Many New Smyrnans dislike political correctness but few seem to recognize the threat to their right to free speech that it represents. When asked if they thought political correctness presents a threat to our free speech rights, most New Smyrna citizens saw less of a threat than a nuisance. A typical reply was given by Bruce Young, 70, who answered: “Not really, I say what I think.”
Chris Krueger replied: “No I don’t think it is a threat.” Dick Winders, 60, replied: “It doesn’t affect me one way or another. It is not a threat to my free speech.”
Before going further it should be noted that to be politically correct you must agree with certain basics of liberal dogma or beliefs. For
instance, aside from child bearing there is no difference between men and women that you are allowed to talk about.
Here are other examples:
# You not allowed to criticize any religion except Christianity.
# All civilizations are superior to western civilization because western civilization was created by exploitive white men.
# There has never been a bad Democratic president or a good Republican president.
# All government programs to help the poor have been unqualified successes including President Johnson’s war on poverty,
# Success should not be recognized or encouraged in any positive way while failure must never be criticized.
# Certain groups have an innate right to be offended by almost anything they choose and those who do the offending must be dealt with promptly and severely.
This is only a short, partial list. We can expect it to grow without bounds. We can also expect the penalties for not being politically correct to grow substantially.
For the unaware there are ominous warning signs coming out of Canada where they have set up “kangaroo courts” to deal with political correctness issues.
This all started in the 1960s and early 1970s when Canada set up the Canadian Human Rights Commissions for the innocuous purpose of eliminating discrimination on a practical level such as housing. Since that time these commissions HRCs have morphed into something much more sinister. They have become tribunals that can fine and put restrictions on anyone that they think have violated Section 13 of the Human Rights act.
These tribunals are supposed to prosecute people who are using hate speech or committing discrimination or promoting discrimination.
With such a nebulous purpose and such wide latitude in defining offenses these courts are making the Salem Witch trials seem like exercises in pure logic.
An interesting case involves a Protestant pastor, Stephen Boissoin, who was brought before the Alberta commission for publishing a letter against the propagation of homosexuality and bisexuality. The tribunal determined that Mr. Boissoin should pay a fine of $6,000 and that he and his organization be prohibited from expressing in newspapers, e-mail, radio, public speeches and carrier pigeon anything disparaging about homosexuals. He was also prohibited from making any disparaging remarks about the person who brought up these charges in the first place.
Furthermore violation of these edicts were to be enforced by the criminal courts. In other words he could be sent to prison for any further expressing of his opinion.
Since bad ideas which originate in Canada have a habit of coming here, we should not get too smug about the stupidity that takes place in Canada. It is not too big a stretch to see these Kangaroo courts and their attendant thought police come here.
Some people have already suggested that anyone who publicly expresses doubts about global warming should be punished. Americans had better not take their rights to free speech for granted.