Political correctness has been a buzz word for some decades now, in general it’s been used as an attempt to sanitise the western world to make the world a less offensive place for people to live in; or so those who are the main exponents of it will have you believe.  In its very basic set-up it has had us stop using nouns to describe people, so we shouldn’t call someone who suffers from male pattern baldness a bald person, or refer to someone who suffers from dwarfism as a dwarf.  This is all done in the name of advancing equality. 

But I have some major issues with them trying to equate political correctness with equality.  As if we look at all the big equality movements of the last century; we have the suffragettes, the civil rights movement, feminism and the gay rights movement.  Now each of these were fighting a social injustice such as no votes for women, unequal pay for women, unequal divorce laws, segregation of people because of skin colour, treating people differently because of skin colour, treating people differently because of sexual orientation and the list could go on and on.  Now the equality changes were done to correct an injustice that everyone would now consider to be wrong and unfair. 

Now I am not naive to believe simply changing the law has changed society, there are still incidents of inequality happening today, or I would be out of work, but political correctness is trying to push things a lot further than is needed and in an attempt to stop people being offended is actually offending people.

I was reading an article about a current consultation by the General Medical Council, who are looking at changing their code of conduct for doctors. Currently a doctor can refuse to provide medical treatment to patients if they find that particular treatment to be immoral or not right for that person.  The big proposed change is in the field of gender reassignment, where at the moment a GP can refuse to treat someone because they have a moral objection to doing such.  The current GMC proposal would change it so that a GP had to treat that person or fear possible sanctions by the GMC with the possibility of being struck off as a doctor.

This change in stance by the GMC is being done under the guise of the Equality act says you can’t discriminate against Trans people, as per section 7.  However this to me is not about a quest for equality, but more the GMC trying to be political correct and not wanting to upset the Trans community.  As if it had been about proper equality they would have looked past section 7 and noticed that section 10 covers religious belief and discriminating against people on the grounds of it.  Which arguably you can say that forcing doctors to do things that go against their belief is most defiantly discrimination.   

Though the PC brigade will tell you that oh its only religious people and they really don’t matter when it comes to discrimination.  Even though they have the same legal protection as the other minorities under the Equality Act.  But because in 95% of cases they are Christians it’s fine to ignore them. 

Which follows on to another contentious issue, and that’s the wearing of a crucifix. In which two women were reprimanded for wearing one at work.  Now we don’t hear of a Sikh being banned from wearing a turban or a Muslim woman being banned from wearing a head scarf.  It gets to a situation where one group can’t do something because it may offend a minority group.  Now I don’t see how someone wearing a plain crucifix around their neck in a Christian country would offend anyone one!  If you were to go to a Muslim country they would not go round de- islamifying their country as not to offend you, so why does the PC brigade insist that in the UK we have to. 

Then we have the press, an issue that is somewhat under reported at the moment is Female Genital Mutilation, something I had a discussion with someone only this week about.  The media reports that it is an African problem, and young girls in the UK and across Europe are being taken to Africa to be subjected to this horrific situation.  Now if you read what is said in the press and by the WHO it is put across as being an African problem, indicating it happens all over Africa, but if you do some digging it’s a problem that happens in Muslim countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. But because of the PC brigade and not wanting to offend Muslims we strip it down to being an African Problem. 

Political Correctness is not about bringing about equality or not wanting to offend people, as if you look at the laws of the land there is legal equality already, and legal remedies for when that is breached.  What political correctness is about is social engineering or in another word cultural Marxism. It is about getting everyone to think the same way and punishing those who don’t comply.  It’s not about ensuring freedoms for everyone; it’s about forcing people to adopt the same view point on a topic.  In the first half of the twentieth century we saw a few people who imposed similar ideals on countries, restricting freedoms and making people do and think what they want.  That lead us to World War Two and the deposing of people like Hitler and Mussolini. 

Yet now after the battle for freedom, so that people could live their lives how they wanted to free from persecution, we now see in the here and now our freedoms and beliefs being ebbed away with each new push in the name of political correctness.  But because these people pushing this agenda are claiming it’s in the name or equality society lays down and lets it happen.  People need to realise that it’s not equality that is happening it’s an erosion of our freedoms one by one.  We need to say enough is enough. 

Shelley
4/22/2012 06:16:29 pm

We have the same discussion in Canada but we are arguably more free than the UK, for the time being.

I call it the "clash of human rights", although it's not my idea. I may have read it in one of Mark Steyn's columns. How do all of us exercise our human rights without clashing with another's rights? I haven't figured that out yet except to say that in the case of a doctor refusing to perform surgery to transform gender, that there is bound to be one or more that will; the patient has only to find those doctors that will.

If we are individuals and not just members of society or of a collective that we should be able to exercise our choices and our conscience, assuming of course that they are benign. But my definition of benign may not be yours, so we are back to where we started, I think.

Everyone wants to exercise their rights but are offended when other's want to exercise theirs. I started following you on twitter when I picked up your conversation with Mo Ansar, who is the perfect example of someone who wants to pontificate all day about the superiority of Islam, insults Christianity, complains incessantly about the UK, but won't tolerate someone else's opinions. Mo Ansar wants his freedom of speech but doesn't extend the same freedom to others. then again, I don't have to follow him, which just raises my blood pressure anyway.

If we are all forced to think the same way how will we ever learn to solve problems, make moral choices, learn right from wrong. Because the fact is, that we tolerate things today that are not "good", for individuals or society. Then again, what I think is bad, may not be what you think is bad.

See what I mean? How did we all ever get along without all of this PC and HR crap before now?





Reply
Jane
4/23/2012 02:11:08 am

It is a hard one, when you get rights clashing. But I think we need to take a more common sense approach to all of this. Whereas at the moment it seems to go on the smaller the minority the more protection they are getting.

There is a follow up blog in the making to this one that will come later on this week.

Reply



Leave a Reply.