Every day we are treated to more and more examples of intolerance of supposed intolerance. Am I the only one that sees that? Certainly not! Whether it is new words that are being eliminated from public school textbooks and dialogue with students or views being expressed in conservative forums – the list of examples goes on and on, so who can help but see it? The idea of passing words by our brain before they come out our mouth or make their way to a written page is not a new one. We are trained – or at least we used to be trained – from an early age to think before we speak. That is all a part of good manners training. Political correctness, however, has taken this to a whole new level. Since this is obviously a political problem, I decided to look at it from a political philosophy viewpoint. When I did that, an amazing revelation occurred to me.
One of the basic differences in the political philosophies of liberals and conservatives has to do with the way they view the economic pie in zero sum economics. In other words, there is only so much of the American Dream Pie to go around, economically speaking, so that prosperity and success is viewed from a finite instead of an infinite position. This is directly opposed to the way conservatives view things economically speaking. We conservatives believe that there is an infinite amount of success to go around, and that anyone can reach out and grab whatever they are willing to work for. (The key here is WORK – success puts back into the pie so to speak). Liberals believe in “zero sum” economics, which suggests that in order for some to prosper others must fail. The pie is only so big in other words. I wrote an article on this subject some time ago called, Zero Sum Economics” that goes into the specifics of this philosophy. If you have the stomach for it, I would recommend you look it up in my archives.
Political correctness requires that tolerance be dished out of the whole pie with no regard to the finite factor. Tolerance could be looked at as infinite, but only if there was movement both ways, which there usually isn’t. Since there is not we WILL one day reach a zero sum of it. With a growing list of restrictions to free expression, this one-way street of tolerance is aimed at specific groups. Men, Anglo-Saxons, Christians, Individualists, Conservatives, just to name a few. These are the groups in real danger of reaching their zero sum of tolerance. Nothing is being returned to these groups in the way of tolerance, therefore their supply of it IS most certainly VERY finite. Now, that is easy enough to understand, isn’t it?
Since I qualify as a member of all the above named groups but one, I can tell you that my tolerance pie has been hacked to hell already. I feel as if every breath I take on the planet might actually “offend” someone. While I am not supposed to “flaunt” the fact that my skin is light, my respect for God and Christ is absolute, my responsibility is for and to myself, and my political views do not embrace diversity above individual value, I would at least like to be able to speak and act normally without being told constantly that my speech and actions might “offend” someone! My parents taught me good manners while I was growing up, so I don’t view that as society’s job to do again.
This is what America is all about – a place where humans may be tough enough to preserve their freedoms without being offended. That is the only way to protect the concepts of human liberty. If we are not strong enough to defend EVERYONE’S right to speak freely, then we do not deserve liberty. Ask a soldier if he worries about the fact that some of the people he fights to protect might be offended with his speech or beliefs. He is willing to die to protect even those who would spit on him. (Yes, I know that there are also women soldiers, and no, I am not being disrespectful by using the masculine pronoun – that is the way I learned it and it makes for much simpler writing.)
So, before all our history books are re-written, all our culture is destroyed, and all matters of morals have been washed in a shade of gray, can we please take a look at this pie of tolerance and realize that it is not infinite unless something gets put back for every slice that is taken from it? Liberals need to apply their zero sum theory to this subject and let the free capitalist system handle economics – then we can all have a piece of the real American Dream.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”