In these enlightened times, certain issues seem to have been finally settled. The national speed limit is sixty-five miles an hour in most places, the drinking age is twenty-one in most places, and most people believe that Ralph Nader will be a sure-fire spoiler for the Democrats in November. Some things are so ingrained that nobody questions them, except for a few brave souls who lack the good sense to leave things well enough alone. Somebody has to stand up and show the vast majority the errors of their ways. It's risky business, since the majority in America tends towards the ownership of high-caliber weapons and hair-trigger tempers.

But enough self-glorification. The question before us is this: what exactly is political correctness? The academic definition centers around attempts to remove or replace gender specific, racially insensitive, or otherwise disrespectful terms (i.e. "retarded") with words that are perceived to be less harmful.

In any case, the academic definition no longer serves its purpose. To a great many Americans, political correctness is not about respecting others. Political correctness to them is about being against science; it's about sapping the will of our fighting men and women; it's about being against education; it's about being against God Himself, and so much more. Although it started out as a tool of the left, continued attacks from conservatives have turned the phrase "politically correct" into a tool of their own - as a term of derision.

It's telling that all of the greatest exapmles of political correctness gone amok seem to have been jokes written by conservatives, rather than being genuine representations of P.C. nonsense. This is because, in between Communism and terrorism, liberal mind-control was a favorite conservative bogey-man.

The fact that conservatives fought so long and hard against a word replacement scheme is rather interesting. The hysterical push we've seen in recent months by conservatives in our government to wipe "obscenity" off of the public airwaves might have led one to believe that Republicans were all in favor of removing certain words from the English language. But, just as someone might say that he or she supports equal work for equal pay and then follow that statement by saying that he or she is not a "feminist", a conservative sees no contradiction between being in favor of fighting one set of words and being against fighting another.

Since the 1970's the left has backed away from the P.C. movement for two reasons: First, they were successful in replacing words like "black", and "disabled", with more palatable versions in government documentation. Second, the right seized the term and changed its meaning to suit their own purposes - much as they did with the word liberal.

Nothing in P.C. language explicitly suggests becoming a homosexual baby-killing atheist, but the second one speaks in support of gay marriage or some such liberal cause, it's very likely that some conservative somewhere is going to characterize such a stance as being "politically correct".

Among some far right pundits are concerned, America has long been in the limp-wristed grip of an evil, left wing thought-police. But just because a few Republicans can't give in to their powerful desire to call someone a cock-sucking faggot in public without being tarred and feathered doesn't mean that the country has fallen under some sort of linguistic, liberal hypno-trance. These days, whenever anyone without a subscription to The American Spectator hears a conservative attack P.C. speech, it sounds exactly like a sad old man raving about those damn Ruskies -- in other words, sad and hopelessly outdated.

So, what is political correctness? It's an attempt to equalize language that became a weapon used by conservatives to attack its original owner. In other words, it's a knife that the right took away from the left. And then, they brutally stabbed them with it. And even though it's starting to look ugly and mean-spirited, they continue the stabbing.

But perhaps it's a good thing that conservatives have had such a deep desire to attack P.C. speech - it keeps us on our toes. Nowadays, liberals can't just dismiss somebody for being "politically incorrect" - they've got to explicitly call them on it. When someone uses double-speak, they must attack them using just those terms. When somebody tries to violate the separation of church and state, they say it plainly. When a well known senator expresses regret over the fact that a pro-segregationist was not elected president in 1948, they call him a racist.

-B. C. Silvia
-4/29/2004