Flying the flag for political incorrectness

Many people still don't seem to get it. Or they wish it wasn't so in any case.

Basically, a significant reason US President Donald Trump proved to be — and still proves — popular across Middle America, away from the east- and west-coast echo chambers that is, is that he speaks a straightforward language.

Trump: Middle America's president. (Photo from Twitter.)

He tells/tweets it as he sees it — for better or for worse. Unlike mainstream, establishment politicians, not everything, nay nothing in terms of tweets anyway, is precisely planned, framed in must-not-offend diplomatic speak.

In the politically correct West, where the leftist discourse has taken a strong hold in the universities, shaping in such a way many of our current and future key opinion leaders, somebody deviating from the accepted script is bound to find favour with those not in the club.

This is not to say that all Trump supporters are dumb hillbilly racists, the standard charge levelled at them.

Indeed, many Trumpists I know find his controversial, excessive tweeting irritating. Neither do they agree with all his utterances — in fairness it can be hard to keep up with them in any case.

Yet, it's the feeling that despite his many flaws, he is about as honest as they come. He doesn't hide behind political advisers. What you see is what you get.

In this day of carefully groomed, mannequin-esque politicians, this resonates. (That the US economy is performing well under Trump's watch is another important plus point.) 

It's a question of, 'Who do you really trust: Somebody who comes across as "holier than thou" or a guy seemingly showing us his warts and all?'

"Now name calling does hurt us."

Trump's presidency and other similar eschewing of the standard political system elsewhere have been the inevitable backlash against the over-the-top political correctness we've had to stomach for the last couple of decades.

Where did our childhood act of defiance towards hurtful words go? You know, the old schoolyard rhyme, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.'

We realised back then that acts of real violence could be lethal, but name-calling? Whatever. We could rise above it.

Now, however, many of our law-framers and influencers have become too cool for school. 'You can have your free speech but you can't say this and you sure as hell (OMG, did I just say "hell"?) can't use that word.'

We're in the process of creating an impotent, sterile bunch of human beings. Like the announcer at the bumping cars — do they still exist or have they become too unsafe, imparting evil habits in our young? — at a funfair used to say 'one way round only', now it's 'one discourse only', even if it goes against biology, to name but one area of contention. (How many genders do we have now? It's difficult to stay, um, abreast of the accepted pronouns these days.)

The British intellectual, amongst many other things, Stephen Fry has a refreshing approach to all this craziness. At a debate on political correctness earlier this year he said that if somebody wants to call him a 'fagot' — he is gay — then so be it. It's not the end of the world. There are far greater things we should be crusading against.

It's not the case where we want things to become overly verbally abusive — radicals or fundamentalists on all sides are adept at that already — but we don't want people having to consult a lawyer every time they want to speak lest they offend some unsuspecting bystander.

Fry's common sense view is nothing more than we'd expect from a man of his standing. Yet, worryingly, he doesn't seem to be in the majority in the intellectual world.

In Colombia, one of the refreshing things about life here is how it's normal to call somebody by their outward appearance. So you have people being affectionately called 'fatty', 'blacky', 'thinny' and so on.

Imagine how that would go down these days in most "First World" countries. The courts would be on the go 24-7.

With all that in mind, we're now just over two years away from the next US presidential election. The big question is, if he survives all the scandals and potential impeachment, can Trump get re-elected?

A lot, of course, will depend on who he's up against. 

The danger for the Democrats is that in their desperate bid to win back the White House they'll opt for an everything-for-everybody candidate. A product of our one-size-fits-all globalised world. 'Tell us what we want to hear, regardless of the reality.' Ah yeah, that makes it all better.

The Democrats would be doing us all a favour, everywhere, if they look more towards the centre-ground.

Alas, the radical left will do their bit to make sure that doesn't happen. Trump will happily toot to that.

_____________________________________

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan - The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz". 

Survival of the dumbest

You may have seen the following Christmas message doing the rounds on e-mail. It’s lengthy, but it needs to be considering what it’s trying to achieve. Anyway, here it is, in its unedited glory: 

'Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practised within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all. 

Additionally, a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, colour, religious or sexual preferences of the wishes.

 

(Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself/himself (sic) or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)'

Careful now!

Ah yes, the politically correct Christmas, oh I mean holiday, message. Just another one of the many examples we have of society gone politically correct mad. And, in the Western world, it feels like we’re just at the beginning of this craze – much worse is to come, you fear.

The Australian comedian Steve Hughes does a great job of highlighting how ridiculous this whole ‘must not offend anyone, anywhere’ culture has become.

Bringing us back to our primary school days in one of his sketches, he reminds us of the old tried-and-trusted rhyme of ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’. You know the one - blasted out with confidence when verbally assaulted by the school-yard bully. How teak-tough, mentally if not physically, we were back then.

We wouldn’t let a few hurtful remarks uttered by some ape offend us. We could rise above it. And even if we were offended, so what? Nothing happens. Just don’t dwell on it. 

Sadly, though, this is not the case anymore. Somewhere along the line in our advance towards maturity, we started letting a few words or actions upset us, really upset us. But not only do we take offence; we harbour it and expect retribution to be had on the offender.

And so it should be, you might say. We can’t have a world where offensive, hurtful remarks are flying about the place unrestrained, right? But think about the opposite scenario. A situation where everything that one says and does is carefully choreographed so as not to upset anyone, anywhere. 

From this remove, it appears that the drift towards total political correctness is a slide to a more dishonest, untruthful society. Is it not better to know somebody’s true feelings on a topic than to be given a more ‘accepted’ public version while the reality couldn’t be more different?

Adding to this, without getting too political here, most Western democracies, the United States excepted, tend to overcompensate to the left in the quest for a discrimination-free society. Much of the reason for this is because of the horrible legacy of the extreme right in these parts of the world – we won’t go into that here. 

The result, though, of all this is that we get a very slanted take on things through the media, politics and other public bodies that doesn’t always reflect reality.

Here’s a very benign example of how crazy things are becoming. 

In a previous radio job, I used to have a weekly slot with a PR man from a well-known bookmaker firm in Ireland. We’d talk about upcoming sporting events, the likely winners, where you’d find the best betting value and all that kind of innocent stuff. I say innocent because that’s what you’d think, right? Wrong. 

After a few weeks of doing this, the powers that be at the station brought it to my attention that I was in ‘very dangerous’ territory talking about the odds of certain teams/horses. 

Why? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? This would encourage gambling, break up heretofore happy families and cause general mayhem on the streets. No word of a lie — well, maybe the bit about chaos on the streets, but you get the sentiment! That’s how ridiculous things are becoming.

You see there’s a school of thought out there — which fits in with the nanny state ethos — that the ordinary man (or woman, just in case anyone takes offence) is incapable of independent thought and accepts as truth everything he/she sees or hears. 

I don’t know about you, but I find that very condescending. Shock, horror, we do have our own minds and we can make our own decisions. 

Sure, we can be influenced by things in both good and bad ways. That’s life, it’s inevitable. 

From the moment you are born, you are influenced by things — the people around you, your environment, the weather. It’s a natural process of being alive. So, what we all knew anyway, we’re all under the ‘

influence – some more so than others.

Hand in hand with the politically correct madness goes — I’m sure you’ll agree — the ridiculously bureaucratic health and safety laws. 

We have a culprit here, ‘compo culture’ or ‘claims culture’ if you will. If you play the system you can get a nice little windfall after suffering at the hands of your own stupidity. 

Now, I don’t want to offend anyone, but if you injure yourself after falling down a hole in a place where you shouldn’t have been, well tough break. It’ll teach you not to go there again. But oh no, now everybody has to be responsible and plan ‘appropriately’ for the idiocy of others.

This goes against millions of years of evolution – survival of the fittest and all that. Now we are all being asked to dumb down. 

Not that you need proof of this, but for amusement, here goes. The following was spotted recently on a sign: ‘Caution – This sign has sharp edges. Do not touch the edges of this sign.’ No further questions, your Honour.

Unfortunately, considering the state of the global economy, you wouldn’t hold out much hope for our political leaders steering us clear of what seems an inevitable slide to a ‘post-common sense’ society. So it looks like it’s going to be left to us, on the ground, to stem the tide of madness.

On that note, considering it’s the time of year we celebrate virgins giving birth, I’ll leave you with the following: 

‘A middle-aged man and woman fall in love and decide to get married. On their wedding night, they settle into the bridal suite and the bride says to her new groom, "Please be gentle... I am still a virgin." The startled groom says "How can that be? You've been married twice..." 

'The bride responds... "Well you see it was this way: My first husband, he was a psychiatrist and all he ever wanted to do was talk about sex. Catching her breath, she says "My second husband was a stamp collector, and all he ever wanted to do was... ... ... ... Oh God, I miss him!"'

Happy Christmas!