Don't Say It, Don't Even Think It (It May Be Illegal, Anyway)!

Happy New Year, It's 1984, everyone! Actually, it's been 1984 for a couple of decades now, but I guess only a handful of us have noticed. For a lot of people, worrying about "Big Brother" means another new episode on CBS, but for those of us who trade in ideas, which can be more offensive than anything some bimbo in a bikini might say or do on T.V. to those in the land of PC, we are acutely aware that we are being listened to, if not watched. We laughed, at first, at the ridiculous social paranoia exhibited in the use of such expressions as, "hearing impaired," "weight-challenged," or "Native American." What was wrong with a little honesty? If you can't hear, you're deaf. If you weigh too much to be healthy, you're fat. If you ask the folks at AIM, the American Indian Movement, what they'd like to be called, they'll tell you; Shawnee, Quawpaw, Cherokee, Arapahoe, Ottawa, Delaware, and Miami are just a few names they like. We tried to show the absurdity of it all by referring to our scrambled eggs as "partial-birth abortions," or by calling the Clinton Administration "ethically challenged." People like George Carlin, Dennis Leary, Howard Stern, Don Rickles, and Don Imus have made careers out of being offensive, but now having a sense of humor can be dangerous, as Imus and others have found out. At worldnetdaily.com today, there is the story of Marc Howells, a former director of a company called Barclaycard, who was fired for telling an insensitive joke during a presentation on the firms' quarterly figures. The punchline? "The results were like Muslims - some were good, some were Shi'ite." That's an old one. Kids were telling that one when I was in High School during the first Gulf War. To me, it's not funny because it lacks imagination and borders on toilette humor. To Barclaycard, it's not funny because it might offend a Muslim and cause him to bomb a crowded coffee shop. Ok, maybe that sounded a little prejudiced. I'm sure there are a lot of Muslims out there who abhor coffee shops and resent the implication. The point is, why fire him? Did the firm lose money because of the bad joke? Did his lack of tact affect his ability to analyze Pie Charts? I've worked with jerks, too, but I never demanded they be fired for being jerks, unless they were incompetent jerks. "Lighten up," you might say to me. Good advice, you should take some. However, there is a more sinister PC monster that the crime of "hate speech" has given birth to, and its' name is "hate thought." Consider the implications of H.R. 1592, also known as the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. According to the law, a preacher who claims homosexuality is an abomination could be indicted. That's hate speech. Moreover, if a person who hears that preacher goes out and commits a crime against a homosexual, the preacher might be considered an accessory. Why? Well, he may not have verbally encouraged violence, but he probably thought about it, besides, such speech could be construed as intimidation by any homosexuals listening. What now matters is the supposed intent of speech, which means thought. I can hear the lawyers in the court rooms now: "You may not have said witches and warlocks should be burned at the stake, but you were thinking it. Such dangerous thought, inferred from you calling Ms. Doe, quote, 'a sick witch," is what caused Mr. Doe to burn my client with a cigarette! I demand the maximum punishment according to the law!" Am I overreacting? Does this sound like hyperbole to you? Time will tell. One thing that I wonder is this...if Marc Howells had called some one a Jesus Freak instead of "insulting" Muslims, would he have lost his job? Well...you probably already know what I think. Let's just hope there's no law against it.

"Most Ethical Congress" Seeks Investigation Into Dangerous Thing Called "Free Speech"

Here we go again, once more on the "Fairness Doctrine" merry-go-round. This is how it works with liberals like Harry Reid and Nacy Pelosi; If it's flag burning or pornography in the streets, it's free speech, but if a guy on the radio says he's tired of illegal immigration or says he's offended by porn in the streets it's hate speech. The thing that free speech and hate speech have in common , apparently, is that both are defined by liberals. Once you realise this, it should not be a surprise that Rep. Henry Waxman, Democrat, California, is reportedly launching an investigation on famed talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. That's right, the people who promised us back in January the most ethical congress in our country's history are wasting taxpayer time and money digging up dirt on one of their biggest critics in an attempt to shut him up. These self-proclaimed sentinels of our most sacred rights as citizens are the first ones to tell you they stand for freedom of speech and are invariably the first ones to try to take it away from you. "You can't say that! That's hate speech! That's not politically correct! Why, something has to be done about all of these people expressing their personal views! There ought to be a law! We need to launch investigations, hearings, hangings! How dare you say something I personally disagree with!" Calling themselves the Democratic Party is an insult to the very word "democratic." Now, I'm not really worried about Rush Limbaugh. He can take care of himself. As he said on his program, "It's a pretty serious charge that the chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee is going to compile reports and conduct investigations of private citizens who work on the radio." This is bigger than Rush, or Hannity, this threatens anyone who states an opinion, anywhere, anytime, in any forum. I've told you before, folks, if they succeed in resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine, it will spill over into the internet, into coffee houses, and even your overheard cell phone conversations. It has nothing to do with "fairness." It has everything to do with silencing the opposition. Conservatives like myself are usually called nasty names like "Nazi," but let me ask you this...what seems more American to you, offering up an opposing viewpoint or trying to silence it? Think about it.

Even PCs must be PC?

How do you know when political correctness has gone too far? If your own name is flagged for being inappropriate, well...that would be a good start. As reported in a story by worldnetdaily out of New Zealand, Gay Hamilton, a lesbian teacher, was sent an automated response which reads, "[Your email] was identified by our content filtering processes as containing language that may be considered inappropriate for business-like communication. ... The content which caused this to happen was ... 'gay' eight times, at two points each, for an expression score of 16 points." Yep, Gay was too "gay," but not because she is gay, because she's called Gay. The irony meter is off the charts on this one. Telecom, the broadband provider that sent the automated messege, says the messege was never meant for Ms. Hamilton, but for employees as part of a general filtering process. One has to wonder, though, why this process is needed at all. To increase productivity, or as employers like to say, to keep employees from "hooking up" on myspace.com, they place filters on their sites to make sure workers stay on task. Despite the obvious, I'll go ahead and give you the dictionary definition of the word "gay"as listed by dictionary.com.
gay /geɪ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[gey] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation adjective, -er, -est, noun, adverb
–adjective
1.
having or showing a merry, lively mood: gay spirits; gay music.
2.
bright or showy: gay colors; gay ornaments.
3.
given to or abounding in social or other pleasures: a gay social season.
4.
licentious; dissipated; wanton: The baron is a gay old rogue with an eye for the ladies.
5.
homosexual.
6.
of, indicating, or supporting homosexual interests or issues: a gay organization. –noun
7.
a homosexual person, esp. a male. –adverb
8.
in a gay manner.
[Origin: 1275–1325; 1950–55 for def. 5; ME gai < OF < Gmc; cf. OHG gāhi fast, sudden] —Related forms
gayness, noun
So, there you go. Another perfectly normal name corrupted by the tortured language of political correctness. Sure, she may have been writing e-mails about being gay, but she was talking about what her parents named her! Think about people who have nicknames like, "Dick," or "Harry," or even "Rosie." I hope my name never goes into the lexicon of public usage as "inappropriate for business-like communication." Oh...WAIT! It already has. Remember those "Big Johnson" T-Shirts from the 90's? I'm in so much trouble......My whole name will be banned as offensive. I won't be allowed to blog anymore, because my PC won't be PC.....You can find me at the bar, drinking my sorrows away with Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus. Just don't call me by name. Apparently, it's offensive.

Here We Go Again...

I knew this was coming. As I was reading the news today at worldnetdaily, I happened upon a story about Rush Limbaugh suggesting the V Tech shooter was a liberal. Immediately following the story was a long list of reader comments, many of which called for Rush to be fired. Then, on the view this morning, right after defending freedom of speech for rappers, the vacuous women began a big "shame on you" pecking party on Rush, pointing out his former addiction to prescription medicine. I wasn't surprised by the character assassination or the hypocrisy, because we all know how badly they want to silence any voice from the right. They talk about freedom of speech for guys like Master P or Ice-T, but when a talk show host suggests that a crazy guy with a gun might be a liberal, well, "he must be silenced! And if he can't be, well, you don't have to listen to him because he's a junkie." What's interesting is that Rush knew this would happen, too. In an explanation of this to a caller on his show, Rush said, "Look, last week, as a means of illustrating on this show how the words of conservative talk show hosts are twisted and taken out of context, I blamed the liberals for the Virginia Tech shooting. I said the guy had to be a liberal, and I went through and I said, "You watch. There's going to be a website that picks this up, and a bunch of people are going to read it and they're going to be outraged that I would possibly say this," and they said, "Yeah, you got a guy that hates the rich. You got a guy that thinks the American culture is debauched. Who is it telling us all this and who is it doing all this? It's the liberals," and sure enough Media Matters fell for it hook, line and sinker." Well, as the title of one of his books goes, "See, I Told You So." The same people who defend racist and sexist speech in the arts want him to loose his career in shame for saying something that, at most, is insensitive to a dead guy. When Mel Gibson opens his big, fat antisemitic mouth, he just says, "Sorry! I was drunk!" and the lefties give him a pass, and he insulted an entire race. I'll say this again, for those of you who missed the last few posts. We must see the Fairness Doctrine for what it is and reject it, because free speech, even speech you find despicable, must be protected. Without it, there is no free and open debate. All of you leftie bloggers out there should be ashamed of yourselves for supporting this, for calling on Rush to be fired, because the next thing to go will be the Internet, and who knows if the Web Police will come for you, too?

The Fairness Doctrine and Free Speech

If you are clapping because Don Imus was fired and dreaming of the day when Rosie O'Donnell hits the unemployment line, just remember there are people who are gunning for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannitty, too. Thanks to the Reagan Administration and a veto by Reagan himself in 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was put in the grave, but there are many people out there who insist it be resurrected simply because they disagree with certain people's opinions. Rush Limbaugh's radio program reaches a lot of listeners, and this scares people on the left because they aren't just listening, they're becoming true believers. AM talk radio is just about the only place where you get a right wing perspective (don't shake your head at me, Al Franken, you know it's true, ), and these shows are continually growing because, not only are they virtually the only forum for conservatives, they are actually entertaining. They are also not always politically correct, which infuriates the left, the people who sold everyone on this tortured language we all have to use now to avoid getting sued or fired, and that's the ammunition they think they have. Still, it isn't so much about being "fair," or "PC," the Fairness Doctrine is about shutting the mouths of people who have a lot of influence and making sure there is only one opinion to be heard, and to me, that sounds like state-controlled media. Very unAmerican, wouldn't you say? It also flies in the face of free enterprise when government tells you what you are allowed to say, or that you must take valuable airtime away from your own message and give it to an opponent. Radio and television are private industries that get money from selling airtime, after all...that's what got Don Imus fired. His advertisers no longer wanted to be associated with him, so they yanked their ads, which cost MSNBC money. They stopped airing his simulcast, and CBS radio feared the same thing, so they canned him, too. Rush Limbaugh's advertisers can make that same judgement if they choose, they don't need a Federal law to gag him, because if he goes over the line, consumers will let them know. Freedom of speech is one of the most important parts of the Bill of Rights because once you silence people on the air or in print, you open the door to tyranny, and it's already knocking, ready to come in. Let Imus make fun of whomever he chooses, let Rosie claim the president is responsible for 9/11, and let the consumers decide if they want to buy that garbage. It's not government's place to shut them or anyone else up just because I disagree, and I would never support a law that claims otherwise. Remember, what people can't change with votes, they can change with their wallets and purses. I don't want to wake up in a country where I get sent to prison because I didn't let Al Gore comment on my blog. Still, in the interest of "fairness," I allow and encourage anyone to comment, because after all, free and open debate is one of our greatest national treasure. Enjoy it. Employ it. Defend it.