Political Incorrectness: The Right's PC

     Anyone who has followed politics in recent years, or even has a cursory awareness of the same, understands the term political correctness. Although there is debate among some as to whether this political strategy is a function of the Left or the Right, most persons are aware of the basic principles behind the concept. Political correctness is not so much a political strategy as it is an ethos. The Greek definition of that word, the habits of the creature in his place, applying to those who practice political correctness on a regular basis.
     My simple definition of political correctness is the avoidance of debate on any subject with which  its practitioner can not defend with reason and logic. Although this practice has been in long standing in the world of progressives, going back to almost the beginning of that movement in the early 20th century, it has only retained the label of political correctness in the last few decades. And the case is certainly made and accepted by many that the practice of political correctness has been used to great effect by the Left to limit free speech on issues that they wish to impose on others without debate.
     But there is a sister ethos to the Left's political correctness on the Right. Being politically incorrect has actually become the Right's version of political correctness . The desire for our candidates and leaders to "blast," "destroy," and "devastate" in the most blunt and earthy terms possible, has the same effect as the Left's ethos of politically correct rhetoric. Before anyone reading starts accusing me of being "establishment" or a "Rino" and thus proving my point, allow me to explain my thesis further.
     If one accepts the concept that the goal of political correctness is to reject, without intellectual examination, an opposing view, then political incorrectness for the sake of being politically incorrect, has the same goal. I can not count the number of times I have been viciously attacked for simply suggesting a position that, while fact-based, veers off the plantation of what some consider to be conservatism. The goal with political incorrectness sometimes is to shut down speech that contradicts the practitioner's beliefs, just as it is with those who practice political correctness.
     The use of reason and the thoughtful examination of facts has always been to me one of the things that separated the Right from the Left. Conservatism is committed to the truth more than to its own ideology. At least that is the conservatism that I wish to practice, and the conservatism I learned watching, listening to, and reading those like Ronald Reagan, Jean Kilpatrick, William F. Buckley Jr., et al. I think the ethos-based ideology of political incorrectness can be just as dangerous as that of political correctness. They both have the same goal, i.e. to shut down the free exchange of ideas, whether those ideas come from someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum, or from someone right next door on that spectrum.
    

Political Correctness: Not Just For Leftists Anymore

     As a conservative I have always held in high esteem the Founders fidelity to the tenets of free speech enshrined in the United States constitution. Along with limited government and fiscal responsibility, freedom of speech has always been the foundation upon which Liberty was built and maintained. The assault on free speech that is in opposition to the Leftist agenda has been the cornerstone of that destructive ideology's edifice of oppression. It is what has given birth to political correctness and speech codes on the campuses of the modern day university.
     I have been less than sanguine to witness in recent years the same assault on free speech committed by the Left taking root in the garden of conservatism on the Right. Thoughtful disagreement among some on the Right has been replaced by invective aimed at anyone who strays from the absolutism of their political ideology. This behavior has recently reached a crescendo of acrimony in the struggle between the so-called establishment and those who refuse debate on the intellectual merits of positions held by those they deem unworthy of the conservative moniker.
     My thesis is in no way an endorsement of the establishment in the Republican Party. But for anyone holding dear the ideals of free speech to meet distinctions on public policy held by fellow conservatives as differences of ideology is not only an affront to that ideology, but a violation of the very tenets of the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution. If as conservatives we allow our intra-party debates to occupy the intellectually low brow position of insult and invective, we are in a real sense no different than those on the Left who impose speech codes and the misguided guardrails of political correctness.
     Political correctness is after all a desire to dismiss truths that its practioners find in contradiction to their political ideology. So while the political correctness practiced by the Left is rightly found to be antithetical to free speech, the political correctness practiced by some on the Right can not justly be held in higher esteem in the eyes of free speech than that engaged in by the Left. To characterize some on the Right with which one disagrees as traitors, treasonous, or worse, is as much an exercise in intellectual laziness as that which is perpetrated by the Left against all those on the Right.
     Illustrative of my thesis is the illegal immigration debate on the Right. Those who are absolutist refuse to engage in the intellectual heavy lifting of debating their points of contention with those who support a comprehensive solution to the problem. They instead re-characterize the position held by those with whom they disagree as amnesty. This creating a straw man argument for what they find as an offensive position has a kinship with the method of those on the Left who impose political correctness in order to avoid an honest debate on a subject. As conservatives we should give preference to facts and data, or at least well thought out argument over simply demonizing those with whom we disagree. Otherwise we run the risk of being just as much an enemy of free speech as those on the Left. 

P.J. O'Rourke And Others Wrong About Younger Generation

     Some of those on the political Right, such as P.J. O'Rourke, have mollified the sting over the cultural defeat the Right has suffered over the last couple of decades by advancing the theory that today's young have become so disillusioned with Washington politics that they will be more conservative in their politics than their parents generation. This theory depends on two very big assumptions. One, that the growing ineptness of the federal government will be blamed on Democrats, and two, that disillusionment with government somehow translates into the disillusioned practicing conservatism as a remedy for their disillusion.
     The fact that Democrats have control of the White House and the Senate, and had control of the House of Representatives the first two years of the Obama presidency, means nothing. What is important to the younger generation is the culture, which has influenced politics in the last 20 years like at no other time in our nation's history. And that culture, comprised of news media, entertainment media, education, and even sports, has carried the message to young people that Republicans and conservatives are responsible for all the societal angst under which the United States is currently suffering.
     Another data point that makes it unlikely that the young will start voting Republican is the support they have shown for Libertarians like the Pauls and others. Conversion of Leftist youths to Libertarians does not mean automatic votes for Republicans. It does, however, mean Republican-syphoning votes for Libertarian candidates. P.J. O' Rourke, et, al are correct that the recent lurch to the Left may produce a rubber band effect and snap the younger generation in  the opposite direction. But there is evidence to suggest that they will overshoot the small government of republicanism and propel their politics into the land of no government libertarianism.
     Meanwhile, as per usual, the Republican leadership in Washington sows their seeds of electoral victory firmly in the toxic ground of amnesty for illegal aliens. They have been told, by their political opponents no less, that they must support illegal immigration in the form of "comprehensive reform" to sway Hispanic voters from Democrats. So how stupid do Democrats think we are, I will tell you how stupid, it looks as though the establishment Republican types are plowing ahead on amnesty, even though with the invasion currently on our border it would be a perfect time for them to be talking security first.
     The younger generation may turn more conservative in how they live their lives, but they will never relate those values to a week and ineffectual Republican party. In fact they may continue voting Democrat just because they see them as the strong horse, and thereby worthy of following. Or they may support third party candidates or become so disillusioned that they do not vote at all. I just do not see them flocking to the Republican party, unless the Republican party stands for something different than the Democrats.
         

The Law's Proper Place In A Free Society

     For most public servants of the past that served in congress and the White House, politics were the necessary means to a principled end. And while they may have actually enjoyed and excelled at the contest of political chess, their ultimate goal was to advance the cause of the people in the best ways possible. Barack Obama and most of Democrat party modernity sees politics as the end to its own means. They exist to destroy their political opposition, not debate them, and to grow government for its own propagation, not for the benefit of the governed.
     Since the Republicants won the 2010 mid-term elections, which gave them control of the House of Representatives in January of 2011, Democrats' favorite refrain has been to call them the "do nothing congress." They of course neglect the fact that Democrats control half of congress with their majority in the Senate, but then reality and truth has meant less and less to Democrats with each passing year. Republicants have tried to run away from this label, but should instead embrace it.
     The moniker of Do Nothing Congress is a compliment because the limited damage that may occur from congress doing nothing is far more preferable to the unlimited damage that congress can do by enacting bad legislation. To Witt: The Affordable Care Act, which has reached its tentacles of tyranny into every aspect of what was once the best health care industry in the world, and has set it on the path to becoming the equal of much more inferior health care systems throughout the world.
      With the literally hundreds of thousands of pages of legislation written by the Obama administration added to the existing Federal laws, the number is so great that academics, lawyers, and those in government have not even been able to accurately count them. One has to wonder why new laws are even passed. But then the answer to that question is self-evident: legislators who do not legislate are like clowns who do not wear rubber noses, colorful wigs, and big floppy shoes. Actually that is an image that is more apropos to those who have recently represented us in congress, especially in the Democrat party, than any performer at a circus or a child's birthday party.
     When a nation has burdened itself with so many laws that no one can even count them, then that nation ceases to be a nation of laws and becomes a nation for laws. And when liberty is strained under the yoke of such a burdensome amount of laws, she is made impotent in advancing the human condition, liberty being necessary to that task. Laws are a necessary cog in the wheel of a prosperous and free society, but when they become the only cog, it renders the wheel of that society useless. We can hardly survive as a free nation being smothered by draconian laws, both in scope and number.

The Myth Of The Fiscal Conservative/Social Liberal

     As I grow older, so the list of things that annoys me grows ever longer. One item that has maintained its inclusion on that list for many years is when anyone says they are a fiscal Conservative but a social Liberal. It is somewhat analogous to saying you are pro-gun but anti-bullets. And while not every issue that separates Conservatives from Leftists can be said to have an effect on the fiscal health of the country, most do. Therefore, it has always been my contention that it is impossible to be a social Liberal and fiscal Conservative, since the leftist social policies implemented by Liberals result in a fiscally unhealthy federal government and nation.
     The first illustration that I will proffer to support my position that it is near impossible to advance Leftist social policies and still maintain one's fiscal conservatism, is single-motherhood. Not only do Leftists tolerate single-motherhood, but they encourage it as a method to create more government dependence, thereby securing more votes for the politicians who support it. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent every year, not only to financially support single-parent homes, but in additional drug treatment programs needed for, what studies have clearly shown, is a link between increased drug use and being raised in one of these homes. The other hidden cost to single-parenting is an increase in prison populations. Eighty percent of those incarcerated are from single-parent homes and they cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year to feed, house and guard.
     Another example that illustrates that Liberal social policy and fiscal conservatism are mutually exclusive is gay marriage. Once we redefine marriage away from its deeply rooted foundations that stretch back almost as long as man has existed on this earth, and transform it into simply a union between any two people that love each other, we have diminished the holy institution created for raising children and made it something much more profane. When traditional marriage is diminished in this way it causes its focus to be only on the two joining together and not on the benefit that that marriage and every other traditional marriage brings to a society. For all the reasons listed above, traditional marriage, and the children that are the offspring of such a union, is invaluable for creating independent citizens who add to society, not subtract.
     On issue after issue there is a direct correlation between socially liberal policy and increased financial burden to the federal budget and the economy. I think the tendency, especially the last five years, is for some people to want to claim the high moral ground financially and socially, not realizing that government incursion into the latter creates difficulty for achieving balance in the former. The people who say they are fiscal Conservatives and social Liberals have disassociated the cost of social policy from the equation. This allows them to think of themselves as fiscally responsible while at the same time supporting what they think of as compassionate programs. This kind of thinking is disastrous because the bane of our financial existence is the inability to make more citizens independent and the federal government more limited in its functions.
    

The "Workers' Rights" Scam Of The Left

     There are many issues which separate Leftists from Conservatives, but so-called "workers' rights" is probably in the top five. Ask anyone on the Left who is a workers' rights advocate, and they will all tell you the same, that no employee should have any fear of losing their job, ever. They believe that job security is a right that government should force upon employers for the benefit of workers, irrespective of job performance or business needs. Now, I have read the Constitution and have found no right of job security within it. But the Constitution is not the governing document it was intended to be when the Left wants to create rights out of thin air for the purpose of growing the nanny state.
     Forced job security is not beneficial for either employer or employee, it is only a windfall for bureaucrats and Leftist politicians who make political hay from stealing liberty from others. It is the insecurity of losing one's job that produces a better work ethic and more production. It also motivates individuals to increase their skill set or start their own business. This is the reason that in socialist European countries, where jobs are guaranteed by government, there is very little innovation and small business development. The lack of government involvement in the labor market for the majority of U.S. history, is also why America has produced over 80% of the innovations in the world over the last 150 years and is why this great country is home to more small businesses than any other in the world.
     And what are the "rights" that advocates are fighting so hard to secure for the workers of America? In the extreme cases it involves union contracts which allow workers to attend work drunk or stoned on drugs half a dozen times before losing their jobs. These rights also include allowing child molester teachers to keep collecting their salaries, and instead of going to work every day, they are assigned to "rubber rooms" that house teachers that are so defective, even the union sees the benefit of keeping them away from the nation's children. But of course the union, with the help of Democrat politicians, have secured the jobs of these bottom of the barrelers. The defective teachers keep collecting their salaries and the union takes their cut in dues, which they then launder back to Democrat politicians through campaign donations.   
     The apparent concern over "workers' rights" by those on the Left has the same hollow ring as their concern over a myriad other issues. The leading Leftist advocates, and the politicians who support them with legislative efforts involving the use of taxpayer dollars, use issues like "workers' rights" to increase their own power base and control over the private sector. When this is allowed to continue, there is less profit for businesses to expand which means fewer jobs and more unemployed workers who must be supported, through higher taxes, by those workers fortunate enough to have employment. This leads to less wealth in the pockets of workers to buy products or start their own businesses, which leads to a stagnant economy that only benefits those in government or those connected to government by a counter-productive and counter-Constitutional ideology.

A Diatribe Of Differences

     Someone asked me recently what the core differences are between the Left and the Right. Following is a basic list of differences, I am sure there are more, feel free to let me know if you think of any which I have not included.      
     Conservatives work to make individuals stronger and government weaker, Leftists work to make individuals weaker and government stronger.
     Leftists do a disservice to justice by weakening it with the modifiers "social" and "economic." Conservatives do not dilute justice with meaningless modifiers.
     Conservatives believe in the power of individuals to improve and change their lives for the better, Leftists believe only government can perform this task.
     Conservatives aim to preserve the principles and values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Leftists aim to transform the aforementioned documents into the Declaration of Dependence and The Restitution by making them "living, breathing documents" that transform individuals' rights into collective rights that are given and taken by government.
     Conservatives believe in the dignity of each human being to make choices about how to live their own lives, instruct their own children and participate in changing their own communities for the better. Leftists destroy individual human dignity by convincing people that they can not possibly understand the intricacies of life's decision, and that only they, through the big government they control, can make these decisions for everyone.
     The Left think the poor are deserving and the rich are not. Conservatives believe that those who work hard, play by the rules and succeed should be upheld as an example to others as an inspiration to apply a good work ethic to make a better life for themselves, their families and their communities.
     Leftists believe in using the natural changes in climate to create crisis that only their ever expanding central government can resolve. Conservatives believe in protecting the environment without growing government into a force that tells individuals what kind of light bulbs they must use, how many miles per gallon their car must achieve, how much of our own natural resources we can extract from the ground to reduce or eliminate our dependence on foreign sources that hate us and what private land owners can do with their legally owned property.
     Leftists see race, income level, sex and every other difference as an opportunity to divide people and create certain classes that are victims that need big government to even the score by taking from other classes that are characterized as the victimizers. Conservatives aim to treat everyone as individuals and not part of a group that all live, vote and think the same way. Conservatives understand that the only victims are those created by big government programs that inculcate dependence. 
     Leftists believe that all money is the property of government and thereby can be taken from individuals through taxes if they are deemed by the ruling elite to have too much. Conservatives believe that each man is the exclusive owner of the fruits of his labor, and only a small amount should be required of every citizen to pay for the basic functions of government.   
     In essence, Conservatives believe in true liberty and Leftists believe in a soft tyranny where government is the central figure in the lives of each citizen.