’t normally be available to the parents and relatives of the child not to mention the ongoing dilution of our culture and depletion of our resources. In my view the fostering of BRC represents a deliberate attempt by various political forces to manipulate our body politic, imbed into permanence a particular political ideology, create an identity-specific separatist orientation in our electorate and fundamentally change the whole of American society.
We are losing our culture and our country as we speak. We must stop this insanity, protect our borders, safeguard sovereignty, prize citizenship, securitize our way of life and insure the long-term health and vitality of these fifty united states!
You’ve Been Reading Shaneview
I’m Al Shane
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