Tag: Politically Correct

Stupid vs Politically Correct

stupid1Our society has finally fallen into the abyss.  It is now more acceptable to be stupid (dumb-to-the-bone stupid) than it is to be politically incorrect — and I can prove it.

Recently, my country had a national election.  It was quite the dog-and-pony show.  Every party employed a small army of people whose only job was to comb through the Internet.  They were searching for any racist, sexist, homophobic, generally inappropriate words or actions that members of the opposition may have ever made (at any time in their Internet history.)  The hope was they’d find something that would discredit the opposition with their own words.  No surprise!  They found quite a lot.  (It’s amazing to me that most people still don’t understand the Internet is permanent.)  Anyway, once the politically incorrect morsel was found and the offending candidate was “outed” for being offensive, it was always the same drill.  The candidate would apologise — claiming youth, poor judgement, a bad hair day, whatever — and withdraw from politics before the Internet lynch mob could sink their teeth into them.  This happened several times during the election — except for one candidate.

Here’s how it went down.

One candidate made some very, very politically incorrect remarks about a picture of the gates of the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz.  She was called on it, and the eagerly offended social media mob began to gather.  Now, here’s the game changer.  Instead of dutifully feeling shame and slinking off into the darkness, the candidate responded by saying she didn’t mean any harm and she wasn’t actually being insensitive to 6 million murdered Jews because “Well, I didn’t know what Auschwitz was, or I didn’t up until today.”  Whoa!

I guess this could happen.  After all, Frodo, Pippin and Samwise Gamgee probably never heard of Auschwitz, but they were hobbits and grew up in Middle Earth.  For the rest of us, the Holocaust is one of the biggies.  We learned about it in school — grade school.  Plus, if you missed that week, there have been a number of books written about it that probably mentioned Auschwitz — as well as television programs and films (if you’re not into that whole literacy thing.)  Schindler’s List for God’s sake!  Besides, one would think, as a political candidate for national office, at some point in her career she might have had a political discussion.  That discussion could have featured — Oh, I don’t know — maybe — human rights, major turning points in history, recent acts of genocide, and the name “Auschwitz” could have come up.  After all, one of her friends thought Auschwitz was important enough to go there and take a picture.  Just sayin’.

But it gets worse.

After she assured the world that she was ignorant not insensitive, there was no general outcry for her to step down.  No one seemed to care that if she somehow managed to miss Auschwitz, on the learning curve, she may have missed a few other things as well.  In fact, there were a lot of folks actually defending her on social media.  Kinda like “Hey, just ’cause she’s stupid that doesn’t mean she’s a bad person.”  Or  “Making a dick joke about Auschwitz doesn’t prevent her from being a thoughtful and thorough lawmaker who will help direct the cultural and political aspirations of our country — because (as she freely admitted) she didn’t have a clue what Auschwitz was in the first place, nor any idea what its major cultural and political significance is to contemporary civilization.”  I’ll just let that last one sink in for a minute.

Because it gets worse.

On election night, the candidate who asked the question, “What’s an Auschwitz?” didn’t get elected — but she did get over 10,000 votes.

I rest my case.

How To Play “Cultural Appropriation”

family-gameThese days, Cultural Appropriation is trending everywhere. You can read about it here, but I’ve discovered an interesting fact: “Cultural Appropriation” isn’t real.  It’s a game invented by middleclass, university undergrads with time on their hands.  It’s quite simple and very similar to the “You’re a Racist” game; however, the scoring is slightly different.  A player must first ambush some unsuspecting white guy — doing just about anything beyond eating Kraft Dinner — and accuse him of Cultural Appropriation.  While the white guy is still wondering WTF, the player must then try and light up the Internet by generating enough traffic to attract the attention of the mainstream media.  There is no limit to the amount of venom or indignation the player can use.  Name calling is allowed, and as in the “White Privilege” game, there are no penalty points for bullshit.  Scoring is simple: more hits equal a higher score and Facebook “likes” don’t count. (Did they ever??)  There are bonus points if  the white guy apologizes and/or eventually just gives up trying to explain.  Also, all bonus points are doubled if the unsuspecting white guy is associated with a brand name corporation.  Points continue to accumulate through the 48 hour news cycle but stop immediately when the story appears on Huffington Post.  The player wins when the white guy’s activity or event is cancelled; however, NO points are awarded if the player doesn’t immediately bitch about the lack of cultural diversity in Western society.  In that scenario, the game resets itself and the player must start again.

Like all holier-than-thou games — including “Sexist, Sexist, I Found a Sexist” and “Homophobes are Everywhere” — ” Cultural Appropriation” is derived from the classic “Stereotyping White People” game which has been a sophomore sport since the mid 60s.  And although we’ll probably never see the great college tournaments of the 80s and 90s again, we can all still enjoy hours of liberal guilt just playing these games for fun with our friends.  Good luck, and good gaming!

If Thy Booze Offend Thee…?

beer5Aside from a few diehards, it’s universally accepted that Prohibition, that noble experiment in legislated sobriety, was an utter disaster.  In fact, there is a school of thought that suggests there was a lot more drinking going on after it was against the law.  I don’t think that’s true, but it does demonstrate the disdain in which we hold Volstead and its many ramifications.  However, what we conveniently forget is Prohibition didn’t come out of thin air.  The government didn’t just wake up one Tuesday morning and say, “Okay, folks!  It’s Last Call!”  No, Prohibition was at least a hundred years in the making.  It was born and incubated in the early 19th century, when well-intentioned Temperance Societies began making people aware of the evils of demon drink.  It grew exponentially as Temperance gathered the Anti-Slavery Movement, Women’s Suffrage and a lot of other activist organizations under its umbrella of social change.  Then, after the First World War, when the powers that be became acutely aware and somewhat wary of the newly minted “women’s vote,” Prohibition was no longer up for debate – it became the law.  The problem was, despite the horror stories of society’s imminent alcoholic collapse which had been Temperance’s bread and butter for generations, the vast majority of people didn’t want to quit drinking.  What our 19th and 20th century ancestors didn’t understand is that, even with the very best intentions, you simply can’t (Now hear this: can’t) legislate an idea or an attitude.

Fast forward ninety years to our current crew of quick-change social activists.  They are no longer offended by the effects of alcohol; what bugs them is what we call it.  For example, last week a batch of Ron de Jeremy rum was taken off liquor store shelves because a number of people claimed it was obscene.  The offending label showed a pen and ink drawing of Mr. Jeremy’sbeer face and the flourished name “Ron de Jeremy.”  In smaller print, it had the taglines, “the adult liquor” and “long smooth taste.”  Obviously, obscenity is in the eye of the beholder because I can’t see anything obscene here, and from the label alone, neither can you or anybody else.  The only connection between Ron de Jeremy rum and obscenity is Mr. Jeremy was once a porn star.  Anybody lodging a complaint had to know that.  Otherwise, they couldn’t possibly have been offended by such an innocuous label.  Curious circumstances to say the least!  To be fair, the rum was restocked when someone remembered to click the commonsense icon but another adult beverage was not so lucky.

Approximately twenty-five years ago, Earls Restaurants began selling a beer called “Albino Rhino.”  Obviously, it was some version of Pale Ale and it sold well enough to become Earls’ signature brand.  However, a couple of years ago, even though Earls never fundamentally changed the brewing process, “Albino Rhino” started offending people — or so the story goes.  It seems that Albino Rhino beer is now intolerably offensive to people with a rare genetic disorder called albinism (a lack of pigment in the skin.)  Apparently, the beer’s very existence demeans them.

beer2The curious thing is, though, “Albino Rhino” beer has existed for an entire drinking generation.  Literally millions of people have not only tolerated it, they’ve gone out of their way to buy it and drink it.  Up until 18 months ago, there was no measurable outrage against the brand.   Besides, the albino rhinoceros itself (a pigment-less variety of the African rhinoceros, Diceros bicornis) has existed in nature for well over 10,000 years.  If the name of the beer is offensive, I would assume the animal got there first.  Not only that, but, minority rights notwithstanding, albinism is such a rare condition that it affects only about 1 in every 20,000 people.  Therefore, statistically speaking, there are fewer than 2,000 albinos in the entire country.  Frankly, there are probably more people named Jim Beam.  The question becomes this: should a society place reasonable limits on satisfying complaints or is every unhappy voice entitled to an accommodation?

It’s all a moot point now, however, because Earls, for reasons known only to themselves, have decided to rename the beer “Rhino” and get on with life.

Prohibition failed because in their self righteous zeal to remake the world in their own image, its proponents didn’t care that we are a free society.  It’s actually our diversity of thought and opinion that is our strength – warts and all.  It’s simply point blank wrong for any group to dictate a one-size-fits-all morality for the rest of us.

Our contemporary prohibitionists, like the early Temperance Leaguers, are relatively new at this.  However, given their increasing success at imposing their will on our world, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if, in a couple of years, it becomes impossible to go to a bar and order a “Black” Russian or a glass of “white” wine.