When I was a child it was quite proper to refer to members of the Negroid race as "colored people." Hence, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Then, I think sometime in the 1950s, it was required in politically correct society to drop "colored" and use "Negro." Hence the Negro College fund. Later, it was necessary to change to "Black" with the emergence of the Black Panthers and black exploitation movies etc. Now evidently we are in the age of the "African Americans."
The point is that I have lost control over my own language and have seen control over it pass to a nameless authority which shifts my language according to its subjective needs. I may have something to complain of but I have no constitutional leg to stand on. People can do with the language what they will, as I can do what I will, and we will compete in the marketplace of ideas. The government should have absolutely no role because, ultimately, language is power as it affects the way we perceive and think when we strive to express ourselves.
Likewise, if pressure groups can convince elected representatives of the people to change place names of public places that is part of the game of representative democracy. It may be unwise, it is often ludicrous, but it is not unconstitutional and it does not affect my liberty. But we should not forget that if we allow the subjective feelings of self proclaimed groups, usually racial groups, to dictate public discourse by enlisting government, we are a short step away from mob tyranny.
If the elevation of the subjective extends to government control over property rights, as we saw in the case of the Washington Redskins loss of of some of their copyright prerogatives, we have perverted government into an instrument of oppression. We violate the constitutional property rights of the Washington Redskins. We decide that if a group can gin up enough public-relations support and create enough commotion, they can get government action to deprive other people of their rights. And this is done by parading the subjective hurt feelings of a group presuming to speak for a whole race. The group may or may not be cynically motivated, it may simply be motivated by greed yet their will prevails over the constitutional rights of their victims.
The business of elevating subjective feelings over liberty is successful in raising money for the agitators and it works because it invokes the toxic charge of racism. Nathan Bedford's Maxim: all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial, finds obvious application in this area.
Once society gets conditioned to accept elevating subjectivism over constitutional rights when race is invoked, we have embarked on a new journey into tyranny.
