It has become a favorite dodge of some folks to characterize themselves as victims of political correctness when they are called out for the mean-spirited, dumb, or simply wrong things they say, and to characterize themselves as forthright and courageous for saying utterly mindless things in defiance of this PC trend. In the good old days before political correctness took hold, they seem to be saying, a person could, for example, insult great swaths of society -- blacks, Jews. women, etc. -- openly and without remorse or reprisal. That was before people got so persnickety about this stuff.
War on Christmas
“Nation’s Oppressed Christians Huddle Underground To Light Single Shriveled Christmas Shrub”
That’s a headline in the satirical newspaper The Onion, taking dead aim at the incessant whining of a segment of the body politic about how put upon they are by secularism, the “mainstream media,” non-Christians of various persuasions, and their all-time favorite bugaboo, political correctness. By way of reassuring these folks during this holiday (Christmas) season, I offer up the following: Between now and December 25th the words “Merry Christmas” will be spoken 1 bazillion times (that’s just a round number, of course). Hundreds of millions of person-hours will be spent in churches of various denominations, observing the “true meaning” of Christmas. There will be as many nativity scenes around town as there were in 1953; Christmas trees will be put up all across the land. Millions upon millions of Christmas presents will be opened. Glasses will be raised, lights will be strung, lavish meals will be eaten, movie classics will be watched, many of which have the word “Christmas” in their titles, like “A Christmas Carol,” “A Christmas Story,” and “White Christmas,” and Christmas music will be played and sung to distraction. All of this, and more, will be done out in the open without any interference (or criticism) from anybody. Hello, war-on-Christmas worriers: There is no war on Christmas. If you wish to participate, no one is stopping you. If other people don’t wish to participate, that’s none of your beeswax.
What Trumpists really want
Normal people are mystified by the way Donald Trump can repeatedly say bizarre, even irrational things – he witnessed something that didn’t happen, he thinks members of one religion should be kept out of the country -- and his poll numbers go up. It’s as if a light bulb goes on over the heads of these newest Trump converts: “Wow. I knew he was a blowhard and a bigot, but now I see he’s also delusional. I’m voting for him!” Unexplainable, seemingly. But, of course, what his people see in him isn’t about any of that. It’s about his promise to “make America great again.” And by “great” what his mostly older white male followers understand him to mean is a time when people who looked like them had all the good jobs; when there weren’t all these weird non-Christian religions around; when blacks, Hispanics, and women knew their place; when political correctness didn’t prohibit decent white folks from putting down racial and ethnic minorities. You just know – because he is unable to restrain himself – that Jews will be his next target, as he explains, using “just common sense,” that they control the media, Hollywood, and the banks. This is a turn of events that in a sane world would bring his candidacy crashing to earth in a ball of fire. But it will probably just end up recruiting a whole new wing of the slack-jawed to his bandwagon. Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering that the poll numbers Trump is garnering can be a little bit misleading. Recently, those numbers showed he had 35 percent of Republican primary voters in his corner. But Republican primary voters were just 38 percent of the people interviewed in the New York Times/CBS polling. Thirty-five percent of 38 percent is about 13 percent of the electorate.Is it terrorism? Does it matter?
A recent trend is for members of one segment of the political spectrum to accuse others of bowing to political correctness by refusing to identify terrorism as terrorism. The thought is that this refusal stems from the fear of offending members of a religious minority. But it’s important to understand the actual meaning of terrorism. This definition comes from the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies:
“Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols). Such acts are meant to send a message from an illicit clandestine organization. The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order to influence the targeted audience(s) in order to reach short- and midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states.”
In other words, terrorism needs to be understood as a tactic for changing the internal politics of a country, or even conquering that country, when it’s impossible to do so by more conventional means. Not every murderous act qualifies. But for the folks who routinely call others out for refusing to call a spade a spade, the only qualification necessary is that the act be committed by a Muslim. If the act is committed by a Muslim, it’s a terrorist act. If it’s committed by a non-Muslim, it’s something else.
To the folks who say gun laws are of no use in preventing “terrorist” attacks: When a member of the unhinged stockpiles guns and thousands of bullets and uses those things to kill and injure scores of innocent people – and anyone who would do that is a member in good standing -- their reasons don’t matter. Pick one: They heard voices through their tin foil hats; they’ve pledged allegiance to the grand wazier of ISIS; they hate all members of the you-name-it minority group; they like the smell of cordite in the morning. These peoples’ thought processes are off the rails, whether or not their acts are defined as terrorism. They can’t be allowed to have guns. There’s every reason to believe that if procuring an arsenal was more difficult and involved than it is, the mad plan of the San Bernardino murderers would have been abandoned or sniffed out in advance.
T
“Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols). Such acts are meant to send a message from an illicit clandestine organization. The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order to influence the targeted audience(s) in order to reach short- and midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states.”
In other words, terrorism needs to be understood as a tactic for changing the internal politics of a country, or even conquering that country, when it’s impossible to do so by more conventional means. Not every murderous act qualifies. But for the folks who routinely call others out for refusing to call a spade a spade, the only qualification necessary is that the act be committed by a Muslim. If the act is committed by a Muslim, it’s a terrorist act. If it’s committed by a non-Muslim, it’s something else.
To the folks who say gun laws are of no use in preventing “terrorist” attacks: When a member of the unhinged stockpiles guns and thousands of bullets and uses those things to kill and injure scores of innocent people – and anyone who would do that is a member in good standing -- their reasons don’t matter. Pick one: They heard voices through their tin foil hats; they’ve pledged allegiance to the grand wazier of ISIS; they hate all members of the you-name-it minority group; they like the smell of cordite in the morning. These peoples’ thought processes are off the rails, whether or not their acts are defined as terrorism. They can’t be allowed to have guns. There’s every reason to believe that if procuring an arsenal was more difficult and involved than it is, the mad plan of the San Bernardino murderers would have been abandoned or sniffed out in advance.
T
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