Category Archives: Political Correctness

One of the most interesting things about the findings is the personality overlap between PC Authoritarians and right-wing authoritarians. Scott Barry Kaufman,scientific director of the Imagination Institute and a researcher and lecturer in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, explains:

A common finding in the psychological literature is a positive association betweenconservative belief and sensitivity to disgust.In the current study, contamination disgust and the order and traditionalism dimension were all related, suggesting a greater similarity between PC-Authoritarians and Right-Wing authoritarians than either side would probably like to admit!

Also, another interesting similarity is the higher levels of a diagnosed anxiety or mood disorder found among PC-Authoritarians. Both PC-Authoritarians and Right-Wing Authoritarians tend to show a heightened fear response to both social and personal threats, with the strongest fear response being towardsinstances of social difference.

Authoritarianism on both sides of the political spectrum is commonly associated with an outlook that perceives the world to be a threatening place. The researchers suggest this outlook might explain why PC Authoritarians feel a need to protect themselves and others from material they consider offensive. Peterson also thinkshigh levels of compassion can lead toauthoritarian stances.

Compassion is widely understood to be an evolutionary adaptation that facilitates the mother-child bond. For instance, a mother bear feels compassion for her cubs because, for them, the outside world is full of threats from which shes compelled to protect them. This type of compassion serves a clear purpose. But what happens when people with high levels of compassion try to map this trait onto larger society, not just onto family members? Peterson elaborates on this idea in the video below:

Check out some of the questions listed on the survey below:

PC-Egalitarianism

Rate your level of agreement with the following statements:

The quality of social services available to this countrys citizens has remained the same, despite refugees/immigrants entering.

Refugees/Immigrants are as entitled to subsidized housing or subsidized utilities (water, electricity) as this countrys poor citizens are.

The values and beliefs of refugees/immigrants regarding family issues and socializing children are basically quite similar to that of citizens of this country.

2. Biological-Cultural Based Differences (.60) (PC-Egalitarians rank those as rooted in culture)

Rate the degree you think each of the following facts is a biological or cultural phenomenon:

Women are on average more agreeable and nurturing than men.

Men have better spatial ability than women.

On average, individuals who identify as white score higher than those of African ancestry on IQ tests.

3. Societal Injustice (.59)

Rate the degree you think each of the following facts is evidence of an unjust system:

Only 5% of the Fortune 500 companies have women as CEOs.

There have been no Black prime ministers in Canada or the UK, and the United States has only had one Black president.

Only 8% of registered nurses in the United States are male.

PC-Authoritarianism

Do you believe the works in these categories should be screened for offensive, racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory language and/or ideas?

Books

Movies

Art

2. Coddling (.65)

Rate your level of agreement with the following statements:

Universities should be required to provide safe spaces for lectures/events discussing potentially sensitive/unsettling material.

Students should be allowed to request a safe space when material on campus makes them uncomfortable.

Businesses should be required to provide safe spaces for employees.

3. Patriarchy Censorship (.60)

Rate your level of agreement with the following statements:

Feathered headdresses should be banned from music festivals.

White people should not wear their hair in cornrows or afros because it is cultural appropriation.

White musical artists winning awards for reggae, rap, hip-hop, and jazz, is exploitation and appropriation of Black cultural art forms.

slavoj-zizek-political-correctness-is-fake

See the original post here:

Psychology Tells Us There Are 2 Kinds of Politically Correct People - Big Think

By Jack McCall

Sometime back in the late 1980s, I booked a speaking engagement with Mercy Childrens Hospital in Kansas City, MO. The speaking fee for the after-dinner presentation was the largest I had ever received. It was also the first time I had flown to a far-away city to make a speech. To make the deal even sweeter, the client paid all my travel expenses and put me up in the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

The afternoon I checked into the Ritz Carlton I was feeling mighty proud of myself. And to a degree, my feelings were justified. But, as I sat in my room, I remember smugly offering self-congratulations and thinking to myself you have finally made it. I should have been considering the Bible verse that goes like this: Pride goeth before a fall.

My audience that evening was to be comprised primarily of physicians and their guests. Physicians, I had learned over the years, can be a tough audience, especially for a humorist. I knew my work was cut out for me.

Submitted photo

When I arrived at the hospital banquet room, I was seated with three physicians and their wives. I guessed the couples to be in their early sixties. They were very friendly and we enjoyed warm, pleasant conversation.

As I sat with them, I decided to include in my remarks that evening a little story I had often told about husbands and wives. Its a cute little story that had always gone over very well with audiences.

When it came time for my part of the evenings program, everything went well.

As a matter of fact, the audience was very attentive and laughed easily. One young man sitting directly in front of the podium had an especially good time. He provided me with some much-needed energy for this particular setting.

In the body of my presentation, the story I told about husbands and wives went thusly:

The setting is an Oklahoma cow town, late on a winters night, when a blizzard was in full force. The only establishment still open was the bakery, where the owner had stayed late to do some paperwork.

The baker is surprised when he hears someone stomping the snow off their boots on the front porch. The front door opens and the wind literally blows a little man inside the bakery.

The man is wrapped up from head to toe snow boots, overcoat, toboggan, and muffler. He begins to uncover his head and slowly approaches the counter.

When he reaches the counter, the late-night customer, in a low voice, says, I would like two sweet rolls, please.

Two sweet rolls? the baker asks, in disbelief.

Yes, thats all I want, came his answer.

After they exchange the two sweet rolls and money, the baker, still somewhat in shock, asks, Do mind if I ask you a question?

No, I dont mind, says the man.

Well, heres the question, says the baker. Are you married?

You dont think my mother would have sent me out on a night like this, do you? replied the man.

Now thats a funny little story. And anyone who has ever been married understands its dynamics.

When I told that story that night in Kansas City it went over well. At least I thought it did.

At the end of my presentation, I gave myself a score of 7 on the basis of 1 to 10. I didnt feel like I had hit a home run, but considering the makeup of the audience, I was reasonably satisfied with my performance.

As the audience members were dispersing to go home, a few individuals came up to me to say complimentary things about my presentation. One man in particular lingered to make pleasant conversation. Thats when I saw her coming.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a petite, redheaded woman approaching me from the left. Her hair was fashioned in a smart, short cut, and she was dressed professionally.

I finished my conversation with the man and turned to greet her.

Mr. McCall, she began. I enjoyed your program this evening.

Well, thank you very much, I graciously answered.

She was not finished.

But, I did not appreciate your little story about husbands and wives, she said rather flatly.

I was caught completely off guard.

As a matter of fact, I, along with some of my colleagues, was offended by your assumption that the women in the audience were wives.

I felt myself almost reeling from her attack. In an instant, I decided to make the transition from professional speaker, whom she thought needed to be dressed down, to good ole Southern boy who was there to learn.

I am so sorry, I offered. I would never knowingly tell a story I thought would offend my audience members. To be honest, I test all my stories very carefully over long periods of time before I make them a part of my presentation.

She took the bait.

Without even knowing it, she went from critic to counselor in the blink of an eye. This feminist physician would have been furious to know her nurturing side had suddenly taken over.

Oh, you have to be careful, she cautioned. It is offensive to many professional women to be thought of as wives. And when you are speaking before a group of physicians, especially pediatricians, many of them are going to be women.

I appreciate your bringing that to my attention, I said. In the future I will be much more careful in choosing my stories.

She smiled a professional smile.

Well, it was nice meeting you, she said. Good evening were her parting words.

I was just short of feeling stunned. The words shell shocked might be better. In all my years, I had never been openly criticized after a speech.

As I stood there trying to clear my head, the person who had secured my services for the engagement approached me.

Well, I see you heard from the feminist delegation, she said, dryly.

I surely did, I answered.

You cant please everyone, she said through a beleaguered smile.

I guess thats true, I answered. I noticed my voice had the sound of defeat in it.

I didnt sleep well at the Ritz Carlton that evening. I tossed and turned all night.

For most of my life I had lived under the incorrect assumption that everyone liked me. And during that restless night I came to gripes with the fact that there are some people out there in life whom you just cant please.

Some wont like the way I look. Some wont like the way I talk (Southern.)

Some just wont like me. And I came to the conclusion that that was all right with me.

That evening in Kansas City was my first encounter with suffering the consequences of being politically incorrect.

It seems in a few short years, we, as a society, have begun to leave common sense behind in exchange for political correctness more on that later.

I still think its a funny story. And Im still telling it.

Read more here:

Jack McCall: Even humor gives way to political correctness - The Hartsville Vidette

Airbnb's political correctness hits home MercatorNet (blog) In January 2017, however, I logged into my Airbnb account to answer a guest inquiry only to find that, before I could respond, Airbnb required usthe hoststo accept its new all belong policy, which imposes an expansive array of politically correct ...

Go here to see the original:

Airbnb's political correctness hits home - MercatorNet (blog)

Its time to ease up on knee-jerk criticism of so-called political correctness.

A university official, or student, who isnt willing to hear out any and all nuts and extremists is now dismissed as an anti-First Amendment snowflake, too sensitive to be subjected to a screed and then to rebut it, in a time-honored homage to free speech.

Yes, college students have sometimes obviously! been too quick to drown out speakers with, to their ears, offensive views. There are many thoughtful writers and pundits on both the far right and far left appropriate for a campus audience. But now the pendulum has swung way too far in the other direction.

Ive published, over the decades, several magazines that accepted freelance submissions. More often than not we said, Sorry, not for us.

These rejections were not acts of censorship. They were not anti-free speech. We simply felt the would-be contributors did not enhance the values or tone our publications embraced.

The rejected authors were free to find another publication or the internet or stand on a crate on public land, Hyde Park-style, and shout their message to passers-by. Their free-speech rights were alive and well.

Similarly, if I were a university president I would guard access to my institutions facilities the same way I guarded the pages of my magazines.

Milo Yiannapoulos, a former Breitbart senior editor, caused a riot at Berkeley because of his extremist views. Then he was discovered on a video laughing off pedophilia in the Catholic church and saying sex with boys as young as 13 could be a good thing. Telling him today he isnt welcome on my campus? A no-brainer.

Same with Holocaust deniers. And psychics, faith healers and the Klan. Let them hire a hall from people whose mission is amusement rather than learning. If the mission of an institution of learning is to educate, it makes no sense to provide platforms for those who advance ignorance.

And Ann Coulter? Her shtick is to offend, with her familiar little toolbox of hateful clichs. Let her or her fans book the amusement hall along with the faith healers, et al.

But what about political scientist Charles Murray, who was shouted down at Middlebury College? Most would say thats a tougher call.

Heres essential information about Murray: Hes an author who has used racist pseudoscience to argue that black and Latino communities are genetically inferior. Affirmative action and welfare programs, he has argued, will never help these groups. Because they are innately lesser.

Now, if I were a university president, why would I expect my black and Latino students, in a supposed free and open debate, to feel forced to make a case for their own self-worth, for their own intelligence? It would be demeaning, even cruel.

So be tough and say no, university officials, and let all your students get on with their education.

Continued here:

Attacks On 'Political Correctness' Have Gone Too Far - Honolulu Civil Beat

Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss, the same man who once called President Trump a dangerous pig and his celebrity supporters whores, found some common ground with Fox News host Tucker Carlson Friday night on university political correctness and the importance of free speech.

The 69-year-old Jaws star cited the recent canceling of conservative author Ann Coulters speech at the University of California, Berkeley, as an intrusion into freedom of speech.

I am totally, incontrovertibly on your side about this, the actor told Mr. Carlson, who hosted Ms. Coulter on his show a day earlier. I think that any intrusion into freedom of speech is an intrusion into freedom of speech. And when [Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks] said, this is a school, not a battlefield, I said, no, it is a battlefield of ideas and we must have dissonant, dissenting opinions on campuses and I think its political correctness taken to a nightmarish point of view.

Mr. Dreyfuss went on to say that he is not a partisan ideologue, but a constitutionalist, who believes that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be central and the parties must be peripheral.

Civics has not been taught in the American public school system since 1970, and that means that everyone in Congress never studied the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as you and I might have, he said. And that is a critical flaw because its why we were admired and respected for so long, it gives us our national identity, it tells the world who we are and why we are who we are, and without a frame that gives us values that stand behind the Bill of Rights, were just floating in the air and our sectors of society are not connected.

People come from all over the world or are born into this nation without the values that we have here, he continued. Thats why they came here, to get them. And what are they? You can put them in opportunity, rise by merit, mobility and freedom. Thats what we sell. And if you dont want that, youve chosen the wrong place. And you dont get a pass by being born here, you have to learn it. Even the Ten Commandments are not known at birth. You must learn them. And we must learn our values and if we dont, we are fatally, fatally wounding ourselves. We will not have any way to really combat the ideas behind ISIS because we wont know our own.

Mr. Carlson, who is famous for conducting heated debates on his show, didnt have much to add to Mr. Dreyfuss argument.

Typically I interrupt our guests and I expected to debate you, but I agree with every single word of that and I just want to say thank you very much for coming, the conservative host said. Cause I think its important.

Mr. Dreyfuss urged Fox viewers to visit his website, TheDreyfussInitiative.org, and sign the preamble to the Constitution as a show of support for bringing civics back into American public education.

If every parent and teacher and school superintendent and public political commentator signed the preamble as a gesture of support for the demand to bring civics back to the grades below high school graduation, Ill call a civics strike and we will get the attention of all the people that deserve to pay attention, the actor said.

Visit link:

Richard Dreyfuss slams Berkeley, laments 'nightmarish' political ... - Washington Times

Milo Yiannopoulos is launching a media empire for the next generation of the alt-right starring one Milo Yiannopolous, who still has no love for feminism or political correctness.

The notorious provocateur was publicly taken down a few pegs earlier this year: He was uninvited from CPAC, had his book deal canceled and resigned from Breitbart News in disgrace. Prior to that, a Yiannopoulos speech at UC Berkeley was canceled after people rioted in protest. Last summer, he was kicked off Twitter.

Now, however, the professional troll is back with Milo Inc., a new business venture featuring himself as the main attraction, and he's trying to reach young people on the Internet.

"The thing about me is that I have access to a talent pipeline that no one else even knows about, he bragged to Vanity Fair. All the funniest, smartest, most interesting young YouTubers and all the rest of them who hate feminism, who hate political correctness. This generation thats coming up, its about 13, 14, 15, now have very different politics than most other generations. They love us.

"They love me, he said, and Im going to be actively hunting around for the next Milo."

Milo Inc. will get off the ground with $12 million in funding from investors he declined to name. His goal, according to his self-published press release: "Making the lives of journalists, professors, politicians, feminists, Black Lives Matter activists, and other professional victims a living hell."

Milo Inc.'s first stop? Berkeley, where he'll organize "Free Speech Week" and give out the Mario Savio Award for Free Speech, named after a civil-rights activist who was a founder of the Free Speech Movement in the college town in the 60s. (Son Daniel Savio is not amused.)

"This isn't some vanity nameplate on a personal blog," the press release reads. "This is a fully tooled-up talent factory and management company dedicated to the destruction of political correctness and the progressive left."

The plans are to hire 30 people to work out of an office in Miami, and the goal is to ultimately expand to new talent, presumably drawn from the aforementioned YouTube pipeline. A launch party will be livestreamed Friday.

Itll celebrate "Cinco de Milo."

Follow me on Twitter @jessica_roy.

Read the original post:

Milo Yiannopoulos to launch Milo Inc., 'dedicated to the destruction of political correctness' - Los Angeles Times

With rise in both the scope and prevalence of Matthew 24s visits to the West Chester University academic quad, I felt that it is time to open a real dialogue on political correctness on WCUs campus.

While I have personally never felt that my right to speak freely has been threatened, I do not have many, if any, opinions that need to be protected by the First Amendment. For me, the right to speak is more of a leisure, a protection that reinforces my ability to form my own thoughts, regardless of what any government, religion or other human says.

Before I formally begin this article, though, I feel that a definition of terms is in order. When I define myself as progressive, I do so with the knowledge that, to me, progressivism is about moving society forward in social, economic and cultural ways.

I champion social democracy, equal rights and free speech. I understand that many issues are more nuanced than right and wrong and have an open ear to alternative opinions, as long as they are argued from a place of genuine care for solving the issues.

The other definition of significance is political correctness.

This is a loaded word in discussion, and many will shut down any openness to conversation immediately when confronted with the topic. In the context of this article, PC refers to the use of things such as safe spaces, as well as the use of outrage as a form of censor or shield from opinions ranging from controversial to outright reprehensible. I must stress that I am not referring exclusively to the social justice movement.

Everybody has a sacred cow, an opinion that they seek to protect from dissent. It may be something as simple as, This movie is the best and you are simply wrong if you disagree, but it exists in all of us to some extent.

Let me also establish something regarding Matthew 24, the group I shall use as an example in this article. I believe that they are entirely reprehensible individuals, and I think that they are making their God very unhappy.

However, although I do not think they believe the things they say they do, this article will assume they are truly faithful in the way that they describe.

Now that weve defined those terms, lets begin to discuss the implications that political correctness has on college life and culture.

Political correctness is, in theory, a good thing. Who doesnt want a society free of hate, unified in goal and sure in purpose? The premise of PC culture, the idea that we should strive to be tolerant of those who have been subjugated, is a respectable one, but it is unrealistic.

Prejudice exists in the real world; people are a hateful breed. There are those whose ideals are hurtful for no reason other than ignorance and fear. But censoring these ideals will not solve the problem for reasons that will be made clear later on in this article.

But if thats the case, you may ask, how do we ensure that our society is fair, just and tolerant? I dont think the answer to this is as complex as many think it is. If you believe that someone with a toxic ideology is wrong, tell them. Argue reasonably and truly, in an open forum, and prove them wrong.

Even if their opinion doesnt change, the opinions of those around you, or those who review the argument in passing, may. Instead of telling Matthew 24 to simply leave, do what one man did; read passages from the Bible, the very book that they defend their views with, to contradict them.

This is where the beauty of free speech lies. By allowing someone to speak their mind, you expose their ideological blind spots, and then may defeat them.

In a time littered with fake news, its integral to a proper understanding of the world around us. Shutting someone down without proving why theyre wrong does not help your own argument or hinder theirs.

This brings me to the issue with political correctness, and why I, as a staunch progressive, am perfectly content with Matthew 24 protesting on campus. If one silences the voice of a bigot, their bigotry is given a quasi-victim status.

They are able to rally support from moderate non-contenders, those who wish to have nothing to do with the entire issue. The debate itself goes from being one of ideas to one of free speech. This is why the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has defended both sides, from Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan.

As stated in an ACLU Ohio brochure, The principles of the First Amendment are indivisible. Extend them on behalf of one group and they protect all groups. Deny them to one group, and all groups suffer.

This is where all of these issues come together. When one denies anyone, even a bigot, the right to speak, they are able to use that denial as evidence of an oppression that might not even exist.

This will make it easier for them to gain power in the eyes of both the apathetic and the uninformed. Ensuring an open forum attacks the ideas, not the rhetoric, and as such is a much stronger technique to fight against toxic ideologies.

I mean, thats what Id say. Chances are youre either disregarding this because Im a liberal regressive or disregarding it because Im a privileged white male.

I understand both criticisms, but responding this way to criticism just proves the argument Im making. We all, regardless of politics, need to have a completely open dialogue on free speech and ideas, because what were doing now isnt working at all

Dean Cahill is a first-year student majoring in English literature. He can be reached at [emailprotected]

See original here:

The Quad : Political correctness on campus - Quad (subscription)

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Many years ago, I witnessed what happens when people who prevent others from speaking are not dealt with promptly.

During a Firing Line taping with William F. Buckley at Bard College in New York state on the topic of Resolved: The ACLU is full of baloney (the short answer is yes), two female activists stood up and started chanting women of color have no voice.

The moderator, a well-known liberal (well, okay, it was Michael Kinsley, who did an otherwise fine job), asked them politely to stop so the debate could continue, but the protesters refused. At this point, he could have motioned to the campus cops to remove them, but instead let them go on ad nauseam. I leaned over and whispered to then-ACLU President Nadine Strossen, Nadine, do something. Theyre your children. I meant her ideological offspring, of course. And she did try to reason with them, to no avail.

Unlike some recent incidents, the debate finally went on after Mr. Kinsley gave in to the protesters tantrum and let them read a list of nonsensical left-wing ultimatums.

Im not sure how much of this made the eventual PBS broadcast, but it showed the folly of giving in to the hecklers veto. Thats when, in the name of free speech, someone silences someone else. Courts have made it clear that the hecklers veto is not protected speech under the First Amendment, no more than falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Since President Trumps election, the left has been in full hecklers veto mode, egged on by the same progressives who cheered the violent Occupy mobs in 2011 and 2012 and the goons disrupting the Trump rallies last year.

This past week, protesters threatened violence against Republican Party participants in the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade in Portland, Oregon, and managed to get the event canceled. An anonymous email promised that two hundred or more people would rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push those people out . police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely.

Last Wednesday, amid threats of violence, conservative author Ann Coulter was forced to cancel her speech at the University of California, Berkeley. In February, the campus had suffered $100,000 in property damage when black-clad leftist rioters stopped iconoclast Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking.

In March, sociologist Charles Murray was forced to change venues at Middlebury College in Vermont during a mob attack in which a female professor was injured. Middlebury itself may be failing to teach about constitutional rights, if a letter signed by 450 alumni prior to Murrays appearance is any indication: This is not an issue of freedom of speech. In this case we find the principle does not apply.

Well, okay then. Disagree with us and you lose your rights.

In early April, hundreds of activists blocked an auditorium at Claremont McKenna College in California to prevent author Heather MacDonald from speaking. Ms. MacDonalds analysis of crime statistics blows away the media narrative about racist cops spun by the Black Lives Matter movement. No wonder they wanted her silenced.

For the left, the issues themselves matter less than a show of force. As author Angelo M. Codevilla has observed, The point of PC [political correctness] is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself.

In State and Revolution (1918), Vladimir Lenin wrote, The replacement of the bourgeois (middle class) by the proletariat state is impossible without a violent revolution it is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush its resistance.

Even if none of this involves something you hold dear, the mobs will get around to you if youre out of step. A byproduct is the chilling effect it has had on discourse in general.

I recall when liberals and conservatives could agree to disagree during, say, a party, and leave as friends, or at least not as enemies. But whens the last time you went to an eclectic gathering and heard genuine views exchanged? Nobody dares anymore. The lefts scorched-earth tactics have poisoned the well.

In Massachusetts, an editorial at The Wellesley News on April 12 openly advocated attacking anyone who fails to bow to left-wing orthodoxy. Their definition of what will not be allowed includes racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia or any other type of discriminatory speech. Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech.

The good little Maoists (who are punctuation-challenged) went on to declare, if people are given the resources to learn and either continue to speak hate speech or refuse to adapt their beliefs, then hostility may be warranted. Later, they denied that this meant engaging in violence.

Incidentally, Hillary Clintons alma mater charges about $63,300 annually for tuition, room and board. Apparently, that buys the finest brainwashing against the bourgeoisie that a campus can conjure.

Robert Knight is a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union.

Read more here:

Political correctness silences unpopular opinions - Washington Times

In his second term as governor some 20 years ago, Fob James stepped into the hallway after speaking to Dothans Kiwanis Club and met a crowd of residents for an impromptu question-and-answer session. There had been a kerfuffle involving some confusion over religion and public schools, and many parents were concerned.

Our band cant even play Christmas music at the Christmas concert, one parent complained.

If they try to stop em, James replied, his eyes twinkling, Ill call out the National Guard!

The people in the crowd burst into applause for their governor.

James was nothing if not a wily politician who knew an opportunity to grandstand when he heard it; this was a slow-pitched lob, and he knocked it out of the park. James knew that theres a big difference between state-sponsored religious speech and a band playing O Holy Night, and was counting on cooler minds to prevail without the National Guard.

James would have felt right at home in the House Education Policy Committees meeting last week. The committee approved a bill that would educate students on traditional winter celebrations and allow the display of Nativity scenes as long as they were displayed with secular symbols such as reindeer or Santa Claus. The bills sponsor, Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, said its purpose is to fight political correctness.

Some of his colleagues pointed out that nothing prevents those symbols from being displayed at schools now, or stops people from saying Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah. Another colleague suggested that the measure would allow the display of Islamic symbols, and that the body would then be passing laws to prevent that.

We understand Rep. Butlers disdain for political correctness, but the rise of Happy Holidays versus Merry Christmas is more an effort by Madison Avenue to make retailers more inclusive to those who spend money during the traditional gift-buying season, not an attack on any particular faith.

Public schools, as governmental entities, cannot promote one set of religious ideals to the exclusion of others. What Rep. Butlers measure would codify is not currently disallowed, making the bill unnecessary beyond its symbolism.

The House should not spend time combating political correctness when it has very real challenges to address, with precious little time to do so.

More here:

Fighting political correctness - Dothan Eagle

WAMU 88.5

Weekly Politics Wrap: Metro Meltdown And Corey Stewart's Campaign Against Political Correctness WAMU 88.5 An electrical fire shut down part of Metro's Red Line during the heart of the morning commute this week, creating yet another headache for commuters. Meanwhile, it's unclear whether local jurisdictions will create a dedicated funding stream for the ... Confederate flag costs Stewart colleagues' support in Va. gov. raceWTOP Who is Corey Stewart, the Pro-Confederate Virginia Gubernatorial Candidate?Law Street Media (blog) all 11 news articles »

Go here to see the original:

Weekly Politics Wrap: Metro Meltdown And Corey Stewart's Campaign Against Political Correctness - WAMU 88.5