My bias in this blog is a whole hearted belief in the genius of the First Amendment to the Constitution which, for those of you who missed Government Class, deals with the inability of the Congress to dictate what we can believe in the form of establishing a state religion and in the sanctity of individual speech no matter how unpleasant it might be.   The reason the drafters of the Constitution protected speech, press, and religous choice in the first amendment is that when those are gone the other amendments don't really matter.

Political correctness is a way of dividing and making victims of people who shouldn't be separated from the whole nor who, in their own right, aren't defenseless.  As long as we are operating, talking,  and describing ourselves as Americans it's hard to identify and isolate specific groups as groups that need more protection than the rest of us or funding for that matter.  It's when we partition people as to race, religion, speech, net worth, income, or education that we create an automatic platform for grievance and special attention. 

The purpose of the politically correct movement is to identify and isolate potential victims groups in the furtherance of the politically correct proponent's own legislative or financial agenda.  If we can give separate and special causes of action to people because they are of color, or poor, or white and underemployed, or religous or not religous, like animals or don't like animals,  then we have a whole structure to build a system of addressable and redressable grievances that should be paid attention to and paid for by other people.  It's a version of the lottery where sooner or later everyone is both a loser and a winner.

Speech has long been the intellectual conundrum of lawyers and the courts.  While I'm clear that I cannot arbitrarily shout "Fire" in a theatre without just cause I am also clear that I should not be prohibited from a wide range of possible descriptions of people or situations that come across my path.  The problem with using your sensibilities as my measuring stick of appropriate discourse is that you have all the freedom and I have all the responsibility without any of the protections. 

I have long felt that the best form of speech regulation is purely and simply a market based one:  don't listen to or pay to listen or read anything that you find offensive.  While there may be situations where the occasional Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake wardrobe malfunction occurs accompanied by the predictable embarassment, it is the exception rather than the rule.  Anyone who's listened to a comedy routine for very long that is filled with four letter references and personally offensive sexual innuendos understands that after a while it is neither funny nor intelligent.  It is also not mandatory that you stay.

  Anyone who thinks that teenagers listening to four letter words in a rap tune is a basis for moral and cultural degradation missed the fact that Elvis and the Beetles didn't destroy a generation or the fabric of America.  They just entertained some kids in need of entertaining.  For my tastes Rap is fourth rate poety set to sixth rate music.  I don't like it but I like even less someone telling me that I can't listen to it.  I'm sure there are people who heard Metallica or "Chances Are" by Johnny Mathis for the twelfth time in an evening think the same thing.

The arguments for the proponents of speech regulation or "appropriate" speech base their arguments on gross generalizations of the kinds of personal affronts or catostrophic effects that will occur within the family or society if such speech is allowed to continue.  The simple answer is to turn off the tv, radio, internet, or cd.  The worst answer is for me to let you, whoever you are, determine what I can watch, listen to, play, or say.  The better answer is not to subscribe at all.  The really, really  worst answer is to engage in a process of micro filration that turns sponteneity into sameness.  The great thing about America is that we have the freedom in most situations to leave the room, walk away, turn something off, or unsubscribe.   I'm not sure we need the language or the thought police to tell us which ones we should do when..

It's easier to be a victim than almost anything else.  It just involves shifting the responsibility for what happens to you or what you want to have happen to you to someone else with the kind of irresponsibility that let you arrive in the situation in the first place.  To continue to listen to a comedy routine that you find offensive makes you a victim of your own inertia and not of the comedian's language.  I'm very clear you need to flip the" move out of here" switch.  I'm not at all clear you should delegate what you should or should not hear to someone with an agenda or arbitrariness that promotes their cause while manipulating your options.

If you don't like what I say, then don't listen.  If you don't like what I write, then don't read it anymore.  If you think I've offended your race, religion, sex or national heritage, then tell me that to my face without filtering it through the nebulousness of political correctness.

Geraldine Ferraro was absolutely right in her reasoning about Barack Obama.  She was absolutely wrong in the way she expressed it and politically stupid as well.  She should've said, "White or Black or Asian or Hispanic or Inuit, Barack is a lightweight applying for a heavyweight position.  He has neither the experience nor the credentials to lead the most powerful nation on earth.  It's a pumped up resume delivered by an affirmtive action courier for a job that no one with such weak credentials should be applying for. 

To speak smoothly and eloquently is a great skill.  To inspire with great rhetoric is an even greater gift.  It is easier to espouse a great vision than it is to execute a great plan.  I support Barack's right to promote as much as I support Geraldine's right to criticize..each in their own language and in their own medium and more importantly, in their own way.  My options are to not vote for either Geraldine or Barack if I find them offensive..

I'd much rather have the choice of listening to a moron that I would be told what to say by one.