[Platt] The battle against "evil social conformity" goes on to this day.
[Krimel] When did acting in good faith and obeying the law become evil? Without conformity there is no social at all. [Platt] Every hear of political correctness, hate speech or the thought police? [Krimel] ----------------- Political Correctness ------------------ "Furthermore, in an era of political correctness, when the fear of 30-second attack ads has homogenized and sterilized our language, ridding it of many distasteful truths, this amendment takes us in the opposite direction of that envisioned by our Founding Fathers whose words and deeds bravely challenged the status quo." - Testimony of Bob Kerrey - President of the New School University - Former United States Senator - Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the Proposed Flag Desecration Constitutional Amendment ______________________________ "What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship. Disputants treat sheer force -- getting their foes punished or expelled, for instance -- as a substitute for the power of ideas. Throughout history, attempts to micromanage casual conversation have only incited distrust. They have invited people to look for an insult in every word, gesture, action. And in their own Orwellian way, crusades that demand correct behavior crush diversity in the name of diversity. We all should be alarmed at the rise of intolerance in our land and by the growing tendency to use intimidation rather than reason in settling disputes. Neighbors who disagree no longer settle matters over a cup of coffee. They hire lawyers, and they go to court. And political extremists roam the land, abusing the privilege of free speech, setting citizens against one another on the basis of their class or race." -George W. Bush ______________________________ "Some commentators argue that the term "political correctness" was engineered by American conservatives around 1980 as a way to reframe political arguments in the United States. According to Hutton: 'Political correctness is one of the brilliant tools that the American Right developed in the mid-1980s as part of its demolition of American liberalism....What the sharpest thinkers on the American Right saw quickly was that by declaring war on the cultural manifestations of liberalism - by levelling the charge of political correctness against its exponents - they could discredit the whole political project.' Such commentators say that there never was a "Political Correctness movement" in the United States, and that many who use the term are attempting to distract attention from substantive debates over discrimination and unequal treatment based on race, class, and gender Similarly, Polly Toynbee has argued that "the phrase is an empty rightwing smear designed only to elevate its user". - Wiki ______________________________ "Political correctness is the practice of censoring viewpoints disparaging to the liberal agenda or embarrassing to powerful people. The term is American, first used in the Chisholm v. Georgia Supreme Court decision of 1793. It meant "not literally correct" at the time. The phrase then seems to have been lost for the next 150 years." - Pittsburg Tribune-Review: Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer. [Krimel] ----------------- Hate Speech ------------------ "Many universities, under pressure to respond to the concerns of those who are the objects of hate, have adopted codes or policies prohibiting speech that offends any group based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. That's the wrong response, well-meaning or not. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Speech codes adopted by government-financed state colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution." - www.aclu.org [Krimel] -----------------Thought Police? ------------------ (c)(1) Upon an application made pursuant to this section, the judge shall enter an ex parte order as requested, or as modified, approving the release of records if the judge finds that the application meets the requirements of this section. (c)(2) An order under this subsection shall not disclose that it is issued for purposes of an investigation described in subsection (a). (d) No person shall disclose to any other person (other than those persons necessary to produce the tangible things under this section) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained tangible things under this section. (e) A person who, in good faith, produces tangible things under an order pursuant to this section shall not be liable to any other person for such production. Such production shall not be deemed to constitute a waiver of any privilege in any other proceeding or context. - Section 215 US Patriot Act. "The diary would be reduced to ashes and himself to vapour. Only the Thought Police would read what he had written, before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive? - George Orwell - 1984 [Krimel} ---------------You for got one ----------------- . 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, - Orwell, again. 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/
