Posted on 01/06/2008 9:48:35 AM PST by kalee
Political correctness is about denial, usually in the weasel circumlocutory jargon which distorts and evades and seldom stands up to honest analysis.
It comes in many guises, some of them so effective that the PC can be difficult to detect. The silly euphemisms, apparently harmless, but forever dripping to wear away common sense - the naivete of the phrase "a caring force for the future" on Remembrance poppy trays, which suggests that the army is some kind of peace corps, when in fact its true function is killing.
The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions.
The selective distortions of history, so beloved by New Labour, denigrating Britain's past with such propaganda as hopelessly unbalanced accounts of the slave trade, laying all the blame on the white races, but carefully censoring the truth that not a slave could have come out of Africa without the active assistance of black slavers, and that the trade was only finally suppressed by the Royal Navy virtually single-handed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Fraser got it. The feel-good World of political correctness strives to create a reality which does not exist, and may never exist. The real World goes on its messy, hostile, quarrelsome way.
Interesting contrast to the article the other day about Britain’s average income now exceeding ours. Financially, we’re OK, they’re OK, but culturally we’re both crumbling into dust.
Do you have a link to this article?
According to the CIA, US per capita GDP is $43k, Britain’s is $31k.
This is a MUST READ. Just about everything he says about the the UK can be applied to what's happening here in the US too. Thanks for posting it.
And the average cost of living is much higher in Britain, due to their tax structure and pouring money into the black hole that is the NHS.
Comparing standard of living or income between countries is inherently difficult. Unfortunately, most of the people who’ve undertaken it seem to have an axe to grind, generally to “prove” that Americans are much better off the Europeans, or the reverse.
I’d be very interested in an economist who is willing to try to cut through the garbage to “just the facts.”
Also I’m interested in such an approach to income trends over time. Those who write on such subjects are generally so obvious about trying to prove a point about modern policy that you can’t really take anything they say seriously.
Weren't there a bunch of Arab/Muslim slavers in on the deal, too (as there remain today)?
Excellent bump
Britain was over as a world power during the Suez crisis 1956. It was over before than, but that is when they knew it.
Depends on your definition of standard of living I suppose.
From your article: "Goods and services are cheaper in the U.S. - the reason many people fly there to do their Christmas shopping - meaning that even if Americans are earning less than us, they can afford to buy more."
So Brits have more money, but can't buy as much stuff with it.
It appears their determination is also drastically affected by the recent weakness of the dollar exchange rate.
The only logical comparison of income is a comparison of the "stuff" the average earner is able to buy with his money, but such comparisons are very difficult to find.
This is exactly what is happening in the US today. PC-speak has severely limited the freedom of speech and is gradually knawing away at our freedoms. We can no longer call a spade a spade or certain adherents to the Religion of Peace, smelly beak-nosed murderous arabs, for example.
I’ve read every book of the Flashman series that I could get my hands on, they are wonderful. They also have a good bit of real history in them and are an easy way to read history. Of course, the author takes a few liberties with the facts to make the stories work, but so do the present day historians that pump out the modern politically correct history books.
I’m a longtime Flashman fan. They offend against traditional Victorian morality just as much as they offend against political correctness. But so what? That’s understood. He’s a cowardly bully, but he’s funny.
I didn’t realize that Fraser had died. Pity.
What is different about PC is that this few has accomplished what Gramsci called the Long March Through The Institutions and its members find themselves both empowered and entrenched. Fraser has stated them to be undemocratic. That isn't in the least accidental. The idea behind placing social reform beyond the reach of the correction of the voter is most definitely an idea in favor of unchecked authoritarianism. Orwell was nearly right - it isn't so much that freedom is slavery, but that slavery has been proclaimed the only freedom.
There is a corrective available to a still nearly free people who are determined to use it - scorn. And disobedience. And, should the PC authoritarians avail themselves of the power of the state to cling to power, forcible resistance. Fraser forgot one thing when comparing Great Britain to the United States - we can still shoot back.
It shouldn't actually come to that. PC authoritarians are bullies and cowards, content to hide behind the facade of legitimacy provided by complaisant media, who are themselves institutions firmly in the grasp of the self-proclaimed cultural authority. What of that? The Long March was predicated on the hopeful assumption that the Institutions captured were the only game in town. It is beginning to dawn on the PC crowd in Hollywood that no one is buying, on the PC crowd in the press that the Internet is a viable and still free alternative, on the PC crowd in academia that theirs is the institution first captured and likely last to go down, and when it does so it is likely to go down hard.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." True enough. But this evil will fly from good men and women who speak up, who will not be shouted down, intimidated, or silenced by cheap and tawdry authoritarianism.
Good Lord, wake up and smell the coffee! The U.S. is a mirror-image of what Fraser's writing about!
I'm in the age group he mentioned and I identified with everything in his article. America is at least as bad off as England, maybe even worse in some respects. I can't even communicate with my own kids because they've been brainwashed by the schools and popular culture into despising all the freedoms of thought I stand for. We're probably never going to get them back. Young Americans: you have no idea what you're losing!
Before posting this I read Billthedrill's comments. He's absolutely right about the ways and means this came about and the approach to defeating it. Unfortunately people seek pleasure, not pain, and all the countervailing remedies at the current stage of this cultural plague are very painful.
The article is spot-on. Changes will be needed to get back to the place we once were. I believe a good dose of nationalism and national pride will solve the problems of multiculturalism. The liberal promises are falures. The PC world is a fantasy world as much a criminal dream as the Marxist New Communist Man. The solutions are to be found in the past and in the anglo-sphere—a new confederation of English speaking peoples with shared values and beliefs. It will come in time—It must.
Don’t count England out just yet.
Excerpt:
Living standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America for the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by the respected Oxford Economics consultancy.
The calculations suggest that, measured by gross domestic product per capita, Britain can now hold its head up high in the economic stakes after more than a century of playing second fiddle to the Americans.
It says that GDP per head in Britain will be £23,500 this year, compared with £23,250 in America, reflecting not only the strength of the pound against the dollar but also the UK economy’s record run of growth and rising incomes going back to the early 1990s
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