From: PERVY@SWERVY.COVE   
      
   'In the topsy-turvy politically correct world, truth comes   
   in two forms: the politically correct, and the factually   
   correct. The politically correct truth is publicly proclaimed   
   correct by politicians, celebrities and the BBC even if it is   
   wrong, while the factually correct truth is publicly con-demned   
   as wrong even when it is right. Factually correct   
   truths suffer the disadvantage that they don't have to be   
   shown to be wrong, merely stated that they are politically   
   incorrect.   
   To the politically correct, truth is no defence; to the   
   politically incorrect, truth is the ultimate defence. To the   
   politically correct, the 'truth' is no longer 'something that   
   exists in objective reality' but 'something that supports my   
   pre-held beliefs'. This selective definition of truth makes   
   PC arguments almost impossible to refute.   
   In consequence, the politically correct often believe you   
   can justify their version of truth with a lie. When the   
   Mirror published photos purporting to show UK soldiers   
   torturing Iraqis, the paper's supporters still justified them   
   after they were proved to be fake on the grounds that they   
   illustrated a greater truth (which they apparently did, but   
   no one would be excused for illustrating a politically in-correct   
   truth with a lie). Michael Moore fabricates facts   
   with merry abandon in his films, and yet his supporters are   
   unapologetic on the grounds they represent the (politically   
   correct) truth.   
   In contrast, when Robert Kilroy-Silk wrote that Arabs   
   were 'suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repress-ors',   
   he wasn't sacked by the BBC because it wasn't true   
   as a description of the most disturbing features of some   
   contemporary Arab societies, but because it broke the laws   
   of PC. The BBC declared that it 'did not share' Kilroy's   
   views, an implicit acknowledgement that even though as   
   an institution it is not meant to have its own views, it by   
   default adopts politically correct institutional beliefs.   
   Despite the fact that government figures show that Afro-   
   Caribbeans commit disproportionate numbers of violent   
   street crimes compared to other ethnic groups, people are   
   denounced if they say so in public.   
   Counter arguments to politically correct beliefs are   
   dismissed without consideration, or simply suppressed.   
   When the Observer and the BBC denounced the tyranny   
   of the government for locking up foreign suspected   
   terrorists without trial in Belmarsh Prison, they rarely   
   mentioned that the suspects had defied government orders   
   to leave the country, that despite being in prison they were   
   free to leave Britain to any country that would take them,   
   that many had already done so, and that the government   
   didn't deport them forcibly to their home country because   
   to do so would be a breach of their human rights under the   
   Human Rights Act. To admit any of this would undermine   
   the politically correct's attempt at creating a sense of   
   outrage by portraying it as a simple case of a powerful   
   Western government abusing powerless non-Western   
   citizens. Belmarsh was not Britain's Guantanamo: the   
   inmates of Guantanamo cannot leave and are outside the   
   democratic rule of law, a rather important distinction.'   
      
      
   --   
   From: 'The Retreat From Reason:   
   Political Correctness and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain'   
   by Anthony Browne   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)