Political Correctness
Definition from Google. noun: the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against. A simple example: If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah. If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Bubba and Wildman. Is this offensive to the men doing the nicknaming? Is it offensive to others who might hear them? Does it matter? A more complex example: As reported in the media, in a memo to students sent out by West Virginia University (WVU), Title IX coordinator James Goins, Jr. declares that anyone who refuses to use a person’s preferred transgender pronouns is breaking federal law! A political example: Robert Litan, a Democrat, was fired from his left leaning think tank after delivering testimony against an Elizabeth Warren-backed Labor Department plan to regulate financial advisers. Half of House Democrats and virtually all Republicans in Congress oppose the plan because of its costs. Instead of rebutting his argument, Ms. Warren decided to punish it, he was fired from his think tank. One ridiculous example: Princeton University’s ‘Men’s Engagement Manager’, to rehabilitate men that are too masculine. Obviously there are many more, even more dramatic, examples of political correctness gone wild in our culture today. Political correctness can be best described as the opposite of or the enemy of truth.

Standing Up to the Comedy Scolds

2/24/19
By Matthew Hennessey,
from The Wall Street Journal,
2/22/19:

Veteran comic Colin Quinn on the encroachments of political correctness and the trials of Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari and Kevin Hart.

Comedy should be funny, Colin Quinn says: “It’s supposed to elicit laughs.” If that sounds obvious, Mr. Quinn says many of his fellow comedians see the matter differently. “I feel like a lot of people now are saying, ‘You know what? Comedy is supposed to be uplifting,’ ” Mr. Quinn says. “It’s like, what are you, the new moral majority all of a sudden?” Mr. Quinn, 59 and a veteran of “Saturday Night Live,” is holding court at the Olive Tree Cafe in Greenwich Village. The narrow, dark restaurant is a second home for many comedians because it is narrow and dark but also because it is connected—by a staircase and a common owner—to the Comedy Cellar, where big names and no-names alike come to try out new material. Around the corner is the 391-seat Minetta Lane Theatre, where Mr. Quinn stars in a one-man stage show, “Red State Blue State.”

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