Political Correctness and the Sunset of American Power
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refers to the U.S., and by extension the West per se, as an ofuli (sunset) power. Nothing apparently new here. Ezra Pound’s 1920 poem “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” had famously written off Western civilization, and by implication the U.S. — since the fate of the former is coterminous with that of the latter — as “an old bitch gone in the teeth … a botched civilization … two gross of broken statues … a few thousand battered books.” Six years later Oswald Spengler published The Decline of the West, putting paid once and for all to the soaring adventure of Western civilization which, he proclaimed, has lost “its desire to be … and … wishes itself out of the overlong daylight and back in the darkness.” More recently, the grand old man of American letters Jacques Barzun, in his magisterial tome From Dawn to Decadence, knelled Western culture as “old and unraveling.” Ahmadinejad is in more venerable company than he could have imagined — or deserved.
I’m reminded, too, of those striking lines from Shelley’s great poem “Adonais,” lamenting the death of John Keats but containing passages that are universally applicable:
… a Power
Girt round with weakness — it can scarce uplift
The weight of the superincumbent hour;
Is a dying lamp, a falling shower,
A breaking billow; even whilst we speak
Is it not broken?
There’s nothing especially novel in the fact that great powers decline and civilizations wane, crushed under the weight of the “superincumbent hour.” The rise and fall of empires was the central theme of major historians like Polybius, Gibbon, Vico, and Toynbee. It is a leitmotif in the narratives of various civilizations. The Mayan “Long Count” calendar, for example, calculated a sequence of time cycles ending on December 21, 2012 — a doomsday prospectus exploited by the blockbuster film 2012. The notorious Toledo Letter of 1184 announced the end of days in 1186 and, when the moment passed without devastating confirmation, continued to circulate suitably updated. St. Augustine’s biblical eschatology of the seven Aetates (states, ages) from creation to consummation, elaborated in Book XXII of City of God, was taken up by the 12th-century Franciscan monk Joachim of Fiora, who posited three historical ages or statuses, leading after a global upheaval to the “eighth day of eternity.” Joachim thought he lived in the 40th generation of the second status, two generations from the consummation. As Rob Kutner drolly suggests in Apocalypse How, the end of the world has been expected since its beginning. The premonition of millennial advents has always shaken the human psyche.
But something is now happening in the West that may truly spell the end, not of the world but of Western civilization’s long historical trajectory. A plague is spreading far and wide that may be described as an intellectual bubonic taking its dismal toll among those it has infected. It is called political correctness, a malign consummation par excellence. “Political correctness,” says Charles Krauthammer, “is not just an abomination. It is a danger, clear and present.” The fine National Post columnist Lorne Gunter begins a recent article: “Political correctness will be the death of Western civilization because unlike our earlier forms of pluralistic tolerance, PC is willfully blind to the lack of reciprocal tolerance in other cultures.” Political correctness, he concludes, “takes tolerance to a culturally suicidal degree.” We welcome and extenuate those whose most profound desire and intention is to destroy us.
The idea of Western self-immolation has enjoyed a long shelf life among contemporary intellectuals, from James Burnham’s 1964 Suicide of the West to Howard Rotberg’s just-released Tolerism. As Rotberg observes, “Cultural and moral relativism, moral equivalency, and political correctness have all contributed to a modern political culture whose elites and cultural symbols evidence, not only an undue tolerance of the illiberals, but a disturbing element of self-hatred, cultural masochism, and delusions about the difference between social tolerance and political tolerance — and an elevation of tolerance over the principle of justice.” Author and democracy advocate Brigitte Gabriel has recently added her voice to the campaign against this infusorial scourge. “A pandemic of political correctness,” she charges, “has chained, blinded, and muted American leaders.” And as she rightly points out, alluding to the event that is being spun and re-spun by the media and entrenched officialdom as the one-off act of a deranged Army major rather than the premeditated deed of a radical jihadist, “the Fort Hood terrorist attack is a direct tragic consequence of political correctness.”
No. We are seeing an eclipse. A darkness that will pass. Part of the American experience is that bankruptcy is not the end, just a clarifying process that allows a new start with lessons learned the hard way. We are headed for a fall, but the rest of the world is along for the ride whether they like it or not and will share our hard times. And we will be back, stronger and wiser. Most Americans knew right away Fort Hood was a jihadi attack when they saw the shooter’s name. We have been there done that a few times already. Political correctness is in the sunset stage, not the USA.
David:
Any relation to Larry?
Not politically, of course.
As astute English writer observed a few months ago that if Osama Bin Laden wanted to destroy America, he’d better hurry — or Barack Obama would beat him to it.
Throw in the Democrat party and the complicit media, and I’d say that he (and David Solway) have hit the nail on the head.
In myriad ways, Obama and his cohorts are dismantling America, brick by brick. The latest example involves the way the President handled the aftermath of the Ft. Hood massacre.
Rather than express outrage over the slaughter (as he did in the case of the murder of an infamous, late-term abortion doctor), Obama instead spoke of “not rushing to judgment.” Then he sent his Department of Homeland security chief out to warn Americans — not about the threat that Islamist extremists posed, but about a potential backlash against Muslims. (The president, however, issued no such caution on behalf of pro-lifers after Tiller was killed.)
America’s Armed Forces, diminished for years by the ravages of political correctness, are in even steeper decline under Commander in Chief Barack Obama. And that portends ill for America — and for its allies, too.
See: Military Madness http://emmeffemm.com/id180.html
Islam, Political Correctness, ‘Yuman Rites’ abominations, ‘Elf n Safety stupidity, left wing Islamophile PC MC moonbats and a gullible, half educated, hysterical, emotional electorate who voted the obscenity of the Obamanation in to power will be no make that ARE the cause of the self inflicted death of America. Those who expect or want the USA to survive need to act fast before it is beyond redemption.
And dont forget the collectively voting BLACK racists and the stupidity of Affirmative Action that put the LIAR MESSIAH in a position to seize power either.
We are learning a lesson the hard way, that elections have consequences. The people who espoused Obama’s cause and voted for him, that are, even now, supporting his attempts to change the country, have hurt their country as much as if they had actually betrayed America to a foreign power. There are no two ways about it, Obama and his loyal followers have hurt this country badly, have weakened us in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of American citizens. We must do something and that is simple: rally around one conservative in 2012 and get him elected!
Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.
Arnold J. Toynbee
A statement I hope will not extend to our Western civilization but if steps are not taken to halt these fools of our age Stalin’s useful idiots will prevail.
READY, ABOUT TURN, AIM, FIRE.
Out here in the weeds of real America there is a vicious backlash against political correctness brewing.
People I meet in private – fellow parents, co-workers not in the presence of HR or executives, soldiers, sailors, Marines, fellow congregates at church, other members of “voluntary associations” I participate in – all have a distain for political correctness.
Members of the military recognize it as dangerous dishonesty that can get them killed. Units deploying are regularly lectured by lawyers. The only thing we hear – how to cover our asses from pouge REMFs.
At my civilian job, we let HR prattle on about diversity and being “Green” – then we ignore them and get back to work making the company profitable.
Other parents at ballgames? They have speak plainly and most and pretty non-PC. Once in a while we find a true-believer among us. Conversation stops and eyes roll.
Even the radio shows I listen to are non-PC. Don Imus has learned his lesson and rails against it now. Opie and Anthony hate political correctness with a passion and have identified the political left as the source of most of it. Even their friend Sean Hannity has spoken up for their right to free speech. When they got in trouble – Patrice Oneal defended them on Fox News with John Gibson in the funniest debate ever.
Political correctness was not born out of kindness but is explained as such to deceive its victims. It is a weapon and was always a weapon of the left. Political correctness is used to spread the contagion of Marxism. The useful idiots are then lied to and told it must be used not to offend. The useful idiots are stroked and praised when they fall in line and human nature being what it is, the idiots love feeling morally superior to those who “get it” and refuse to commit suicide. What will it take to explode this plague? HONESTY and COURAGE and a million voices shouting it down with the truth. So far that has only happened in the outlying regions of public discourse with every effort made to shut people up. The next assault on America will be the attempt to “legalize” millions of aliens and the weapon used will be to label everyone who protests a RAAAACIST! . That way people will back off and the left will have another army of useful idiots who can promote their agenda. Never mind the fact that to legalize this amount of people in a system already collapsing under the weight of a horrible economy in the midst of turmoil might be enough to destroy us altogether. No. We are told all those concerns expressed are only excuses made to mask our real reason: RAAAAAACISM! It has worked folks. How many of you have seen your civil rights/constitutionl rights destroyed in the name of giving someone of a different ethnic background/color a chance to step on and over you to get what in a honest world belongs to you because you achieved it? I have never had a problem telling it like it is. We need millions more to just open their mouths and start slamming the other side with just as many vicious names so they get we are here. Without fear. And they should get used to it.
Actually, Mr. Solway is not quite correct in his assessment of “self-loathing” on the part of our “enlightened elite’” as a motivation for their actions.
Put simply, the “superior ones” (like The One) believe that they are somehow a higher life form than the rest of us grotty semi-evolved simians (to borrow a term from from another President, Zaphod Beeblebrox). And that not only can they exist perfectly well without the civilization (ours) that they despise, but that they will be able to create a perfect Utopia on the ruins thereof- once their latest light of love, the Islamist movement, brings down the curtain on our evil culture with a resounding bang.
And of course, after the Triumph, the Islamists will recognize both (a) their innate inability to run the world due to their sudden realization of their own stupidity and (b) the absolute Perfection of the “superior, enlightened ones”- and will immediately fall to their faces and beg the Enlightened Ones to lead them to the Brave New World.
No, the elite’ don’t believe that their heads will be first on the chopping block after the fact, because they are utterly convinced that it’s just the rest of us the Islamists are mad at, not them too. As far as they’re concerned, once we, and our civilization, are gone (and the sooner, the better, in their estimation), Paradise will, in fact, unfold on Earth. Under their benevolent despotism, of course.
So, don’t make the mistake of equating the “enlightened elite’s” contempt for you, and me, with self-contempt. Because if you try to talk to them the way you would to someone with a low self-esteem problem, all you’ll accomplish is to confirm even more strongly their belief in your inferiority, and their own omnipotence.
Like Nero, who as he drew a dagger (held by a Roman soldier)across his own throat, said, “What a great artist the world loses with me!”, a poor self-image, or a lack of self-love, are two problems our “social lions” are not afflicted with.
An exaggerated self-image, and a hatred of the rest of us, now, that’s a different story.
clear ether
eon
Bang on, David, just years too late. Fait accomplis.
America is now in the fourth generation of “constructionist” education and subversive (I like your “seditious” as well) media per Marcuse/Alynski.
FORECASTS:
1. The unionists and radicals control the money and the media. Obama shall win a second term.
2. Obama shall meet a Russian style monumental defeat in Afghanistan and pull out before 2015.
3. When their ideas don’t work they’ll resort to force, and Obama will light up a Cold Race War.
4. Distinct legislative steps will have started at least partially to dissolve the Republic by 2020.
David – Spot-on and so, too, Joe @ #5. If we were not now facing such a deceptive enemy as Islamicism, I would be less concerned. Because of the 1st Amendment and Islam’s pretense of being a religion, we dare not speak the truth about it, which is that it is a political ideology parading around as a religion. Our PC attitude gives me, and I think others like me, a deep cause for concern of the future of Western Civilization.
Political correctness is nothing more than verbal cowardness. Best line in a long time.
I can very much understand the doom and gloom right now. Things have not been going well in our wars and this recent attack on our own does affect morale. However, I am confident that, in the longer term, we will find our way out of these wars, honorably and move on some day. And yes, like the Germans, Vietnamese and the Japanese; I believe that Arab Muslims and Americans will once again break bread together in peace. I know I sound like a glass half full guy and I know the past five or nine years have been pretty yucky, but hey…if we stick to our principles a sensible path will be found. Fingers Crossed eh?
Terrorists like Ahmadinejad and others like him have long hoped & prayed for the demise of the West, for various reasons but we have continued to flourish b/c we are the hardest-working, most innovative, most blessed (by God), strongest & most generous society the world has ever known. Oh, and perhaps I need to mention that this has happened for two reasons: 1. Freedom, and 2. The rule of civilized law.
PC & changing/controlling the terminology has always been a weapon of the left. Mosquito & disease-infested swamps are called “wetlands” that must be protected. Bums who made bad choices, dropped out of school, drink/drug, & won’t work are called “the homeless” for whom we must pay to feed, house, (re)educate & provide transportation. If you control the terminology, you control the conversation, and if you control the conversation, you control everything. It is the first battle victory in the war on Western culture & values.
We are allowing this to happen to ourselves, b/c the PC police are cowards who won’t call a strike inside the strike zone. We can’t engage in “profiling” of terrorists b/c that might offend someone’s sensitivities and damage his/her self-esteem (sidenote: most bullies have very high self-esteem). We have let them control us and our way of life, and now we must hunker down in defense mode b/c the PC police won’t do their job(s). The most obvious recent example is Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood. Heaven forbid we should monitor the actions of Muslims in the military who are in contact with Al Quaeda, make personal gun(s) purchases, and have received bad personnel evaluations. No, no, we can’t question his actions, b/c we must have diversity and the poor thing might have his self-esteem damaged. Meanwhile, 13 people are dead. A sad incident resulting from political correctness gone mad.
Another example is trying to fly on a commerical airline. I’m 53yo, have 4 kids, haven’t had so much as a traffic ticket in over 15 years, and yet I must go through the same security checks (I just love emptying my pockets & taking my shoes off, too!) at an airport as a 20-40yo person of Arab descent with no valid U.S. driver’s license, multiple aliases, multiple addresses, and no verifiable occupation, which btw fits the profile of most people who have committed acts of terror against the U.S. in the last 30 years. We must also check all the little old ladies who carry a nail file in their bag – no, no, we can’t allow such a dangerous weapon! Recently, I accompanied my 6yo daughter as we went through airport security and she had a 20oz bottle of water, and they took it from her. She didn’t understand why, but she understood she no longer had her water. Yeah, that’s a real good example to set for a child who has committed no crime.
The current administration has made things no better by saying the Cambridge police “acted stupidly” and yet, “let’s not rush to judgment” about Ft. Hood. And by letting the poor, misunderstood, little ‘ol KSM have all the rights of a U.S. citizen and a trial in Manhattan at exhorbitant cost to the taxpayers.
It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world, and terrorists who want to destroy us are all having a good laugh at our expense, b/c they are gradually, step-by-step, eroding our way of life.
What silly bs. It must be comforting to believe that the decline of our society is based on a change in your preferred form of etiquette. It probably has something to do with the fact that China now owns our debt, and that we accumulated much more debt than we can ever pay back engaging in two idiotic and fruitless wars. If there’s political correctness preventing people from saying necessary truths, its mainly focused on preventing people from talking about the fact THAT WARS COST MONEY! When they do finally sift through the ash of America, this will be one of the most perfect examples of the comforting fictions wild-eyed fabulists were spreading while their country fell apart around them.
Political correctness, expressed as a willingness to turn a blind eye to the obvious and manifold moral and intellectual deficiencies in Obama, has put us here. The Oval Office is an EOE.
Political correctness was invented in US universities….
Obama do not seem to know where he is going but i would say that Bush was a disaster of another kind!
So i think the heart of the problem is probably the universities – what they teach and how they shape the leaders of our societies. Just look a the medias and the type of journalist that they form.
What about faith! Christianity is the rock the western world is built on. By entering islam in the west are we faithful to our religion and to god?
You know what else is old and in the way? An affront to decent human values. Something besides the declining “west” that actually stinks? Islam, Islamic law and Islamic countries. That’s what.
I agree that political correctness is the bane of us all in its obtuseness.
However, Solway’s 471 word run-on sentence indicting Obama damn near killed me trying to get through it.
It is not Obama that is bringing the West to the edge of the cliff, Obama is just the perfect puppet, the product of brainwashing by ideologies.
The danger is hidden, the danger is in the forces that have propped up this person to the presidency.
Those forces are a chimera of contradictions, yet they operate as one single machine.
The nihilists of Europe and their “societies”, the money of the saudi wahabists, the left overs of the losing side of the cold war, the absolutely crazy paranoiacs of “autonomous marxism”…these are the pushing forces that have infiltrated the media and the universities, one wave after another, summing up to each other, until a deadly potion was brewed.
All these forces are nothing in themselves, but the lack of a defensive cultural war has opened the way to their growth and to their spontaneous aggregation in the name of chaos.
All this is the logical consequence of nihilism, and we will not get rid of the result if we don’t get rid of the cause.
Nihilism is the poison, all the rest is a consequence of it, it’s just a symptom.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
For Moho history began in 2000. That is because he is historically illiterate.
Mr. Solway, I think your general premise is correct. The 20th century can be viewed as the start of the long, slow suicide of the West, beginning with WWI. Personally, I think Europe finished itself off in 1945. The cream of their crop died in the wars. The main concern of the survivors since then has been to make their tomb as pleasant and comfortable as possible, much like the ancient Eygptians stocked their tombs with plenty of provisions for the deceased.
Europe is in its death throes and America is following, dying from the cancer of leftism. I hope we can rally and manage to fight off the infection, and on my more optimistic days I believe we shall. Other days, I am not so sure.
I am reading Dr. Barzun’s great book now. A measure of our decline is that I can’t imagine a genuine humanist scholar like Barzun emerging from the Ivy League or obtaining tenure at Columbia today.
“We have elected the enemy.” Jim Quinn (Quinn and Rose)
Political correctness cannot succeed. The false premise that serves as its base precludes that. As someone else noted above, PC speech (or thought) is not common on the American street. Nor is belief in many of the popular concepts being promoted, such as global warming or multiculturalism. In fact, the overwhelming majority of us wonder how such notions became popular at all. Well, that’s not really true, we do know: they didn’t come about as a natural reaction to normal life. They are the result of someone’s inflated ego, usually from an insulated academic type, repeated on some slow news day by an equally insulated talking head.
The real danger is that these false notions of how we should speak and think are embraced by those who should be the most resistant to flights of mental fancy: politicians. In a more perfect world, they would be the guardians of rational thought, able to see through the false storefront to the flimsy framework that supports it. That is, if we who elected them had that capactity ourselves.
The lowest form off stupidity is Weakness. Obama is the patron Saint of Weakness.
There is a danger, David, of only equating the West with the United States.
Canada, and the countries which were captive behind the Iron Curtain, have more power today than at anytime since the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Why? Because the machinations of Stalin, and frankly the timidity of Canada’s Second World War Prime Minister Mackenzie King, worked
against this day.
So, given that David Lloyd-George wanted a more efficient British Empire, with a maximum of self-rule in the colonies and imperial policy on the important things like defense and foreign policy – we can see that plan implemented, without the trappings of an Empire.
As for another plan that was not implemented, namely that of a preparatory regime for Vietnam that FDR thought about, that plan can be used for those places in South America, Africa & Asia which have demonstrated that they are
not ready to govern themselves.
So, with the countries which were behind the iron curtain, they can speak with one voice on foreign policy and defense policy (the Borjomi Declaration
is an excellent foundation for foreign policy) and in concert with the Senior tier of the British Commonwealth doing the same thing – success can be had which has eluded the United States and others who were involved in the Middle East.
Therefore, because a leopard would be quicker to change its spots, rather than the current batch of deformed souls, zombies and other ilk inside the Beltway do a 180 – an alternative government is needed to tide the US over until Palin is sworn in, and she has a friendly Congress to deal with, so that what Michael Walker has to say about the monetary policy is enacted,
and what Michael Ledeen has to say about foreign policy is enacted.
PC is rampant in our schools. I have said it before the right and center must take back our schools!
Most parents dont realize how the kids are being brought up on the far right and a with a PC mindset. For those who say it cant last, my problem is whole generations are being brought up believing in the PC crap. This all starts in elementary schools. I see it everyday, even in a conservative southern city where i live.
Home schooling is not the answer for the whole country. Parents need to start voting together to weed out the elitist far lefties in the schools.
Until the schools are taken back this will never end.
Correction in my last post: “Most parents dont realize how the kids are being brought up on the far right and a with a PC mindset.” meant to say “far left” not “far right”. lol
that being said…i do not advocate the far right taking over the schools either…..
David — at the risk of arrogating some degree of editorial input over your excellent prose, I must ask:
Why dilute your excellent indictments of the utter debacle of Obama with such fleeting temporalities as the latest movie du jour? Why trivialize your dissection of one of the malignant diseases of our age, Political Correctness, with jarring reference to “Will the Decepticons win?”.
Speak to the ages. You’re good enough, and the criminal and treasonous enormities which confront us require no less.
Ahh all is now revealed Poor Citizen just like antisemitic MOHO is a Mohammedan now it all falls in to place all the snarky anti everything comments.
I do not believe that the sun has set…..yet. The Western civilization is still the greatest the world has ever known and we continue to progress while the rest of the world remains stagnant. (there are a few exceptions of course) Millions of people from the 3rd world are pounding on the doors of the West, not the other way around. We need to stop caring about what liberals think and speak up against political correctness when it rears it’s ugly head. It’s better to stand erect alone than cower with the crowd.
And as [Brigette Gabriel] rightly points out, alluding to the event that is being spun and re-spun by the media and entrenched officialdom as the one-off act of a deranged Army major rather than the premeditated deed of a radical jihadist, “the Fort Hood terrorist attack is a direct tragic consequence of political correctness.”
The sequence is off a bit. In the hours after the attack, Hasan was portrayed pretty much as having “gone postal,” probably stressed out in anticipation of upcoming deployment.
Then word got out that Hasan had actually attempted to break off or buy out his military commitment but was denied.
Still more word got out about strange behavior going back several years.
Finally, word got out about his email correspondence with a radical Islamic cleric.
Goodness — what’s the Army, the FBI, and everybody else to do? Blame it on the US military’s suddent and rather intense bout of political correctness, which you have to admit is a very strange concept but it will have to do for now.
18: Micheal you are only partially correct. Political correctness is a page from the communist playbook book on how to destroy the West. First create fear over words and then create fear of the state. Most government employees are in fear of their jobs thereby political correctness is very effective instrument in destroying political freedom. But it is the media that disperses PC to the general public. Academia is a self contained bubble, a world unto itself. They do indoctrinate the students but eventually they graduate. It was government and the media that created Political Correctness to stifle free speech. The communists took over the universities way back in the 60′s, when McCarthyism forced them underground and underground was academia and nonprofit institutions.
As for Christianity I hate to break the news to you but that died back in the early part of the 20th century. Liberalism is a direct off shoot of apostate Christianity. Most churches offer a buffet brunch and advice from Dr Phil. You’d be better off reading a good book on Sunday mornings for yourself- preferably the Bible. But baptizing and making disciples is down to social networking and how to get God to work for you. They will love you and smile if you are one of them. If you mention sound doctrine then you will get the cold shoulder. Christian love runs very shallow.
The one curious thing is that Obma, a man with no racial heritage is rapidly making racism respectable again. With his Arab, White Liberal and non-slave African ancestor each racial broup is seeking a cultural heritage which will allow them to disowm Barack Obama as quickly as possible.
Pragmatist. You have the courage of a pre-pubescent girl.
As for the rest of you, fretting about whether the public discourse is offensive enough for your tastes, here’s what’s been happening in the world of grown ups while you’ve been playing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/business/23rates.html?pagewanted=print
Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.
Check out the print version’s graph and witness the growth of debt in the Reagan and Bush 1 years, its drop in the Clinton years, and its growth again during Bush 2. Nice work, you idiots, thanks for bankrupting my country.
“I want to kill as many as I can, and then die.”
From the diary of a serial killer.
See also Mrs. Keithley, who intended to obtain,
and exercise, absolute power over the world, and
destroy it when she died.
It is a psychopathology which manifests in various
ways, and with disturbing frequency. Mohammed Atta
may not have informed all his accomplices that
they would not be landing.
AS MARK TWAIN SAID REPORTS OF HIS DEATH ARE PREMATURE. THE RESILENCY OF THE USA WILL OVERCOME ITS ENEMIES FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. THE NAYSAYERS HAVE BEEN BURYING USA SINCE IT BEGAN. MR. OBAMA HAS BEEN A BLESSING TO THE USA. HE HAS INSPIRED UNINVOLVED PEOPLE TO TAKE NOTICE OF HOW THE LEFT HAS BEEN SLOWLY DESTROYING THE USA. THIS RISE OF INVOLVEMENT WILL BECOME A TIDAL WAVE FINALLY PUTTING THE LEFT BACK IN ITS OWN COFFIN. SO YES OBAMA HAS GIVEN USA NEW HOPE AND CHANGE. FOR MR. OBAMA IT WILL NOT BE HIS HOPE AND CHANGE.
Donna, what a wonderful economics-free world you live in. Europe pulled itself out of its recession months ago; here we are sinking deeper. Too stupid for description.
Politically correct thinking has destroyed British culture and nationality, is destroying America and will destroy western civilisation.
A nation that rejects a single, dominant culture, including its religion cannot survive, because the culture is part of the value system that binds us all, even the non religious like myself. To be part of the community we must be able to live side by side with its members. A culture can accomodate those who remain outside its value system but not people who want a different value system to apply to them.
The multiculturalism promoted by the Politically Correct Thought Police is the antithesis of all that western civilisation is built on.
These villains are so full of themselves because they have never had to work for a living, have not been judged on their own merits and/or have been on the government tit, directly or indirectly, most of their lives. Most of those PC HR depts. or those “Diversity Officers” could not tie their own shoes. Getting a college degree in the most part is about spitting out PC BS, and this affects even the sciences.
Society needs merely put its foot down and stop tolerating it. But this will require honesty. I will require “feminists” to actually compete with men, rather than getting a double standard. I do not see this happening.
We are so far gone in pretending that reality is other than it is that, should we stop and face it, about half of the population would have a total and lasting breakdown.
This one of the real reasons for the decline in this country: An inability to face the true nature of the world.
And those that thing this decline is momentary and temporary are not facing how real the threat is.
How low we haveccome. Before no one would have stood for it. But before people like Hilary, Obama, Holder and Boxer would never have been elevated to the point that they are now.
There is something deeply wrong with us.
All this PC crazyness has been brewing since the end of WWII, as was noted and (current troubles) predicted by James Burnham in The Suicide of the West in 1964.
@ 41 TG: 50+ years of PC decline
Yes; It is a standard failure mode
of the human personality when life
gets too easy. Jose Ortega Y Gosset
“The Revolt of the Masses” written
back in the 1930s, details its
appearance in Spain.
8. Old Soldier:
Out here in the weeds of real America there is a vicious backlash against political correctness brewing.
Indeed, the left has the poor chatel in the cities. We control the wheat and the rail lines. Most of the militarily trained and most of the private arms. The war will be short and very vicious.
P.S. Who has that membership list again.. you know, the ACLU, ACORN, Moveon.org list? I bet those in the cities will turn them over after a few months of no food getting thru.
At least that is how I see it happening.
And yet we are graced with another Moho pearl of wisdom:
“It must be comforting to believe that the decline of our society is based on a change in your preferred form of etiquette.”
Liberal jaberwockyish psychobabble. Sorry, pal, not gonna fly here. No, the decline of our society is a government who allows 13 people to be gunned down by a madman who should have been stopped, but instead sacrificed common sense & safety for PC.
And let’s stay on message. Wars are a nice distraction from our discussion, but the fact is, they are far less costly than rebuilding every major U.S. city. Every Marxist on a mission has as his first step inculcating PC into a free society toward the eventual goal of instilling socialism. It doesn’t happen quickly, but they are a patient lot. Step by step is the plan.
And quoting the NYT as a source of accurate grown-up information? I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I saw that one. Nice work, bub. The once-great Gray Lady has become dishonest (Blair), delusional (your own citation), and blinded by bias (how many times must we continue to prove this) when it comes to actual reporting.
You must be spewing this inane drivel just to raise the dander of PJM posters. It’s impossible that you believe the nonsensical jibberish you put forth.
As long as there are people like Kurt Westergaard,
the sons of allah will be like those who went on a killing spree after Heydrich died.
Indeed, the left has the poor chatel in the cities. We control the wheat and the rail lines. Most of the militarily trained and most of the private arms. The war will be short and very vicious.
Agreed. Just remember not to get squeamish when the Moho’s of the world come knocking on your door dying of thirst and hunger. Stay strong, bro! The human body can only last so long on righteous indignation.
The main reason why political correctness has infected out culture to the extent that it has is that we make no real effort to learn anything about other cultures. If another culture has some disagreeable practices such as Sharia law, we can’t be bothered to learn about it, we just view it as some quaint cultural oddity that you might read about in National Geographic. This is probably the result of the “we’re number one” mentality. We are number one, so the heck with learning about them, let them learn about us. Problem is, some of them have, especially our Islamic enemies. They read our culture like a book and take every advantage of it to advance their agenda which if allowed to continue unchecked will surely bring our culture down.
Our civilization is “waning” because our “liberal elites” have decided that there is nothing worty of there effort. There is nothing to fight for, nothing to die for. That we “can’t be the worlds policeman.” That is why we are “waning”. Being PC has become the only permissible way of conduct, regardless of how rediculous it is or torturous you must twist and flex in order to fit it. That all civilizations are morally equivalent, and tha ours is not superior. We have allowed these conepts to infect not just our “elites” but they have percolated down to infect our educations systems. That is why we are “waning”.
However, if we begin the tremendous effort necessary, we can turn back this defeatist attitude and regain our former position in the world. But to do so, we must fight to take back control of our schools and turn out those who believe that ours is not a better system than say…Cuba, Sudan or any number of other countries. It will not be an easy task, but it is necessary or we must surrender our position as a world power.
45. Chuck:
‘And quoting the NYT as a source of accurate grown-up information?’
Especially since the blithering idiot doesn’t have a clue about the meaning of the graph he thought helped his case against Republican presidents. The graph tracks Democrat control of the legislature, not which party is in the White House. National Debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product was on a steady increase from 1980 until it reversed in 1994 when the Republicans took the legislature. The major blip for that is the jump after 9/11 – no fairminded person would argue that the Republicans in that period of time were any better than Democrats holding the line on government spending. But it did start down 2004, then reversed and headed back up after 2006, and the spike for 2009 is mind boggling.
Chuck, you inbred hillbilly. Have you yet learned to read, or were you busy rearing [literally] the sheep while your father impregnated your sister in the wood shed? This is what I wrote:
It probably has something to do with the fact that China now owns our debt, and that we accumulated much more debt than we can ever pay back engaging in two idiotic and fruitless wars. If there’s political correctness preventing people from saying necessary truths, its mainly focused on preventing people from talking about the fact THAT WARS COST MONEY! When they do finally sift through the ash of America, this will be one of the most perfect examples of the comforting fictions wild-eyed fabulists were spreading while their country fell apart around them.
The fact that you chose one sentence to focus on, while ignoring the rest perfectly illustrates my point. We made the mistake of allowing you lower forms the right to vote, despite the fact that you can’t read or reason, and this is what we get for our trouble–a tribe of dooshes busily gossiping about who called whom what, while they voted for their country to be sold to China.
The one curious thing is that Obma, a man with no racial heritage is rapidly making racism respectable again.
Possibly the stupidest thing I have ever read.
Just remember not to get squeamish when the Moho’s of the world come knocking on your door dying of thirst and hunger. Stay strong, bro! The human body can only last so long on righteous indignation.
Absurd. Those posting here are obviously barely capable of scrawling their names on a dotted line, much less holding down a job or possessing any marketable skills. I would bet dollars to donuts that most of your correspondents herein are the beneficiaries of either unemployment, welfare or social security. This myth that holding stupid political beliefs somehow posits you as the baker in America’s bread basket is most obviously false. Rural hillbillies of this ilk, are the biggest drains on our welfare state.
If the people in the West were in the suicidal mood, wishing to die or “go back to the darkness”, the elections in the main ACHIEVING (not parasitical, like Spain or Greece) countries, after Obama won, would reflect the shift to the left.
The LEFT destroys civilisations. Obama won. No America to protect the rest of the “West” from its military enemies or economical collapse. Wanna die quickly? – Vote the Left and they’ll finish you with one or two moves: Socialism and appeasement to Islam.
But Israel, Germany, France, Holland, Italy had elected the guys from the RIGHT (and soon UK will do the same). They’re gonna FIGHT! They were not dead or about to die, or willing to die! Just sleeping. They could afford to sleep as long as the strong and loyal USA were there to save their asses. Not anymore? – Time to wake up and take care for oneself: NOBODY IS DYING THERE!!!!! NOT YET!!!!!
The same process goes on in America, among the SLEEPING people, eligible to vote, but not usually voting. As long as there’s no significant difference between Reps and Dems – why vote? But now, when Dems have turned all commie-red? – Time to wake up and make a Tea Party, just to start with.
So, please, no pussy-ism! NOBODY WANNA DIE YET! We’re waking up, in great numbers, and we LOVE our Western Civilisation.
Buraq Hussayn Obaminejad, it is, then!
” …. who has – by allowing his personal animosities to intrude upon his public comportment – thoroughly “Nixonized” American politics … ”
“Nixonized?”
Surely, Good Sir, Mr Nixon’s misdeeds (which were, in any case, already pale-by-comparison with even those of the loathsome Bill Moyers and his execrable boss!) rated but a “one” on a scale of one hundred beside those of the recidivist, treasonous, lying, looting, thieving, mass-murdering co-serial-rapist Gorelicker-Wall-building gangster sons-of-Hot-Springs’ “johns” and/or Toms and/or Dicks and/or Harrys that comprised the Cli’ton ‘co-”presidency.”‘ Which gang so personalized America’s machinery of feral gummint as to employ it to transfer Trillions of Dollars of our most vital secrets to our enemies — and to render our nation defenseless against terrorist attack!
The word is “Cli’tonized!”
And then there is that you have “a very bad feeling” and sense that if Barack Obama gets his way, backed by the most corrupt (criminal enterprises posing as a) “political party” in living memory and reinforced by a lockstepping Goebbelsesque propagandist press, America will have been transformed beyond recognition as “it” limps into “the sunset of its days.”
Your whole piece is quite on the money but in posing this question you’ll perhaps pardon my saying that your question betrays the mind-set of your Euro-peon colonial roots and the essential difference between our beloved fraternal republic and every other to-some-degree-or-another “free” state. That is, that We, The Sovereign American People, are not its subjects but own operate and control and ARE our nation and will not permit the self-anointed East-Coast elite, that illegally, unlawfully and un-Constitutionally pretends to ever greater political power, unlimited license to destroy all that is ours. As the haplessly-sorry subjects of the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, of once-great Britain and of every other squalidly fascissocialist satellite state of the Europeon Neo-Soviet — already have.
We Sovereign Americans already know our nation is at war, that our primary enemy (although allied with our every foreign enemy!) is the domestic one — and that if the very Judeo-Christian/Western/Human Civilization we have long vanguarded is to have any hope in Hell of making another twenty years, the Second American War of Independence must be as successfully executed as was the first.
For: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness ….” and the sanctity of their Private Property.
Brian Richard Allen
Los Angeles – Califobambicated 90028
And the Very Far Abroad
MOHO (misspelled again)What if Chuck is from New York City and an only child to boot? Would not you feel foolish? No I don’t think so. It is good to see you are back in form. Spewing the vicious hatred that marks your status among the lower echelons of Obama’s SS thought police. Trolling for a fight with your intellectual betters. Where do you get your facts? from the Al Gore library of global misinformation? I bet you still believe he invented the internet. Are you making any money off of global warming? He is. It goes without saying, your not as smart as Al Gore. Somewhere there is a Thanksgiving dinner looking for a turkey. Be a volunteer.
This myth that holding stupid political beliefs somehow posits you as the baker in America’s bread basket is most obviously false. Rural hillbillies of this ilk, are the biggest drains on our welfare state.
Moho,
The next fact you post on PJM will be your first.
http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/03/09/income-and-2008-presidential-voting-patterns/
Veni–>someday you’ll be able to respond to the facts I post to, rather than finding a convenient issue that fits the website you’ve just found. I don’t believe I wrote anywhere that Republicans were poorer. I wrote that: “I would bet dollars to donuts that most of your correspondents herein are the beneficiaries of either unemployment, welfare or social security. Rural hillbillies of this ilk, are the biggest drains on our welfare state.”
Indeed, its quite obvious from the words I wrote I was writing about the people here, who are so obviously toothless and inbred, your peers. I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to what the average Republican voter earns–nor did I actually mention it. They have drugs for alzheimers now that are quite good at slowing down this kind of cognitive impairment.
Lastly, I am almost positive that you are currently draining our treasury with Social Security and/or Medicare, since that is exactly the part of my post which you quite conveniently failed to post.
Poor little molehill!! The last troll standing, or should I say bending over at the altar of “o”.In an obviously stressed out tizzy, he ascribes the behavior of his beloved liberal acornites to patriot citizens of the Right. Political correctness is fast becoming the bane of our country and must be excised like the cancer it is. . . .
# 35 MOHO wrote
“Pragmatist. You have the courage of a pre-pubescent girl.”
Meaning what MOHO more nonsense as usual or a veiled threat because I just outed YOU and your Mohammedan Brother Poor Citizen. People need to know just what you are because it puts the stupidity and Ad Hominem nastiness that you post in to context when they know you are a self confessed,on PJM, Jew hating antisemitic Mohammedan Arab. So veiled threats , ad hominem attacks and attempted thread diversions are your stock in trade.
Meaning what MOHO
It seems pretty clear what I meant, no need to advertise the fact that you are functionally illiterate. Get your care giver and/or mommy to help you with the multi-syllabic words.
Ad hominem. If that doesn’t prove you have the intellect of a child, then I don’t know what does. This, on a blog about how political correctness is the biggest problem our country faces. One idiocy compounded by another.
The graph tracks Democrat control of the legislature, not which party is in the White House.
Anonymous Idiot:
The graph tracks no such thing. The spike beings in 80. The graph quite clearly states: “In the early 1980′s the government increased spending while cutting taxes and the debt began to rise”. I don’t see why you want to advertise your illiteracy in this way, but its fine by me. The spike downturns until 2000 where it skyrockets again. The largest and most drastic increases occured when both the house, senate and executive were Republican. You whole movement is based on cutting taxes and INCREASING SPENDING!!!! What did you think was going to happen?
MOHO compounds his logical fallacy of Ad Hominem with MORE Ad hominem then tells us what we already know that Political Correctness is idiotic. He then tries to tell us we are uneducated and illiterate. Absolutely hilarious.
Logic and Islam are mutually incompatible
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refers to the U.S., and by extension the West per se, as an ofuli (sunset) power.”
Could be. But, we can still buy Iran, and everything in it, out of our chump change fund.
Great article David. Political Correctness is far more insidious than a form of silly etiquette. It’s affect on western society is similar to the great plague. Remember that the plague did not infect everybody and neither will PC. It’s just a question of the damage – will it permanently cripple our society or will we recover? It’s a coin toss between doom and convalescence.
Lastly, I am almost positive that you are currently draining our treasury with Social Security and/or Medicare, since that is exactly the part of my post which you quite conveniently failed to post.
Nope. Not even 40.
I wrote that: “I would bet dollars to donuts that most of your correspondents herein are the beneficiaries of either unemployment, welfare or social security. Rural hillbillies of this ilk, are the biggest drains on our welfare state.”
Bet away, loser.
By the way, feel free to get rid of unemployment, welfare and social security if you don’t like the demographics of the recipients. Won’t bother me in the slightest and since two of those three programs are simply compensation that would have been directly paid to an employee, but was instead diverted to government hacks to “invest” it in Treasuries or unemployment insurance funds, net-net it would be better for the individuals who pay into those slush funds to get the money themselves. I don’t recall “rural hillbillies” calling Bush’s plan to privatize part of Social Security the worst thing since the Holocaust.
Moho is an elitist, because he is a liberal and a Muslim. Most liberals and nearly all practicing Muslims are elitists, because their philosophy is centered around building up their egos.
PC maintains that others are free to be idiots (or whatever) but we are not free to call them so. Most here maintain that we are free to tell the others that they are NOT free to be idiots.
The article was doing ok for the first page, but then degenerated in purple-prosed, Obama-bashing bloviation. Talk about over the top, but then, extremism in the defense of…something…is no vice, right?
Rational criticism of Obama is certainly appropriate and deserved, but wildly melodramatic stuff such as written in the second page of the article makes me want to distance myself from the writer about as fast as I would want to get away from the folks in that Palin book line on HuffPo, but then, people who stand in long book lines for anyone, have to be a bit…odd or desperate, wouldn’t you say?
Hey, I confess to watching O’Reilly regularly, but anyone who would pay money to come out and hear him and Beck bloviate, has to be playing with less than a full deck…or is just extremely bored.
Yet AGAIN PJM censors responses to MOHO’s insults but allows MOHO to post his numerous ad hominem attacks without any censorship whatsoever. Your descent into Huffponess continues unabated PJM.
How strange on a thread about the evil of Political Correctness PJM uses POLITICAL CORRECTNESS to stifle free speech but ONLY for conservatives the Liberals and Mohammedans are allowed to post at will and insult everyone.
Here’s a wild, crazy idea: do you think the catastrophic loss of American power could possibly have something to do with the utterly disastrous policies your guys pursued between 2001-2008?
62. moho:
‘The graph quite clearly states: “In the early 1980’s the government increased spending while cutting taxes and the debt began to rise”.’
When only the executive branch was republican.
‘The spike downturns until 2000 where it skyrockets again.’
Deficit spending rises constantly after 1980 and didn’t downturn until the mid-90s, when the Republicans took back the legislature.
‘The largest and most drastic increases occured when both the house, senate and executive were Republican.’
The largest and most drastic increase in deficit spending since the period between 1940 and 1942 occurred in the last 10 months, when all three branches were Democrat.
I don’t see why you want to advertise your illiteracy in this way, but its fine by me. Learning a bit more about the subject before shouting out is a start. Simply quoting the New York Times interpretation of the graph is not a sign of literacy on this subject or any other.
Nope. Not even 40.
Veni:
An honest mistake; your cognitive difficulties imply an elderly person with dementia.
Dwight. Believe me when I say that your presence here gives me some amount of hope.
The trolls came late to these comments but once again they reinforce my belief in the libertarian solution. It’s really simple. Federal government needs to be dramatically downsized. It should be a housekeeping function. New programs, regulations, laws, or expanded roles for government should only be added if it is painfully obvious to almost everyone that they are needed.
Upholding the constitution, basic law and property rights, contract enforcement, national defense, prevention of trade restraints like monopolies – this is all we need. The systems constructed spontaneously by a free people can take care of the rest.
Then such activists would have no way to exploit political systems to enslave the rest of us to their aggressively incompetent ideologies and world views.
Nope. Not even 40.
Veni:
An honest mistake; your cognitive difficulties imply an elderly person with dementia.
And your posts imply an infant’s thoughts funneled through a sub-moron with Tourette’s.
As I said, the next fact you post here will be your first:
http://www.quantcast.com/pajamasmedia.com#demographics
Of note to your “bet” is Income and Education stat.
Didn’t you see “Tropic Thunder” on going ‘full retard’?
75
I think Dostoyevsky had the definitive statement of the “do-gooder’s” real intentions and motivations in “The Grand Inquisitor” segment of “The Brothers Karamazov”.
In a Russian context, I can see how these insights drove Dostoyevsky toward the Orthodox Church as the solution to Russia’s problems. In an American context, libertarianism is the appropriate response, I agree.
Ha, Veni:
Most importantly, over half 50 and over, and nearly ALL with no children in household. You keep going out and finding statistics to respond to arguments I’m not making. You’re good at that. It must be your early alzheimers.
A. I made an argument ABOUT THE PEOPLE COMMENTING HERE. Your graph has no such information. Indeed, this cohort could be comprised solely of the least educated, most toothless and poverty-stricken dirt-scratchers, and you’ve nothing to prove or disprove that. And I have to say that there can be little doubt about that.
B. As I claimed I would make a serious bet that a sizeable proportion of the SelfPwnage Media readership is on Medicare and Social Security; we can see that’s probably true from the very information that you supplied, idiot. Most importantly, I would bet that nearly all of those writing here are.
RE #9/ scythe:
[...] Political correctness was not born out of kindness but is explained as such to deceive its victims. It is a weapon and was always a weapon of the left. Political correctness is used to spread the contagion of Marxism. The useful idiots are then lied to and told it must be used not to offend. [...]
Isn’t communism/ equalitarianism the ultimate form of political correctness?
VVV wrote, “I think Dostoyevsky had the definitive statement of the “do-gooder’s” real intentions and motivations in “The Grand Inquisitor” segment of “The Brothers Karamazov”.
In a Russian context, I can see how these insights drove Dostoyevsky toward the Orthodox Church as the solution to Russia’s problems. In an American context, libertarianism is the appropriate response, I agree.”
Wasn’t Alyosha a do-gooder? What I remember from the Grand Inquisitor scene is when he (as a representative of the Church) told Jesus to get lost, that he was not needed.
I think that Dostoyevsky respected and admired to some degree sincere do-gooders like Alyosha and Sonia (in C&P,) but did not like hypocritical or dense do-gooders like Lebeziatnikov (also in C&P). I don’t think that Dostoyevsky cared all that much for capitalists, either, especially those who were enamored of their own accomplishments.
And then there is Svidrigailov
it is amazing how many uneducated high school drop outs we have in this country!! this site is a proof of it…
This article isn’t quite complete, and therefore I think it’s wrong.
There is always something that is threatening the existence of every civilization. Right now, yes, political correctness is the present insanity. After WWI it was isolationism combined with a terrible racism (and this hasn’t completely gone away). You could have taken more bets on the collapse of the West during the Depression, which wasn’t so much an institutional failure as much as the institutions weren’t clear on their role.
Ultimately, I think a case could be made that American psychology still hasn’t left the family farm–that is, if the household is okay, then there isn’t any need to look too far over the neighbor’s fence. I see quite a few folks ignoring much of what is going on around them, concerned primarily with their household–and rightly so.
The question is, can America mobilize it’s resources, enough resources, to meet the challenges the world throws over our fences? Pearl Harbor was one such event. Many thought 9/11 was enough to do the same. Turns out, it wasn’t. Yes, we’re fighting terrorists, but not terrorism. If some other attack occurs that just one bullet will not solve–then we might decide to fight terrorism itself.
Since America does not want to be an empire, we do seemingly insane things, like continuing to give away power. But that’s what we do. That doesn’t take away our ability to mobilize like a great empire and preserve Western Civilization.
We’ve done this several times. I don’t think this ability has been lost.
I came to this country 33 years ago not speaking a word of english… after a couple of years when I got fluent in english, so that was 30 years ago.. all i was hearing was that this country is doomed now… we are still around more stronger than ever and not going any where so relax every one but I must tell you I hate being politically correct and refuse to do so…i will tell it as is and won;t paint it with a soft color….
by the way everyone there is an article here on this site by philys chesler titled” why are we still allied with saudi arabia”. please read my posting number 74….
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