[WillBlake] I know you are fully on board with this trend, Arlo, but please do not denigrate your intelligence by reverting to examples of nonsense. Think before you write.
[Arlo] Ye gads. Don't tell me you're gonna start with the Platt-tactics. Look, as I said, the "extreme examples" you find absurd are ONLY absurd TODAY, as a result of a generation or more of "PC". THAT'S the point. By the way, can you tell me where I was this insulting to you in my last response? [WillBlake] According to your post, PC includes everything that promotes vocal respect for another. [Arlo] No, "PC" is any attempt to frame an issue or set a response by using specific language. In many ways, this has been GOOD, in the examples I cited, and how my daughter's generation is more respectful of things that my generation responded to with outright cruelty. But PC has also been manipulated dangerously, by ideologues of both political parties to manipulate and congeal power. The "intelligent reply" is to know how to separate the two, or talk about ways of discussing context to determine whether or not something is good, bad or just superfluous excess (like "sanitation engineers"). [WillBlake] Protecting minorities is certainly not something I am against. [Arlo] We are all minorities in specific ways, and this changes quickly based on context (as you found in Hawaii). The problems always begin when one group claims superiority, it might be "cool" when you are in the in-crowd, but very uncool when you are not. [WillBlake] Examples of where PC goes overboard? Sure, there are plenty. [Arlo] Yes there are. And in each case the more intelligent reply would be to examine the context, to ask the right questions, and work together towards a solution. Why did black and hispanic firemen do more poorly on that fireman test than whites? Is that nationwide? Unique to Boston? Is it access to training? Or would you say that whites are simply genetically superior firemen? Or that black and hispanic firemen are lazy or stupid? No one should want unqualified people to be the emergency respondants to our homes, but the question in larger in this context. If everyone could sit down and legitimately figure out "why" blacks and hispanics did worse, and then seek to improve that situation, then everyone would have MORE qualified people to protect their homes. [WillBlake] ... The claim that the next person on the supreme court should be a woman is PC at work. [Arlo] The claim that if you are against waterboard torture you want America to lose the "war". The claim that if you oppose the war at all you want to see dead American troops. The claim that if you support Obama you are a socialist or a tyrant. The repeated use of "Hussein" by those who attack Obama. The constant pandering to fear when discussing immigration. Yes, the list is quite long. But to your last point, let me ask you this. Do you feel women are underqualified on average to be Justicies on the Supreme Court? If not, why do YOU feel they have been under-represented? More than half our population is female, why does this ratio not carry over to our Court or our Presidency? Can you answer me that? [WillBlake] PC undermines the whole notion of equal rights, the freedom of religion, the protection of family rights, the right to privacy, the right to fire a woman if she doesn't show up to work consistently because she is taking care of a child, the right to hire and fire people because of their color... [Arlo] Are you serious? I was beginning to think we have some common ground, but I hit this paragraph and see that's not the case at all. What you're saying, as I see it, is that an oppressed minority should just shut up and tough it out, and if things never change for them, oh well too bad for them. And how exactly does "PC" undermine "family rights"? Answer me that one please. [WillBlake] ... the right to air ones views on the inferiority of another race... [Arlo] Really? THIS is what you are up riled up about? That some people don't have the "right" to "air views" about how their race is superior to others? I think they have this right. Hell, that Newsweek article I sent details the public and vocal recruiting of Supremicist groups. There are tons of internet sites set up to advance the racial superiority of one group. No one is taking them down. [WillBlake] ... the stopping proven success in choosing to pay more attention to plane passengers who are arabic, the right to protest taxes because you are not patriotic enough, the right to disagree with a vocal minority who controls the majority, our freedom of speech. I could go on. [Arlo] It seems from your list that you are coming at this from a predominantly "right-wing" view that paints minorities are the source of the problem, and seeks to give a pass to the hatred and evil that they are fighting. While I admit to being concerned about rabid uses of PC to assault critics of our government, I really have little concern for whether or not someone feels their "right" to call another person a "nigger" or a "spic" is threatened. And I'll ask again, your advice to those who are targeted by hate is to basically "Buck up and get over it", would that be your advice to those you mention above who are being treated, in your view, unfairly? Indeed, if you feel whites are Christians are being treated unfairly, why isn't your advice to them to "Buck up and get over it, to work for earning respect!"? [WillBlake] If you claim it is the current PC mania which accomplished all of our societal advances in terms of respect and tolerance, then you are talking about something completely different. [Arlo] No, I'm just taking a broad, historical view of it. Why is "retard" a word my daughter tells me she never hears in school, when a generation ago my class drove a kid out of our school with constant bombardment of such slurs? Magic? What causes the increase, even if its ever so slight, in improving the way we as a people treat the mentally-handicapped? I say, a large part of it was the efforts of "PC". [WillBlake] What was PC called 50 years ago? [Arlo] Don't think it was called anything. It was a grand utopia where the Klan held public cross-burnings, harassed "niggers" and "chinks" were the target of excessive violence in the Pacific areas. Mentally-handicapped kids were called retards, and Bob the Black Guy could work his entire life to earn respect and still be called "boy" and denied jobs less qualified whites were getting. Women stayed at home and wore aprons and were good subservient pieces of property to their husbands. Gays were called "faggots" and publicly and openly assaulted, ridiculed and harassed. I think we've come a long way, although we have a lot more growing to do. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
