Where is political correctness

now? In times of war, we see just what is important and what isn't. Our

war, which is a response to being attacked, has suddenly made it all too

evident just how ridiculous the religion of "PC" ever was. Our

sheltered, privileged world in the United States was shattered when we

were attacked by terrorism, and we need to accept and realize that too

many years of PC mentality played a part in just why we were attacked.

Any act of aggression is based

on disrespect. And in the ultimate show of disrespect, others took advantage

of our true vulnerability: Our semblance of being divided. Though today

we as a nation stand proud together, over the past number of years, nothing

has divided us more than the philosophy (or religion?) of political correctness.

Political correctness advanced

the ideal that if we just labeled people correctly, that, if we call them

condemned the use of certain terms and attitudes that might, in any way,

show that we are different. When, in reality, it gave us added terms and

attitudes that divided us only more.

A perfect world would not need

such a feeble value system as political correctness, yet in the hands

of imperfect humans, the age of PC has only made us all the more artificial

and ironic. The PC movement divided us by creating "proper"

designations for people like African-American, Native-American, Irish-American,

etc., instead of just American, for example.

The PC movement cared more

about the full sound of a correct title than the "hollow echo"

of right and wrong.

Once people latched onto the

overly simple premise of the PC movement, things went downhill from there.

Everything, all of a sudden, became offensive. Political correctness,

in seeking to heighten our sensitivity towards others, only heightened

our sensitivity of ourselves.

Suddenly, our playground of

life was blanketed with eggshells. All of a sudden we were fighting over

our right to stamp out noisy leaf blowers. People were placed on disability

for their sensitivities to others' perfume. You couldn't even shop without

being drawn into the battle of what was environmentally right or wrong:

"Paper or plastic?"

The PC movement also exalted

loud, brash and very, very small voices to the forefront while scoffing

at time-honored institutions such as family, marriage and religion.

Equated with tolerance and

intellectualism, political correctness asked us to pretend through the

use of our words. The PC movement placed semantics above and beyond integrity.

The name you used for someone was more important than how you felt about

him.

Is all that dead now? Nowadays,

does anyone feel like defending the terrorist as "misunderstood,"

"a product of his environment," or "afflicted with an inherited

disease"? Has anyone tempered the terrorist's name to: "Respect-of-life-challenged?"

I don't think so.

Political correctness was a

great start to an idea; it just never went near far enough. Like too many

things in our society it was just an edifice, a facade of propriety covering

a too shallow morality. It was just plastic surgery for Lady Liberty.

Important issues such as racism, intolerance and prejudice should continue

to be a focus for a nation seeking to treat all men equal. PC was just

fast food for the malnourished. Political correctness was just another

invented concept for a fabricated world.

As devastating as they have

been, our nation's current problems have done something political correctness

could never do hold a mirror up to our true selves. We, as a people, have

done better as times are tough, rather than when times were easy.

Is PC dead? Do we need this

pious, moral barometer any longer? Before Sept. 11, we as a people seemed

to make our own crises. Since then, through our humanity, our patriotism

and our deliberate purpose of one mind and will, our crises have made

us.

[Visit Billy Murphy on the

Internet at https://www.ebilly.net.]