“Political Correctness” is the Bane of a Civil Society

What is “political correctness”? A popular definition is: “ Political correctness is considered to be an unwritten set of rules by unelected, nosy, busybodies, who determine what you are free to say under the guise of tolerance, as set down mostly by liberals”. They (the P.C.liberals) are the judge, jury, and executioner of the words and actions of what people say or do. The liberals are always clamoring for “free speech”, but they are the one's who want to restrict free speech if it doesn't comply with their definition of what is right and wrong and proper. Political correctness is insidious and destructive in our free and open society, and is the antithesis of our guaranteed rights as citizens as enumerated in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.

People, under our Constitution, have a right to be able to express themselves freely and openly, even if some think that speech and those expressions are stupid, hurtful or silly, and without having to censor what they say by some unelected self-styled member of the P.C. Police.

Look what's happening around us today. The loony liberals are going on the attack in order to prop up the Democrat candidates. They are trotting out the the same old “litmus test” questions that they always ask Republican candidates hoping that they will say something that the liberals will claim as being “politically incorrect”.

In almost every election cycle, the liberals bring up volatile social issues in order to divert attention away from the important issues facing our country, like national security, strengthening the economy, and the slowing down of the tremendous debt that we, as a nation, are piling up for our children and grandchildren to worry about in future years etc, etc. Already, the Republican candidates have had to answer “gotcha” questions by the liberal media on the topics of abortion, Muslims, same sex marriage, contraception, planned parenthood, and the phony “War on Women”.

Unfortunately, the Republican candidates fall for the “bait” and try to answer those questions - and as a result they get hammered by the media and the liberal Democrats as they twist and turn what the candidates say to make it a negative about them. The pejorative words that roll off the liberals lips as an example are, homophobes, sexist, racist, terrorist, and insensitive etc. These are some of the words and phrases used to describe the Republicans because they did not adhere to the P.C. orthodoxy as laid down by by the holier-than-thou liberals.

But, both Donald Trump and Ben Carson have not backed down, and rightfully so, and have stuck by what they said, or in Trump's case, what he did not say. Many people feel that that fortitude by these two, by not succumbing to the P.C. Police, is a breath of fresh air which should be the way to handle those “gotcha” questions by all the Republican candidates. People are sick and tired of politicians giving in to “political correctness” by trying to please the liberal left P.C. Police. They don't or should realize that they can't ameliorate the disdain that the liberals have for them, no matter what they say or do. They cannot win, so they should not get bogged down with those “gotcha” questions and move on to the meaningful questions that the public wants answers to.

Today, common everyday words are construed to have a negative P.C. meaning, according to these “protectors” of society. Words such as “golf”, is claimed to be derogatory of Obama because he plays an inordinate amount of rounds of golf with the implication that he is black, also the word such as “angry” shouldn't be used to describe militant black groups, as that is a “dog whistle” word to put down blacks, and on and on. To these arbiters of speech codes, especially when it comes to race, it is not the color of a man's skin that is the problem, it is how thin it is.

Look at how many words relating to these topics that are now considered off-limits by the P.C. Police:

• global warming if you are a “denier”
• affirmative action if you are against it.
• gay marriage if you believe in traditional marriage
• labeling Muslims as terrorists even though most terrorists are Muslim.
• complimenting women on their appearance is considered sexual harassment.
• professing a belief in God. (God forbid!)
• Use of words such as midget, retarded etc.

The list goes on and on, but I'm sure you get the drift of how we are losing our right to express ourselves without interference from others.

So YES, I believe that “political correctness” is the bane of our society, and the quicker we can free ourselves from its tentacles the better off we all will be.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann