Posted on 03/30/2006 5:48:55 AM PST by rhema
TONIGHT, with Bill O'Reilly, I'm scheduled to formally launch my new book, "Muzzled."
Why "Muzzled"? In a word, it's what we are. Words and actions have been muted by those among us who assert their political correctness while sacrificing the rugged individualism that has been the hallmark of our nation.
Every slight.
Every insult.
Every askance look.
What in the past would have been settled with a hand gesture is today grounds for a federal case. At any other time in our history, what I have written would be a collection of enraging, enthralling and entertaining tales. But now they are more. The "Muzzled," victim-filled society we've created is a cancer that has metastasized to the war on terror.
Consider that, on the home front:
Post Katrina, a group of Portland, Ore., firefighters volunteered to help when tens of thousands of people were still stranded. But before they were allowed to have at it, FEMA demanded they undergo diversity training! People were dying in the Gulf states while our government demanded that folks who had already proven their decency by their willingness to leave their own families and travel across the country to help were stuck in a hotel room in a sexual-harassment class.
Not long ago on Wall Street, Andrew Susser was fired from his high-level position at Bank of America after his face was superimposed onto the photo of a fully clothed woman as an attention-getter in a company report. No nudity. No profanity. Just corporate intolerance.
Kirk Reynolds got canned as the public-relations head of the San Francisco 49ers when a video he made to reach those in the locker room was evaluated instead on the politically correct streets of San Francisco.
This very newspaper felt the need to apologize for a Page 1 that showed the mugs of 18 perps wanted for murder in Philadelphia because none was Caucasian, despite the fact that no Caucasians were then at large for murder in Philadelphia!
And, in our town, an ad exec was awarded $600,000 after filing a discrimination lawsuit solely because his boss, in an effort to improve company dress, had distributed the all-time business best-seller, "Dress for Success," which contained advice for people selling to individuals of a different race or ethnicity.
Over in New Jersey, the time-honored tradition of "Ladies' Night," a gimmick for nightspots to lure women who, in turn, lure more men, came to a halt after a single male patron complained about women paying less for drinks.
New Jersey is also where honor guardsman Patrick Cubbage was prohibited from saying "God bless you, and God bless the United States" when handing American flags to the grieving kin of veterans at military funerals.
Out in Chester County, kindergarten student Wesley Busch was told it was OK to identify his favorite book for classmates and have one of his parents come to class and read aloud from it, as long as it wasn't the Bible.
UP IN NEW England, 9-year-old Collin Kelly was stopped from placing flowers on the bare graves of soldiers.
The color red has fallen out of favor for teachers marking papers at schools across the country because of a concern that it could have a negative effect on the psyches of students getting an unfavorable grade. This at the same time that grades themselves are being shunned!
Youth athletics have succumbed to trophy mania: Now, just showing up is deemed deserving of recognition.
At Harvard, undergrad Michael Kopko was given permission by the school to start a room-cleaning business on campus - as long as he didn't use the "sexist and demeaning" word "maid" in the name of his enterprise.
And, of course, here at Penn, a woman who had sex in front of an open window was deemed to be a victim of sexual harassment after (surprise, surprise) somebody snapped her photo and put it online.
In Atlanta, former college linebacker Brian Nichols, on trial for rape, overpowered the five-foot granny named Cynthia Ann Hall who was guarding him before going on a killing spree that included the murder of a judge, but nobody was willing to publicly question why such a mismatch was ever allowed.
The Miss America Pageant would rather see its ratings in the tank than have a busty baton twirler win the competition.
Slavery: Wachovia, the nation's fourth largest bank, apologized (and appears ready to pay) for something that it didn't do, in an era when the bank didn't exist, under laws that were not broken.
Indian tribes claim they were dishonored when their land was stolen and assert ownership claims in what is really a bid for casino licenses. All the while, the tribes object to sports teams named to honor them, proving that, in the end, it's all about the wampum.
And nobody has been more muzzled than smokers, while the allocation of research money ignores the fact that lung cancer kills more than colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer and yes, breast cancer, combined.
I wish I were joking about these things. Speaking of which, jokes are harder to tell these days, especially the good ethnic ones, for fear of being accused of offending.
NOW LET ME tell you why this is all so important.
In the past, this sanitization of what we say and do would have been debate-worthy, but only a minor irritant to our quality of life. But in the post-9/11 world, these trends represent a threat to our survival.
No wonder that 4 ½ years after 9/11, we're still flying blind in the war on terror, refusing to accept that the fact that radical Islamic terrorists usually evidence the common denominators of race, sex, age, ethnicity and, yes, appearance.
And isn't it curious that there is more attention paid to the half-dozen knuckleheads responsible for some truly minor indiscretions at Abu Ghraib than the good work of the 140,000 other honorable servicemen and women?
Have you wondered why there is more concern for whether we played Christina Aguilera music too loud for detainee No. 063 at Guantanamo than the fact that this same guy would have been hijacker No. 20, cutting throats with box-cutters on 9/11, had he gotten past customs officials when he tried to get into Orlando International Airport a month before 9/11?
Or that we actually have had a debate about whether to print political cartoons that work radical Islam into a lather?
It's because we are no longer a country that respects our differences, though those differences sometimes come with a few rough edges that offend.
Instead, we've become a country of kvetchers and apologists, even while at war. The same thinking that says kids on losing T-ball teams should also get trophies just for being there, or that "F" on a paper should be delivered in purple, not red, or that even short, weak people can be cops, or that there is something wrong with calling Miss America a beauty pageant is the same thinking that puts interrogators in handcuffs at Guantanamo or precludes our looking for terrorists at airports who look like terrorists!
We're scared to death of offending.
We're "Muzzled."
Americans kept saying the WE have free speech....until we rememeber "hate" crimes....which are crimes of THOUGHT. "Muzzling"? Yes, we have it. However, it's a one-way street. Non-minorites get the full punishment of hate-thought crimes; minorities don't. So, it's even more egregious since the law is unevenly applied.
Fantastic, prescient article. Thank you for posting.
Great article here.
True.
Mexicans call themseves "la raza, which means "the race." But if one complains about their illegal immigration, one is called a "racist."
They have it both ways.
American lawmakers have set this up....and their constituents vote them in and re-elect them.
The buck stops with American voters....as usual.
If the American people are foolish enough to let this bunch of sociopaths, morons, druggies, and brats take over the country, they deserve what the get.
Sounds like an interesting book. Library list!
After reading this, my eyes are squirting blood and I need some duct tape to keep my head from exploding.
(((SIGH)))
I did not know this. Can you give me background info on it?
As the Western Left is post-Christian, it is also post-liberal and post-liberty.
Orwellianly, the Left claims to be liberal and freedom loving, but is in fact oppressive and demading of conformity. There are countless examples, e.g. shouting down speakers whose opinions they don't like, "hate" crimes, speech codes, etc. The Left is overtly or covertly Marxist, and Marxism requires an oppressive totalitarian government for its implementation.
Though the Left professes a love for diversity, it in fact demands conformity, and Leftists themselves are slaves to groupthink and even fashion.
The Left is also selective and capricious.
Certain groups and individuals are selected as victims, others as oppressors; some as favored, others as vilified; and this is done capriciously and with disregard of fairness or logic, though xenophilia and iconoclasm are the general tendencies, and in its typical slavishness to groupthink, once such categories are selected, Leftists mindlessly accept the entire group paradigm.
Special benefits are endowed upon the "victims" and the "favored", special abuse inflicted upon the "oppressors" and "vilified", and herein justice is abnegated.
The Left loves powerful, oppressive government armed with numerous draconian laws (they call them "laws with teeeth in them") that cannot possibly be enforced uniformly or justly. This allows them to enforce the laws selectively, granting leniency and clemency to those they like, showing no mercy to those they dislike, and using the threat of enforcement as a very effective means of coercion.
If all this is reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's National Socialism and The Third Reich and the Marxist Soviet Union under Stalin, it's no coincidence. Both were Western Leftist designs, and if the Left had its way, a regime such as these horrors would be established in the United States.
This is America Soviet Style indoctrination.
Basicaly the party line of sexual-harassment is that girls and gays can attack guys but guys can't joke with each other or "criticize" the "authorities" and the established.
Very well stated!
The background?
Well, I went to Holland last year, in June, and stayed in Amsterdam for 11 days. My hotel, the Tulip Hotel, a modest hotel near the Holiday Hotel very near the Rijksmuseum, had free Internet, unlimited time on two computers in the lobby.
I asked about it and all of Amsterdam is wi-fi, paid for by taxes. I thought it was very cool.
I then tried to log on to www.freerepublic.com and the "Internet Nanny," and that WAS the name, popped up and blocked it -- with an apology, of course.
I tried other sites that allowed html, chats, yahoo.games...and they went through. It was ONLY www.freerepublic.com that was blocked.
I tried the Holiday Hotel and two other big hotels closer to Dam Square. All the same story: Internet Nanny blocked www.freerepublic.com.
WWII Axis powers were also Italy and Japan, with the USSR for two years. Don't forget the other "goose-steppers," who were LOCKSTEP with The Third Reich.
All that was 3 generations ago, the last century. Hitler was born in the 19th century and didn't step into Germany until 1923....83 years ago. Long time.
Lenin, Stalin and the USSR faded away 15 years ago.
CHINA, Cuba and much of southeast Asia are still communist. They are NOW and TODAY and in our immediate future for a long time.
China blocks the Internet. China made a deal with google, that is, to block all sites to the Chinese that involve "free China," that sect that the government hates and other "seditious" sites.
It's my GUESS that Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam and such also censor the Internet, newspapers and all media.
Leftism-Communism live on with the Chinese, all 1.4 billion of them. The Communist Party is still here in the USA. My guess is that in some places, it's THRIVING....Sleazywood? Ivory Towers?
Where, oh where, is all the hatred, outcry and warnings about THEM? They are our "buddies" these days.
Misplaced detente, imho.
Have you noticed the signage that the protesters use?
They support "immigration" and fail to put up signs that say the REAL problem. They should tell the truth, that is, that they "SUPPORT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!" "We support ILLEGAL immigrants!"
Anyone against their LYING signs is a racist.
They don't DARE put up their truth....because they would lose.
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