The Blogspot version of "PC Watch" is HERE and "Dissecting Leftism" is HERE. The Blogroll; John Ray's Home Page; Email John Ray here. Other sites viewable in China: Greenie Watch, Dissecting Leftism and Recipes. (Click "Refresh" on your browser if background colour is missing)
****************************************************************************************



31 August, 2003

SHAKESPEARE IS NOT P.C.

"P.C. inanities marred the annual conference of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America, according to an Associated Press article today. Jim Volz, a former manager of a Shakespeare festival, said "ethnic sensitivities" were hindering performances of some of the playwright's best-known works. He said a corporate sponsor told him she "just loved Shakespeare but that I had to understand that there were two plays that we simply couldn't do - ever - 'Othello' and 'The Merchant of Venice.'" See here and here. (Via King of Fools)



30 August, 2003

WHAT PC HAS DONE TO THE USA

You cannot have a public display of the Ten Commandments but you can have taxpayer-funded university courses in how to be a homosexual


A POLITICALLY CORRECT ROADSIDE SIGN

I have just put up here a picture of a politically correct roadside sign. It is said to be somewhere in Canada. I am inclined to believe that.


BEING DRUNK IN A BAR TO BECOME A CRIME

Being drunk in a pub or club would become illegal and "intoxication" defined formally in state law under proposals by the New South Wales (Australia) alcohol summit. Under the recommendations, patrons - not just publicans - could be penalised for being drunk on licensed premises.

At present, publicans can be fined $2200 if they allow a drunk onto the premises and $5500 if they serve the person. The publican must ask the person to leave, and if he or she refuses, must call the police, who can then fine the drinker for failing to leave. If the patron leaves, he or she incurs no penalty.

A proposed new legal definition of intoxication aims to make it easier for police and bar staff to identify drunkenness.

More here.



29 August, 2003

A former Norwegian police officer has been fined 8000 Norwegian kroner for having sex with (actual) pigs. But what was he fined for? For breaking the Animal Rights Act!


BRITAIN'S VANISHED RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENCE

British lawyer David Carr summarizes British law on self-defence as it now stands:

"Every British government since at least the 1940's has held as a core belief that safety of the citizen and the prevention of crime is a matter for the government and the government alone. Indeed, so deeply ingrained has this assumption become in every branch of the state that, in practice, any action taken by the citizen that is more than mere token resistance is regarded by the police and the judiciary as unreasonable".



28 August, 2003

FEMINISM GOES BEYOND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

The term "Feminazism" is no mere term of abuse. This article -- Feminism's Thousand Year Reich -- sets out the evidence.

Excerpts:

"When persons call for the decimation of half the world's population, that grabs my attention. This is what I'm talking about:

"The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race." -- Sally Miller Gearhart, in The Future - If There Is One - Is Female.

"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." --Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001.

These proposals are disturbing in their own right. What is even more troubling is that no feminist has ever repudiated them."

(Via Chris Brand)



27 August, 2003

PC FOOD IN IRELAND

The most basic fact about food and weight-gain is that it all depends on how much you eat, not on what you eat. You can live on a diet consisting solely of cakes and lose weight as long as you eat only 1000 calories a day of them. This basic fact seems to have escaped the attention of the Irish government -- who, like Leftists and do-gooders worldwide -- are always looking to blame problems on someone else. Fatties are fat because they eat to much and drinkers get drunk because they drink too much -- and no diversion of attention to anything else will alter that. There is NO substitute for individual responsibility and self-control. To think that there is, is chasing after rainbows. Prohibition of alcohol did not work in the USA nor will attacks on food that people like.

"Ireland, noted for fried breakfasts of epic proportions, is chewing over the possibility of a special tax on fatty foods to tackle rising obesity levels.

A proliferation of restaurants and fast-food joints during the country's celebrated "Celtic Tiger" boom of the late 1990s and an increasingly sedentary national lifestyle are among factors blamed for a rise of nearly 70 percent in the number of those overweight or obese over the last decade.

Figures earlier this year showed 14 percent of Irish men and 12 percent of Irish women were obese. Some 32 percent of Irish children were overweight and 10 percent classified obese.

News the government is eyeing high-fat snacks follows recent moves to crack down on alcohol abuse -- including a ban on pub "happy hours" -- and a national furor over plans to prohibit smoking in bars and restaurants from next January.

More here

It may also be of relevance to the lovers of compulsion and regulation to note that Australia has had laws since 1912 that enable the courts to order the compulsory "drying out" of alcoholics. They are "dead letter" laws -- unused because nobody wants to waste scarce medical resources on futility. You cannot MAKE people live healthy lifestyles.



26 August, 2003

This fear of hurting somebody's feelings could destroy America

DANNY BROOKS says:

"The most dangerous threat to the United States is not the threat from another country -- after all, what country can compete with our military? -- or terrorist cells or weapons of mass distraction. It is political correctness. Those two words have been used to confuse, irritate and placate Americans for years.

The topic came up recently on my favorite morning radio program, "The Ace & TJ Show." Ace is the lead singer of a rock band, Charity Case, that raises money for Grin Kids. A female caller claimed that Ace was sexist because he didn't want women in his band. Everyone on the show tried to explain that he's not sexist, because the definition of "sexist" is someone who thinks that his or her gender is superior to the other. He simply wanted to be in a band with all guys because he, like me, grew up listening to all-guy, heavy-metal bands. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Political correctness has blurred the true definitions of many words in the English language to the point that more and more people no longer know what they really mean. A new PC term for illegal immigrants, as I learned from TJ last week, is "undocumented immigrants." We wouldn't want to hurt the feelings of people who are breaking the law by being in this country illegally, now would we?

It's spreading across the Atlantic. A play opened in London recently was titled "The Bell Ringer of Notre Dame" because the word "hunchback" might offend some people. In the words of fellow Libertarian John Stossel, "Gimme a break!"

It was bad enough when the PC police decided that some Little League games would no longer keep score because the losing team might suffer severe trauma to their delicate little psyches. God forbid that they would learn that they cannot always win and perhaps practice harder in hopes of winning the next game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that this country was founded on the very principles that are becoming politically incorrect -- hard work, competition, self-sacrifice and doing what is right over what is popular. What we are doing is creating a generation of hand-wringing, bleeding-heart, liberal weenies who will have practically no marketable job skills when they are handed their diplomas and sent off to get a job in the real world. After all, who is going to want to hire someone who isn't motivated, hard-working or competitive?"

More here. Via American Realpolitik



25 August, 2003

THE DEATH OF COMMON-SENSE

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend by the name of Common Sense who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valued lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and that life isn't always fair.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge).

His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student only worsened his condition.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Finally, Common sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, spilled it in her lap, and was awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers; My Rights and Ima Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.


CARER HIT FOR LACK OF "ETHNIC" DOLLS

SHE has an impeccable 13-year track record as a childminder, and parents describe her as a one in a million. But that has not spared Kim Munro from the attentions of a zealous inspector -who has reproved her for not having ethnic minority or disabled dolls for kids to play with. Mrs Munro, 43, has also been berated by British Government officials for not celebrating different cultural events by cooking special meals.

But Stuart Mc William, 42, whose two-year-old daughter Ailsa is cared for by Mrs Munro in a village near Salisbury, said: "It is political correctness gone mad. I don't care whether my daughter plays with dolls which are white, black or yellow. What's important is that she is looked after properly."

Story from the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" of 24 August, 2003, p. 45



24 August, 2003

THAT PESKY IQ AGAIN

Chris Brand has just reproduced on his site a couple of book reviews by fellow academics -- one from Macquarie University in Australia and one from University College, London. The first supports the view of general intelligence as highly central to all mental abilities. The second supports the view that average levels of intelligence differ greatly from country to country (no prizes for guessing which continent the lowest average scores come from) and that those differences correlate strongly with economic growth and prosperity. It does seem clear that you need an intelligent population for prosperity and modernity. Both reviews are written for specialists in the field however so are not an easy read for the layman.

I am well aware that even mentioning IQ is a type of obscenity in the present politically correct era but as a psychometrician myself I know how clear the academic evidence for the importance and explanatory power of IQ is and I am not going to be put off pointing out what the evidence shows. The PC crowd have done a pretty good job of censoring out what can be said about IQ in most publicly available media (they even got Chris Brand's book on the subject pulped) but they have yet to find a way of censoring blogs -- fortunately.

100 years ago it was obscene to mention sex but look at where we are today. Think about it. I personally am pleased to be on the same side as "dangerous" books.



23 August, 2003

Bill Whittle has put up another of his enormously popular essays here and PC gets a good blast in it -- among other things. He sees Leftists as being group-oriented and conservatives as believing in individual responsibility -- and PC is a way of trying to deny individuals even the freedom to think in their own way.


UNIVERSITY FASCISM UNDERMINED

"Hallelujah. Someone in authority is finally fighting back against political correctness. The Bush administration has warned campus thought-control bullies that it is monitoring their imperious tactics. The Washington Times' George Archibald reports that Gerald A. Reynolds, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education, has sent a long overdue brush-back letter to college and university officials concerning their odious and oppressive campus speech codes."


CHILD BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS

A politically incorrect report from a US National Institutes of Health child health care research agency:

"The more time children spent in child care from birth to age four-and-a-half, the more adults tended to rate them, both at age four-and-a-half and at kindergarten, as less likely to get along with others, as more assertive, as disobedient, and as aggressive, according to a study appearing in the July/August issue of Child Development."



22 August, 2003

PC AS PURE INSANITY

Note the contrast between my post below and my post of 20th. A vicious murderer is REWARDED by the courts with $300,000 and a small technical breach of the law (turning on the distinction between "members" of a party and "supporters" of a party) gets 3 years jail.

Such an Alice in Wonderland scenario shows what a madman's world political correctness has brought about through its influence on the courts. One would hope that this insane contrast would be a catalyst for reform but there is no sign of it. One can only hope that both judgments will be reversed on appeal, I guess.

Theodore Dalrymple has some good comments on the $300,000 insanity.


ANTI-MULTICULTURALIST JAILED

The PC brigade have just had a big victory in Australia -- with Australia's most prominent critic of multiculturalism -- Pauline Hanson -- being jailed for 3 years on a legal technicality. Even Australia's Prime Minister says that the sentence was far too severe for the offence but the fact that Pauline Hanson is an attractive woman and that the judge who jailed her was also a woman just MIGHT have something to do with that. "Sisterhood" is a myth, to put it mildly.

I personally disagree with Pauline's opposition to Asian immigration. I think Asians make ideal citizens. But heaps of Australians agree with her and in a democracy they should be represented.


AN ANTI-PC LEFTIST!

Amazing! A writer in the Leftist magazine Mother Jones has reviewed the Diane Ravitch book about the fierce policing of school textbook content that presently goes on and concludes that "But in the world of education there will be no getting to that kind of tolerance until censorship ends. That means wholesale revision of the textbook-adoption process. It means putting the language police out of business".



21 August, 2003

ANTI-CHRISTIANITY PC DEFIED

The politically correct brigade are doing their best to get God and Christianity driven underground in America. They are even trying to get public displays of the Ten Commandments suppressed. So it is heartening when their efforts at censorship are defied. Under its "Upright" heading, The Federalist has a lot of entries praising Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's defense of the Ten Commandments monument in Alabama's justice building. He is defying an order to have them removed. This does seem to be very much an under-reported story.

There is a picture of the "offensive" monument here


AN AUSTRALIAN STATE PREMIER DEFIES PC

Geoff Gallop is a Labor Party leader -- representing Australia's main Left-leaning party -- but he has just put reality ahead of PC:

IN a direct challenge to indigenous Australia, West Australian Premier Geoff Gallop warned Aboriginal leaders and parents to "get real" and shake off a culture of denial in which events in the nation's history were blamed for their children's bad behaviour.

The even-mannered leader turned angry yesterday as Aboriginal leaders and families blamed anti-social behaviour among indigenous youth on historic dispossession, after a stolen car crashed and rolled on a Perth highway on Monday, killing Carl Morrison, a 12-year-old Aboriginal joy-rider.

As indigenous leaders accused the Premier of inciting racism, Dr Gallop said the issue of anti-social behaviour by indigenous children was a national priority. Dr Gallop said indigenous child abuse and protection issues would be high on the agenda when the Prime Minister and premiers meet at the Council of Australian Governments later this month.

"We want all of the states and territories working towards common new solutions. And you're not going to get new solutions while people have blinkers as to what the problems are. Let's deal with the issues honestly and openly instead of trying to pretend there are some historical reasons that justify this behaviour." Dr Gallop also defended police for chasing the stolen car, and called for Aborigines to take responsibility for their children.



20 August, 2003

BIG REWARD TO A KILLER

Britian is not the only country where justice has its head up its rear end -- as this story from Australia shows. "Blame anybody but the criminal" is however now a worldwide docrine of the Left:

HE killed his brother's fiancee hours after he was released from a psychiatric hospital - but Kevin Presland was yesterday judged a victim and will receive $300,000 compensation.

The family of 25-year-old Kelley-Anne Laws - whom Mr Presland stabbed to death - has reacted with shock and outrage. Her mother Christine said: "How crooked is our system."

The young woman's death occurred at the Jesmond home she shared with Mr Presland's brother Allan just six hours after he was released from Newcastle's John Fletcher Hospital on July 4, 1995.

Supreme Court Justice Peter Newman subsequently found him not guilty of the crime by reason of mental illness, having suffered an alcohol-induced hallucinosis at the time of the killing.

He spent only 2r years in psychiatric custody before being released into the care of the Mental Health Review Tribunal in November 1997.

In what is believed to be a legal precedent - which could have implications for the Health Department and how the medical profession deals with mentally-ill patients - NSW Supreme Court Justice Michael Adams has found the Hunter Area Health Service and Dr Jacob Nazarian breached their duty of care.

He has foreshadowed he will award Mr Presland $225,000 in general damages and $80,000 for loss of earnings, as soon as counsel approves his calculations. "The killing of Ms Laws was an appalling tragedy that occurred at the hand of the plaintiff but only because of his deranged mind and only because he had been discharged from the hospital where, I have no doubt, he would have been content to remain had he been able to do so and where, at all events, he should have been required to remain," Justice Adams said.

19 August, 2003

Childcare ban on caped crusaders

MELBOURNE, Australia: Childcare centres have banned crime-fighting superheroes. Superman, Batman, SpiderMan and the Hulk are no longer welcome as alter-egos for role-playing kids. The centres claim superhero costumes transform children into super villains by encouraging aggressive play such as wrestling, hitting, karate kicking and jumping from heights. But parents and childcare experts disagree, saying superhero play is a healthy form of expression.



18 August, 2003

POLITICALLY CORRECT POLICING IS A DISASTER FOR MINORITIES

Thomas Sowell says of "racial profiling": "The police respond to incentives, like everyone else. If carrying out their duties in the way that gets the job done best is going to bring down on their heads a chorus of media outrage that can threaten their whole careers, many cops tend to back off. And who pays the price of their backing off? Mainly those blacks who are victims of the criminals in their midst."



17 August, 2003

9/11 HATREDS

Keith Windschuttle writes:

"Although fiercely contested, the prize for the most absurd comments about September 11 went to the American university sector where, despite the momentous nature of the events, it was business as usual in terms of the enforcement of codes of political correctness.

At Berkeley, the biggest student protest in the aftermath was against a campus newspaper for publishing a cartoon showing two Muslim suicide bombers in hell. The protestors denounced the cartoon as a "hate crime". At Yale, a panel of six professors concluded that one of the underlying causes of the attack was America's "offensive cultural messages"....

There were some academics who, in the heat of the moment, overlooked the prevailing politically correct speech codes and paid the price. One of these was Charles H. Fairbanks, director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. During a panel discussion about September 11, Fairbanks, a well-known conservative, said he favoured the United States retaliating against governments who supported the terrorists. He also said the US would not be able to find bin Laden himself. He added: "I'll bet anyone here a Koran on that."

A woman in the audience then accused Fairbanks of making "a pathetic attempt at stand-up comedy" and of "innuendos intended to encourage and to assist people in conducting hate crimes toward Muslims." Fairbanks then apologised for the comment about the Koran. The following day, the Dean of the School of Advanced International studies asked him to write a letter of regret, which he did. The day after that, Fairbanks received a letter from the Dean telling him he was sacked. He continued as a research professor but lost his position as director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

This was not the only incident of its kind. At Pennsylvania State University, one professor said on his website that it was worth killing some innocent civilians in order to topple the governments of Afghanistan and Iran. He was warned by a senior university administrator that Afghan and Iranian students "would find such comments insensitive and perhaps even intimidating".

At Orange Coast College in California, a professor challenged a class of students about why some Muslims who condemned the World Trade Centre attacks did not also condemn terrorism against Israel. For this, he was placed on indefinite leave."



16 August, 2003

THE CORRECT VIEW OF ISLAM VERSUS REALITY

"We are told that there is a difference between extremist Islam and peaceloving normal Islam. Judging by their behavior, Muslims are anti-West, anti-Democracy, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Hindu. Muslims are involved in 20 of the 22 conflicts going on in the world: in Afghanistan, Bosnia, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Macedonia, the Middle East, Pakistan, Philippines, Kurdistan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Uganda. Doesn't this mean that extremist Islam is the norm and normal Islam is extremely rare?"

From Think Israel



15 August, 2003

RIOTING IS VERY PC

From Thomas Sowell's column of 12th:

"And we mustn't forget the rioters, for whom San Francisco is the place to be. First of all, nobody who is anybody calls them rioters, no matter how much vandalism and violence they commit, including violence against the police. The politically correct word is "demonstrators" -- and this is the place to be politically correct.

San Francisco's district attorney can always find reasons not to prosecute "demonstrators," no matter how much evidence there is against them. At the same time, he is ready to throw the book at the police on the flimsiest evidence or even with no evidence."



14 August, 2003

CUTTING DOWN TREES IS VERY INCORRECT

You absolutely cannot win with the Greenies. Trees are a very renewable resource -- if you cut one down, more grow up -- and renewable resources are what the Greenies say we should use -- BUT:

"President Bush visited a fire-ravaged Arizona community Monday as he urged Congress to enact his controversial "healthy forests" initiative, which he said would protect homes from wildfires by thinning dense undergrowth and brush but critics said would make it easier for the logging industry to cut down trees."

Useful Fools has a post on other Greenie arguments against forest thinning.



13 August, 2003

MORE ANTISEMITIC CORRECTNESS

I have always observed that it takes a woman to really scratch the eyes out of another woman and we have rather a good example of that in this review of a book by a reformed Leftist. But some good points get through anyway:

"Chesler defines the new anti-Semitism as "a virulent epidemic of violence, hatred, and lies that are being touted as 'politically correct.' Islamic reactionaries and western intellectuals and progressives who may disagree on every other subject have agreed that Israel and America are the cause of all evil."

To her credit, Chesler does take on two of the more notorious of this band -- Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, and even performs a credible mea culpa as she admits that her efforts to focus on "the psychological effects of discrimination and violence on oppressed, colonized, and racially despised peoples," might have had something to do with "the politically correct madness [that] seems to have hijacked most North American universities.""

DEMOCRACY INCORRECT?

A good comment from a Canadian about the California recall:

"The coming California referendum on the Gray Davis administration has been described as a media circus....... More than a hundred publicity-seeking candidates and almost universal derision from electors in more politically correct parts of the globe....

These surface level reflections on the referendum may be true but they miss its true meaning for Canadians.....

What one sees in California is therefore an experiment and example for Canadians. Direct democracy is something we lack, along with institutional mechanisms to force dynamism in our society and economy. Those who mock Arnold Schwarznegger and the other candidates as no more than entertaining rubes are missing the point. This is the most personal form of democracy and social change available. We could do with more of that up here."



12 August, 2003

INCORRECT FOOD

"Listening to today's health police, you'd think that consumers were being attacked by malevolent, unhealthy snacks. 'Fast food is infiltrating our culture ... It's basically everywhere,' warns Kelly Brownell, father of the 'Twinkie tax' and scientific advisor to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. 'We have too much food in this country,' complains Marion Nestle, self-anointed captain of the food cops. As if having plentiful food weren't bad enough, it gets worse. Apparently, the marauding menaces of fat, sugar, and salt don't cost enough. Food is 'too cheap,' says Nestle."



11 August, 2003

Bernard Chapin says: "The political correctness that infects our colleges and universities has been well documented over the years. However, a lesser studied phenomenon is the amount of PC that is present within our primary and secondary schools. I noticed its presence during the time I interned at a major suburban district. The specter of Stalinist PC ended up having quite a bit to do with my future vocational decisions. Now I work at an alternative school, and when people ask me why I do, I answer by saying: "There is no such thing as political correctness at an alternative school. Life is real there and reality can't be covered up with lies and euphemisms. That's why I'll never leave."



10 August, 2003

ISRAEL IS VERY INCORRECT

A left-wing Jew tells how his own personal experience of the reality of Israel's situation led him into political incorrectness:

"I remained haunted by the lesson I had learned in 1973 on the Golan Heights and at the Suez Canal about Israel's vulnerability. Israel had zero margin of error_literally, it could not survive the loss of one war. The Arab regimes had nothing to lose except the lives of thousands of their own soldiers, which they were cavalier about anyway, and some treasure, which they could always replace with the help of one of the big powers or the Saudis. Thus, they were free to try and try again to destroy the Jewish state.

Nevertheless, I still found myself suppressing such dark thoughts, because they led to politically incorrect conclusions. Right-thinking people had to assume a certain degree of rationality on all sides. They had to assume that if you offered someone a better deal, he would take it, and that with enough goodwill all differences could be overcome _ after all, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were now pursuing detente; Richard Nixon had even gone to China. Weren't the Arabs rational human beings?

This orthodoxy held that anything called a "peace process" was always better than war. And it wasn't just in Europe and the United States that the mindset prevailed, but in Israel too. Despite all of the failed peace overtures of the past, wasn't it worth trying yet one more time? To think otherwise, to believe that there might be something inherently violent and unreasonable in Arab Muslim political culture was _ well, racist.

Rather than indulge such heretical thoughts, Israeli intellectuals found it easier to look critically at their own country's culture and history."

More here



9 August, 2003

SAD NEWS FOR THOSE OF US WITH IRISH ANCESTRY

"Irish society remains quite conformist, not 'pluralist' at all. It is de rigueur to pronounce here one's anti-republican, pro-EU, multicultural, anti-clerical, 'pro-equality' credentials. Dissenters are shouted down by the deeply offended brigade for being 'right-wing' or 'racists'.

Ireland has the kind of coercive 'equality' laws that make England's look like libertarian lunacy. The forthcoming ban on smoking in pubs, backed by 70 percent of the population, is indicative of this.

Ireland has actually become more unpleasant because it combines both the bad of the old and bad of the new. 'Political correctness' is not actually the symptom of a modern, liberal society, but betrays a peasant mindset that fears dissent."

More here.



8 August, 2003

Clinical Psychology: Another Totalitarianism of the Left?

There is at the moment a fascinating post (dated August 4) by a clinical psychologist on the blog of the National Association of Scholars about how clinical psychology is taking a back seat to political correctness. They appear to have no archives so I have mirrored the current state of the site here and here. That way the post will not get "lost". Excerpt:

"We see psychology as a science and rely on it as a source of truth about the human experience, especially in matters concerning the socialization of the young. In many ways, it has supplanted the religious, cultural, and social traditions that used to be dominant in our society. But psychology is not a science, critically examining tentative hypotheses about human behavior in the light of new data. Psychology is becoming a totalitarian force, reshaping our society in the image and likeness of orthodox liberalism.

Why is there no awareness of this pervasive bias within the field of clinical psychology? Are we as clinicians so caught up in our work with patients that we give little thought to the broader implications of our thinking? Have we become so liberal that we are unaware of any other ways of understanding society aside from the race, class, gender triad? Do we see the human experience as a perpetual therapy session, in which being "judgmental" about anything is forbidden? Are we no longer educated in the true liberal sense, and thus lack the critical skills to challenge "politically correct" thinking?"

There is other good stuff on the site too. Definitely worth a read. Thanks to Tom Scott for the heads-up.



7 August, 2003

PROSTITUTING LANGUAGE

Roger Sandal has an extended coverage of how words are constantly misused by the Left. He gives example after example to show how straight descriptions of almost anything seem to be beyond Leftists. Unfortunately, these leftist distortions have now become widely used and serve their purpose of distracting attention from what is really going on. Roger Sandall notes that the "clash of civilizations" which we are now allegedly watching between the Western and the Islamic world could more accurately be described as a clash between civilization and the lack of it. Is it civilized to cut the clitorises off female children and to crash planes into buildings full of innocent people going about their lawful business? Not so long ago everyone would have instantly identified such things as barbaric, not civilized.



6 August 2003

CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS PERSECUTED

Andrew Ian Dodge tells of his time as a conservative college student:

"In the early days of political correctness, in the mid-to-late 80s, some of us were on the bleeding edge of PC persecution. I was failed, expelled (for a week), harrassed, verbally abused and denied my first amendment rights. We, the right at Colby, told our Republican leaders about what was going on and they did F***-all. This crap could have been nipped in the bud, instead students, like me, were allowed to blow in the wind.

The Federal government should make it clear to colleges that, if they recieve any Federal funds, they will be expected to treat students in an acceptable way. If the college wants to behave like North Korea towards its students, then it must be entirely private. It is high time we stopped colleges that are recieving tax funds from allowing PC abuse to occur. Your constitutional rights should not end when you walk onto a university campus."



5 August, 2003

DISEASES CORRECT

All immigrants entering the UK should be screened for infectious diseases, the Tories have said. Shadow health secretary Liam Fox said that the adoption of compulsory screening for immigrants and asylum seekers was essential to prevent such diseases being brought into the country. But the plan, outlined in a Conservative Party consultation paper, has been condemned as "extremist" by its opponents. The plans are set out in a Tory consultation paper called "Before It's Too Late: A New Agenda for Public Health", which suggests that immigrants could be screened for Aids and tuberculosis. In his introduction to the document, Dr Fox accused the government of having "stood silently by on the politically correct sidelines" while Britain had experienced a second AIDS wave "largely imported from Africa". The document goes on to state that more than 50% of tuberculosis in the UK now occurs in people born abroad, the majority of whom arrived in Britain within the last 10 years. The Tories said that their proposals for screening applicants are based on the Australian system.

More here



4 August, 2003

MIRRORS BECOMING INCORRECT?

"Wall-to-wall mirrors in gyms and dance studios might stop women getting the exercise they need, Canadian researchers say. The scientists found that women who work out in front of a mirror get discouraged and feel tired. The study, published in the journal Health Psychology, focused on young women who exercised less than 15 minutes a week. It found that regardless of how they viewed their bodies, women who worked out in front of a mirror felt worse, or no better, and less at peace after 20 minutes of activity. Kathleen Martin Ginis, a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, was the lead author of the study. "The mirrors make women more self-aware, they think of their shortcomings," she said..... Professor Martin Ginis suggested gyms provide areas without mirrors to encourage novice exercisers.

More here


TESTS ARE VERY INCORRECT

So, test-happy Florida wants to have a statewide exam for university juniors. News flash: We already have one. It's called CLAST, the College Level Academic Skills Test.

In their quixotic quest to re-invent the wheel, politically minded reformers let CLAST slip down the memory hole. Then again, so have a lot of college juniors. Since it debuted in 1982, CLAST has been riddled with so many exemptions, loopholes and waivers that only about 30 percent of students actually have to sit for the test. Why? Because some couldn't pass it.

The politically correct "solution," in the face of whining students, is to slay the messenger and bury the underlying academic problems. Thus, CLAST has turned into a cadaver of its former self.

More here.


< There were a couple of very incorrect posts about homosexuals and about AIDS on Dissecting Leftism yesterday.



3 August, 2003

WILL ALL LAUGHTER BE INCORRECT SOON?

"With protests over the proposed CBS reality show "The Real Beverly Hillbillies" entering their seventh month, American society is faced with a number of questions, not the least of which is, who are we going to laugh at now? Not rural Americans, a.k.a. hillbillies, hicks and rednecks.

And non-urban Americans aren't the only ones who are saying, "Now, that's not funny."

Among those on the alert for insulting references are stutterers, who came of age politically during the "A Fish Called Wanda" protests of the late 1980s and early 90s, and Italian-Americans, who raised the stakes in their long battle over Mafia stereotypes by suing the producers of "The Sopranos."

Albinos objected to negative depictions in "The Matrix Reloaded," and recently the Fox Movie Channel dropped its "Charlie Chan" film festival, following complaints by Chinese-Americans.

Even blonds -- typically not a beleaguered minority -- can cause problems for purveyors of broad, ethnic-style humor, as Jamie Masada, president of the Hollywood-based Laugh Factory comedy club, points to a recent bachelorette party, when a golden-girl attendee walked out of a performance rich in blond jokes.

"She cried," says Masada. "She wanted to have (her) money back, because she thought it was so insulting."

.....

By 1973, none other than comedy legend Bob Hope had been caught in the cultural crossfire; a Japanese-American group objected to his use of the once-commonplace word "Jap" in a joke he told at an Idaho Boy Scout gathering.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, sensitivity to minority concerns ... some would say over-sensitivity -- had reached a high point by the early `90s.

"Some people have argued the excessive emphasis on . . . protecting ethnic boundaries is a result of their weakening, and really is more indicative of (minorities) being absorbed and accepted in society than the other way around," says Elliott Oring, an anthropology professor at California State University and author of "Engaging Humor."

The "New Beverly Hillbillies" is still in development, according to a CBS spokeswoman, who declined to comment on whether the show is offensive.

The threat to what may be the last publicly acceptable ethnic joke -- the kind that can be told at work or on network TV -- raises concerns in some quarters: Are Americans becoming too sensitive? Erecting too many barriers amongst themselves?

"I think it's getting to the point of our really losing our sense of humor," says Masada, the comedy-club executive, who complains that a group of lawyers responded to jokes about their profession by threatening to close down his club.

And even insiders may want to tread lightly. Masada, the comedy club executive, says that he knows a comic who recently came under fire for making Armenian jokes. "What do you mean? I'm Armenian," the comic said. "Can't I talk about myself?"

"No," his critics responded. "You can't."

Still, some fans of ethnic humor remain upbeat, with Cohen, the University of Chicago professor, pointing out that ethnic jokes are not so much disappearing as flourishing underground, where they live on in e-mails and personal conversations.

There's even one brand of ethnic joke that Cohen insists can still can be made publicly without fear of reprisals. "WASP jokes," he says, singling out white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. "They are the one group in this country that no one really thinks of as vulnerable."

Perhaps. But what does it say about the state of ethnic humor if, after 200 years of practice, we're back to poking fun at the Puritans?"

More Here.



2 August, 2003

PC CONDEMNED FROM A LEFTIST PERSPECTIVE

Though Camille Paglia IS an odd sort of Leftist these days

"What is most disgusting about current political correctness on campus is that its proponents have managed to convince their students and the media that they are authentic Sixties radicals. The idea is preposterous. Political correctness, with its fascist speech codes and puritanical sexual regulations, is a travesty of Sixties progressive values."(Vamps & Tramps p, 118)

"My message to the media is: Wake up! The silencing of authentic debate among feminists just helps the rise of the far right. When the media get locked in their Northeastern ghetto and become slaves of the feminist establishment and fanatical special interests, the American audience ends up looking to conservative voices for common sense. As a libertarian Democrat, I protest against this self-defeating tyranny of political correctness. (Vamps and Tramps, p. 431)



1 August, 2003

PC BACKFIRES

"Americans have become significantly less accepting of homosexuality since a Supreme Court decision that was hailed as clearing the way for new gay civil rights, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll has found. After several years of growing tolerance, the survey shows a return to a level of more traditional attitudes last seen in the mid-1990s."


"The policy has actually increased the number of service members discharged on the basis of their sexual orientation, from 617 in 1994 up to 1250 in 2001. One high-profile exception -- and an example of how uneven the policy is in application -- is Arizona legislator Steve May, who fought the Army to a legal standstill for years."