Kindle Notes & Highlights
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December 2 - December 8, 2017
Political correctness started as a study of cultural Marxism in Germany in the 1920s,
Anything that is not PC is automatically controversial.
replaced reason with emotion, subordinating objective truth to subjective virtue.
become a hindrance to social progress, and a threat to society.
By closing down debates, it restricts the ability of society to tackle the problems that face it.
The Politically Correct are more intolerant of dissent than traditional liberals or even conservatives.
Yet today, if you say the ‘wrong thing’, you suddenly have legal problems, political problems, you might even lose your job or be expelled from college.
Certain topics are forbidden. You can’t approach the truth about a lot of different subjects. If you do, you are immediately branded as ‘racist’, ‘sexist’, ‘homophobic’, ‘insensitive’, or ‘judgmental.’
Definition
Political correctness is an ideology that classifies certain groups of people as victims in need of protection from criticism, and which makes believers feel that no dissent
should be tolerated.
Rather than say I would like to hear your side, the politically correct insist: ‘you can’t say that’.
Political correctness is the dictatorship of virtue.
Political correctness is the dictatorship of virtue.
(Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, all of whom were also white, is unthinkable nowadays.)
Black History Month and Gay, Lesbian and Transgender History Month,
Politically, it prefers government of the few, by the few and above all for the few.
Free speech is never an absolute. From
Speech should be curtailed only if it is intended and likely to cause physical violence, or gravely threatens national security,
It has started criminalising speech that merely causes offence, or incites not violence but an emotion (hatred).
A country that has long prided itself on its freedom of speech has been reduced by political correctness to a country where, despite endemic levels of violent crime, police spend time investigating and arresting leading writers and broadcasters for what they write and say.
As a result, political correctness leads to a huge gulf between elites and commoners, between those who govern and those who are governed.
In almost all western countries, political correctness has undermined democracy’s ability to reflect public concern on this issue.
opposed to multiculturalism,
low conviction rate,
Being less affected by political correctness, and thus being able to think more logically, the general public are on many issues far wiser than their leaders.
The closing down of political debate does not deal with problems, but allows them to fester and grow.
If mainstream parties don’t address public concern, extremist parties, not worried about the pariah status of being politically incorrect,
will step into the vacuum between the ruled and the rulers.
There is a contradiction between the politically correct presumption at the national level that powers should be transferred downwards (i.e.
devolved to the regions), but that at the continental level they should be transferred upwards (i.e. devolved to Brussels).
Few things have done more in the history of humanity to improve human existence than capitalism.
The purpose of all law and order policies is to provide justice (otherwise known as retribution), deterrence and rehabilitation.
in 1954 for every three robbers convicted, one was sent to jail, a ratio of 1:3. By 2002, this ratio was 1:22. For burglars, the ratio was 1:18 in 1954 compared with 1:59
The rise in crime over the last 50 years has matched the decline in chance of being sent to prison.
committing crime far more attractive by tipping the balance from risk to reward.
The simple fact, awkward as it is for the politically correct, is that Britain doesn’t face the threat of mass terrorism from militant Hindus. Britain faces a very significant threat of a large-scale terrorist attack perpetuated by Muslims in the
name of Islam, but an insignificant threat of terrorism from any other religious group (even Northern Irish Catholics by comparison).
positive discrimination,
The state should not try to censor or criminalise any speech unless it is a direct incitement to violence and there is a likelihood that violence will occur as a result.
Finally, Western minds may be free again to reason rather than just emote, to pursue objective truth rather than subjective virtue.
Nothing and no one is immune from criticism.
It is possible to separate liberalism from dogmatism, to give up political correctness and take up factual correctness, but it can take a personal effort.
ad hominem
principle behind PC is benevolent, in encouraging us to see the best in those who are different from us,
The pity is that this aim should have become an unacceptable form of policing that has poisoned public debate and made us fools, lest the uncomfortable facts that muddy the clear waters of this
principle make anyone think that we do not hold it dear.51
