Monday 26 July 2004

Can political correctness destroy the West?

It's certainly not going away here in Scotland:
IT HAS been called the latest example of political correctness gone mad: a local authority has refused to reveal the scores from a children's bowling competition. Officials from Aberdeen City Council running the event at the city's Westburn Park - as part of the 50th jubilee celebrations for the authority's annual bowling tournament - decided that some competitors who were beginners at the sport should be spared the embarrassment of seeing the scale of their defeats published in the local press.
Naturally, the public "servant" who is responsible for this fails to understand why there's a fuss:
She stressed: "It is nothing do with being PC or goodness knows what. The kids know they've lost and how badly they lost, and the last thing they really want is for their pals to be ribbing them all of the holidays. "We just thought it would be the kinder thing to do not to publish the results. We don't want to discourage the children - we want to encourage them because we want young bowlers coming in." Ms Walker added: "It's a load of rubbish to suggest this has anything to do with being a nanny state. If that's how people perceive it, then I am sorry for them."
But that's precisely what people like Ms Walker are creating: a nanny state. The reasoning (sic) behind all of this nonsense is the horror of acknowledging that people are different. It's not simply a matter of protecting primary school children from a holiday "ribbing", for this failure to acknowledge difference exists wherever the modern state imposes itself. A tragic consequence is the dumbing down of Scotland's once proud education system.

OK you may say, but how on earth can this "destroy the West"?

Consider this article by the Scotsman's Bill Jamieson:

One account, by an American woman journalist, describes highly unusual behaviour by a group of 14 Middle East passengers on board a Northwest Airlines Flight 327 on 29 June from Detroit to Los Angeles. The movements of the 14, which terrified a number of passengers, suggested an intelligence-gathering operation by terrorists. Other reported incidents on recent flights have included a Middle East passenger being caught in the toilet trying to break through the wall towards the cockpit.
This story was all over the web last week.

There's more:

Rand Peck, captain for a major US airline, said he was "deeply bothered" by the inconsistencies he sees at the Transport and Security Administration. "I've observed matronly grandmothers practically disrobed at security checkpoints and five-year-old blond boys turned inside out, while Middle Eastern males sail through undetained. "We have little to fear from grandmothers and little boys. But Middle Eastern males are protected, not by our Constitution, but from our current popular policy of political correctness and a desire to offend no-one at any cost, regardless of how many airplanes and bodies litter the landscape."
A philosophy that starts off by attempting to protect schoolchildren from the facts of life ends up with this:
And a 9/11 Commission member, John Lehman, stated back in April that "it was the policy before 9/11 and remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory".
And the airlines have indeed been fined.

And what of the journalist who wrote about her frightening experience on the plane? She has been widely vilified:

Many e-mails were sent in calling her a racist for referring to 14 men with Syrian passports as Syrian men.
Can political correctness destroy the West? You bet it can.

2 comments:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Robert Speirs (204.89.69.14)
At least we now know, after Flight 93, that Americans on a hijacked flight will fight terrorists to the death. How many other countries can be sure of that? Scotland?

13 August 2004, 15:29:04 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Stuart Dickson (217.211.160.56)
Verity 
 
Yer knickers are in a twist. 
 
Whoops, was that politically incorrect?

9 August 2004, 12:12:56 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Verity (148.233.208.108)
Which conservative American would that be?

8 August 2004, 15:31:14 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Stuart Dickson (217.211.160.56)
This issue clearly rattles the conservative American. Luckily the rest of the planet have clearer heads.

8 August 2004, 09:52:18 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Verity (200.65.24.14)
David was astute to link these two occurrences. 
 
Somehow, we in the West have contrived to have self-righteous, deeply stupid people in charge of running things they are mentally unequipped to run, and their authoritarian inability (more alarming because it is, in many instances, deployed with baffled sincerity) to understand that they are trespassing on our freedoms, while exercising their iron will on society, weakens us. 
 
This Walker moron from Aberdeen should not be in charge of anything. Not removing lint from dark suits. Not opening cans of cat food at the RSPCA. Not pressing the button to raise the barrier at the parking exit. Yet, she's got a little job on the public tit that she's in charge of and her poisonous stupidity is fed into the system. 
 
Likewise, the people in charge of devising scanning procedures for terrorists in airports also lack a tether to reality. The report by the WSJ's journalist who was actually on that flight with the Syrians, made very uneasy reading. John B, I suggest you read it. The flight attendants were also alarmed and were passing notes to passengers under the guise of serving them drinks. The pilot had already radioed ahead for assistance.  
 
And the irony is, if those 14 Syrians had been bona fide terrorists, the US government could only have questioned two or three of them, because that's the quota for Arab males. 
 
Yes, political correctness is an assault on the intellectual and economic strength of the West and it should be destroyed as mercilessly as we deploy roach spray and flea spray. The Gramscians have been promoting the destruction of the West for 50 or 60 years through their perverted ideology, to what end, we don't know. They don't seem to have anything in mind. 
 
Ideology is what wins battles in the long run, and, as Neil notes, American companies (not 'cultural imperialism' because no force is involved) are winning because people all over the world want Coke and Gap and McDonald's and free home delivery of pizzas.  
 
When it comes to spending their own - as opposed to taxpayer - money, no one gives a stuff about political correctness.

8 August 2004, 01:43:00 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Neil (195.93.34.10)
On the other hand this guy's act appears to be a slightly ethnic version of Las Vegas cabaret. I don't see any liklihood Hank Williams will start doing readitional arabic music. 
 
American culture IS conquering the world & neither moslem guns opposing it nor US missiles enforcing it have much to do with it. 
 
This is not a moral point (you can argue cabaret, Hollywood, Superman & McDonalds V siestas & arranged marriages either way) its just true.

30 July 2004, 23:14:37 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate

David Farrer said...





Al Ross (210.187.84.130)
Multi-culturalism is all one way traffic headed West.If Hank Williams Jr was invited to tour the Maghreb countries, an acceptance would be a greater threat to his life than would be experienced by members of a Muslim folk group in any Western country.

30 July 2004, 02:37:39 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





john b (194.81.20.74)
Yes, it's the person who mistakes a folk band for a terrorist cell (and panics the people on the plane and tries to blow the air marshalls' cover) who's sensible, and the people who call her out on it who are morons that deserve to die. Ain't right-wing-land marvellous? 
 
Incidentally, not all terrorists are Muslims - and even if they were, plenty of Muslims are white and female. Pop quiz: if elderly white women were waved through airline security without checking, which particular subset of fanatics would the terrorist leaders then use on plane missions?

27 July 2004, 18:57:15 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Andrew Ian Dodge (195.137.124.152)
Staurt but by their actions they are condeming my (and yours) friends and love ones to die. I fail to see why hoping that if anyone dies (which I hope does not happen) due to the actions of these people its them or their relatives not anyone else? What is wrong with that? 
 
Yes I was a bit harsh, but to assume I want them to die is a bit much.

27 July 2004, 13:59:34 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Stuart Dickson (217.211.160.56)
What an idiotic sentiment from Andrew Ian Dodge. 
 
Even if the writers were morons, you are an even bigger moron for wishing that their loved ones would die in a terrorist atrocity. That sentiment completely destroys the validity of your criticism.

26 July 2004, 17:30:58 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply – Edit – Moderate





Andrew Ian Dodge (195.137.124.152)
Well the writers were morons...lets hope its those people are their loved ones who die in the next attack.

26 July 2004, 13:42:47 GMT+01:00