From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   The proponents of political correctness like to portray anyone who takes   
   objection to political correctness as a bigot or a neanderthal. Any expression   
   containing even a hint of anger brings on that response. I am responding now   
   to political correctness    
   in a manner that is fully reasoned and that cannot be portrayed credibly as   
   any such thing.   
      
   Political correctness not only fails to achieve its stated goals of tolerance   
   and respect; it prevents them from being made possible at all. In order to   
   actually respect or tolerate the next person I need to understand their   
   perspective. For me to do so    
   the next person will have to be able to tell me their honest opinions however   
   offensive these may be. And if the next person cannot tell me their honest   
   opinions because someone may find them offensive, then I will never understand   
   the next person's    
   perspective, and I would not know whether or not to extend to that person   
   actual tolerance or actual respect.   
      
   What is achieved this way is nothing close to tolerance or respect. What is   
   achieved this way is suffocating insincerity. And insincerity is a horrible   
   thing to inflict upon a population. It makes Americans look to everyone else   
   like scammers. Even I,    
   who have fought this state of affairs ever since I knew what it was, could not   
   escape this stereotype when I went to Australia.   
      
   Now there have been many arguments by conservatives that 1960s and 1970s   
   liberalism degraded national character. Political correctness does that much   
   more. People having sex and doing drugs does not necessarily make people worse   
   human beings. Being    
   taught to be insincere, however, very much does make people worse human   
   beings. And that degrades national character for real.   
      
   Before political correctness in America, there were similar attitudes in   
   Japan. According to their beliefs you get what you send out; so you cannot say   
   or even think anything negative. But there are many situations in which you do   
   have to say things that    
   are negative. When a nuclear reactor explodes you have to tell people what   
   actually has taken place. Doing anything else is not enlightenment, it is   
   lying.   
      
   Similar themes have been tried in a fair country formerly known as Yugoslavia.   
   Yugoslavia was widely regarded as a civilized country, indeed the best country   
   in the Communist bloc. The government preached something similar to political   
   correctness, and    
   it made sure that people conformed to it. Because people were not allowed to   
   express their feelings, they could not move beyond their suppressed ethnic   
   hatreds, which is what they had been feeling all along. The fair country   
   called Yugoslavia was    
   replaced with mass graves and rapes of every female aged 4 to 70. This was not   
   accidental; it was a logical outcome of the politically correct policies that   
   the Tito government had put into place.   
      
   I am from Russia, and Russians are generally regarded as the rudest people in   
   the world. I have encountered in any number of places – especially the   
   American South – the attitude that politeness is the same thing as respect;   
   but a credible case can    
   be made that rudeness is actually more respectable than politeness. When you   
   are rude I know where you are standing, whereas when you are polite I am left   
   guessing. If you think that Russians, or Jews, or myself personally, are evil,   
   then I would rather    
   hear that than to see you pretending to be nice to me while waiting to stab me   
   in the back. That way I know what I am dealing with, and I can find workable   
   ways to deal with it.   
      
   Now I do not necessarily advocate unchecked rudeness, as that can be   
   off-putting to people and often deter useful input. But that outcome is far   
   more reliably accomplished by the attitude that no opinion that anyone can   
   consider offensive should be    
   expressed. The outcome of the preceding, once again, is nothing close to   
   tolerance or respect. The outcome of the preceding is suffocating insincerity.   
   And that, once again, is very bad for the country. It makes everyone   
   dishonest, and as such it    
   degrades national character.   
      
   Besides, once again, making all but impossible its stated goals of achieving   
   tolerance and respect.   
      
   Of course the participants in political correctness do not begin to follow   
   their own stated claims of respect or tolerance. I have been viciously   
   misrepresented by these people as everything that I am not. A sociopath, a   
   racist, a misogynist, you name it.   
    I have even been slandered ridiculously as a pedophile. Yet very few of these   
   people have done anything to help women at the receiving end of real abuses   
   such as severe brutality, death threats or corrupt courts taking away their   
   children. Very few of    
   these people have maintained close, lasting, serious friendships with people   
   who were black, or people who were poor, or people who are socially   
   ostracized. Very few of these people have done anything to confront real   
   misogyny such as that of Eminem or    
   Michael Murphy. I have done all of the above.   
      
   The same people who call themselves feminists have been abetting the most   
   viciously misogynistic ideology on the planet – Jihadist Islam. The same   
   people who call themselves feminists have been excusing inner city thugs in   
   their crimes against women.    
   Of course they do not see the outcome of their policies; however the people   
   who fund them and vote for them do.   
      
   At this point the participants in this abominable movement will want to   
   portray me as a dangerous person. I certainly hope to be dangerous to them; I   
   hope that more people be dangerous to them, both on the Left and the Right.   
   These people have inflicted    
   a very real form of fascism upon countries that are intended to be free; and   
   if America's founders were alive today they would see them for how gravely   
   they have violated the constitutional intent.   
      
   As well as, once again, degrading the national character.   
      
   As well as, once again, making all but impossible their own stated goals of   
   tolerance and respect.   
      
   I have close friendships with a number of classical liberals, including some   
   with major personal achievements, and none of them have any use for political   
   correctness. One statement I've heard from a young Jewish lady is that   
   political correctness is an    
   embarrassment to liberalism; and that it is indeed. Liberalism was never meant   
   to be the same thing as fascism, and liberalism was never meant to be the same   
   thing as forced insincerity.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)