At times, I wish I had a more modern dictionary.
At times, I wish I had a more modern dictionary. I have three: one each published 1828, 1966, and 1983, plus a 1936 Roget’s Thesaurus, a 1955 Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, a 1990 Black’s Law Dictionary, aSpanish-English dictionary, and a Latin-English dictionary. None of them has an entry for “politically correct,” so I will have to do my poor best to define the term.
The term “politically correct” was coined by conservatives to describe the group-think and intimidation tactics practiced by leftists on college campuses over the last three decades.
For example, if a conservative ventured to question whether welfare was actually helping the poor of America, a leftist would scream: “You child-hater! Bigot! Racist!” And the argument would be over.
Name calling, especially using the epithet racist, was a trump card. The poor conservative, completely derailed, would have to leave off consideration of issues of GNP and poverty lines and the socio-political-economic consequences of government dependency to splutter, “I am not a racist!”
Really, the tactic seems a direct adaptation from the Salem witch trials. “You are a witch!” “I am not a witch.” “Prove it!”
Mr. Bill C. Jones indulges in just such a politically correct witch hunt when he dubs me a McCarthyist in his letter submitted April 12th. Mr. Jones may think that he learned to question the motives of his representatives in school, but apparently all he learned was how to call names. Mr. Jones misquotes me and twists my words and imputes to me motives that exist only in his imagination. Mr. Jones’s letter is exhibit A of how political debate is quashed in our society and in our schools.
A few corrections, Mr. Jones: I don’t have hired spies. I have my friends’ kids and my kids’ friends, and even a few friends who are teachers. I never said that racism doesn’t exist; I said that America is not a racist society. And we are not. If we were, we never would have ended slavery, passed the Civil Rights Act, or legislated equal opportunity.
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When I first submitted this column to my editor, he questioned my sources. I provided them, off the record: no reason to submit a GHS student or teacher to the kind of venom spat out by Mr. Jones. But I was amused by my editor’s misgivings. I thought the reaction would be a big yawn. I mean, who cares if the author of the Gavilan College American history text states in his introduction that he is a Communist?
Mr. Jones’s letter took me by surprise. It should not have. There has been a marked increase in the name calling and poison ink published in The Dispatch over the last year. It reminds me of the last century of the Roman Republic, when Rome had conquered Italy and Carthage, and grown wealthy.
A century of civil strife ensued: Marius, Sulla, Caesar, revolution and civil war. Finally, the Senate’s power was given to an emperor. First Citizen they called him, very low key: Princeps. Our word prince is derived therefrom, as kaiser and czar are derived from Caesar.
I really do not want to see blood on the floor of our Senate. I still have no glib answers; Mr. Jones’s suggestions to the contrary, I treasure free speech. He has given me the glimmer of an idea though.
I hope that the GHS English teacher was embarrassed by realizing that she had concurred when a student suggested that conservatism and white males were two of the worst ills of the 20th century. I hope she will consider what her response would have been if the suggestion had been that liberalism and black males were to blame. (When is a racist, sexist remark neither racist nor sexist? When it is directed against white males.)
I cling to the idea that if we can study history thoroughly and discuss issues freely, we will make right decisions. Therefore, even though it is extremely unpleasant to be called names, I am going to try to keep my temper. I am going to rely on incidents and issues and statistics to make my points, and let the Mr. Joneses of the world keep their hate speech.
