Political Correctness is Politically Incorrect

I recently heard an interview with Dan Whitney about political correctness. Dan, like me, feels that we have gone way too far when it comes to being “politically correct.” If logic and political correctness were plotted on the same graph, the lines would have crossed many years ago. I certainly believe that public discourse and communications should be non-threatening. But, it has gotten to the point where it is just plain silly. 

Recently I was writing a piece that mentioned some historical dates. As I learned in my days at school, including fancy schools, dates in western society are generally represented by the Gregorian calendar.The usage of this calendar was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII and was based on the birth of Christ (no surprise here—he was a Catholic pope.) Standard Gregorian usage requires the use of BC for dates before the birth of Christ and AD for dates after the birth of Christ. A California editor, sitting in a little cubicle and eating tofu, told me that BC was politically incorrect. I learned that we are supposed to use BCE (Before the Common Era) for BC and CE (Common Era) for AD. What pointy head, Volvo-driving, Starbucks-drinking academic thought of this bullshit? Stunned, I asked why and was told that BC and AD were offensive to the Jews and Muslims (if that is the case, it is the first time these groups have agreed on anything other than total annihilation of the other). I have several good Jewish friends (who send be Hebrew jokes I don’t totally understand). So, I called two. One said, “I have never heard of such nonsense.” The other was more to the point. He said, “Horse shit.” Now, my Jewish friends may not represent the entire Judeo-Muslim world (in fact, they love barbecue pork ribs), but they know their culture. Who is the victim here?

Not long ago I was in California—specifically a hotel in Oakland near the airport (I have found that a hotel near the airport is the only place to be in Oakland). The City and County of San Francisco was having some sort of job fair in the hotel. As I was waiting in the hall I started looking at the application. It was clearly written by some ACLU nutcase with a BA from Cal-Berkley and a JD from Harvard who probably clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The application was nonsense with long statements about these rights and those rights. The thing that struck me was the place where you are usually asked to put your gender. Instead of male or female it said, “With which of the following genders do you most identify?” The answers were “masculine”, “feminine”, or “I don’t care to disclose.” This is about as ridiculous a statement as I have ever seen. I am not anti-gay by any means, but you either have an X and a Y chromosome or you have an X and X chromosome. There is no in between (and don’t start on the chimera crap). If you got your outdoor plumbing cut off by some Bangkok surgeon and are taking estrogen to grow breasts, you still have an X and a Y chromosome (and issues). If they clone you, your clone will have a penis and no breasts. Our society has drifted way too far into lala land when we start adjudicating the laws of nature.

Perhaps it is time to back off a little on the political correctness thing. I think it has, in many ways, hurt our productivity. Dan Whitney is certainly more eloquent than me in this regard. Who is Dan Whitney? He is better known as “Larry the Cable Guy.” When he gets out of character, which he rarely does, he is as sharp as Dennis Miller in pointing out the problems with modern American society--especially political correctness. Thus, “Get ‘er done.”