America continues to be hijacked by political correctness of the left, especially in California, that bastion of political correctness.
The very liberal direction of the state seems odd given how, if you look at a precinct by precinct map of California, we're geographically a red state. The conservative bloc in California, however, is outweighed by heavy concentrations of liberal voters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Jose and Sacramento. They pull the state in a direction the rest of us don't want to go, fueling some calls for the state to be divided in half. I'm not sure that's something that should happen but please don't tell me to leave if I don't go along with the P.C. nature of my state. I was here - 51 years to be exact - before the P.C. crowd arrived. That enables me to have a perspective that California and nation is going bonkers.
Permit me to touch on a few areas of P.C. grating on my conservative soul.
First of all, "green" has become a religion to some. "Go green" is the mantra of the P.C. even when it doesn't make economic sense. Their god is the environment; oil companies, incandescent light bulbs and Wall Street the great Satan. Our recycled governor recently flew to L.A. to ceremonially sign a bill to get the bullet train project going - a project that we can't afford and which no working class person will be using. Only in California would a governor be so quick to build a train from L.A. to Madera that nobody will use but be so unwilling to build new dams for much-needed water for farmers.
But now, the almighty religion of green seeks to elevate the hybrid car owner. Shopping centers are popping up - one in Modesto - offering upfront parking spaces for hybrid vehicles; as if the owner needs to be rewarded for going green. Saving on gas isn't good enough? We have to reward hybrid owners with a shorter walk?
Seeing how 63 percent of adult Americans are overweight or obese, we should be encouraging others to park farther from stores and walking. Americans are just too fat.
Whoops, I just broke a PC rule. In America we can't hurt anyone's feelings even if it's truth. Today we engineer terms that take off the harshness of terms we use for people. It's not PC to refer to "fat" people as "fat." Likewise, liberals don't like the term "illegal alien," preferring instead "undocumented worker," softening the criminal nature of crossing the border illegally. We're reminded that aliens are only seeking a better life. (The PC crowd also deceptively confuses opposition to illegal immigration as opposition to legal immigration.) Okay, so perhaps we should retool the terms "shoplifter," "purse-snatcher" or "metal thief" - the one who steals to seek his better life - by calling them, say, an "unauthorized resource reallocator." Sounds PC enough since we wouldn't want to damage self esteem by calling them what they are - thieves.
The people in the country I grew up in esteemed police for keeping law and order. Some ethnic advocacy groups routinely protest laws being enforced. Case in point: Up and down California - Ceres included - we've seen legal and illegal residents of Mexican descent pressing local police to turn a blind eye to the enforcement of drivers' license and insurance requirements. As if ethnicity should allow some to receive special privilege when it comes to breaking U.S. laws.
Even more disturbing, throngs in Anaheim recently went on riotous crime sprees to protest police killing six questionable characters. Common sense says if you live like a gang banger and are shot and killed by an officer as you run away and are stupid enough to reach for your waistband - as if to fetch a weapon - you stand a very good chance of being killed. But tell that to the community of Anaheim - which is 53 percent Latino - which staged riots over a rash of police shootings. I cannot understand what justifies a lawless crowd to break windows at Starbucks, throw rocks at police or Molotov cocktails at businesses as a way of saying police had no right to return gunfire when auto theft suspect Joel Acevedo, 21, shot at them during a chase.
We seem to live in a country of disconnect, which doesn't like accepting responsibility for much, nor believe that bad behavior has consequences. Joel Acevedo is dead because: a) He was driving a stolen vehicle and decided to not stop when officers commanded him to and; b) then did the supremely stupid act of shooting at officers. Don't blame police for his stupidity.
Equally infuriating is how politicians like the mayor of Anaheim pander for votes and acquiesce, cater and kowtow to minority factions and throw their police chiefs under the bus. How pathetic that an official would be so P.C. he would second-guess the actions of his professionally trained officers.
In the America I knew, elected officials stood for law and order. They were also friendly to people of faith and clergy. But when Chic-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy said in comments published in the The Baptist Press that his faith does not condone homosexuality, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel went on a hostile attack. Emanuel hinted he'd like to block their restaurant expansion. What did Cathy say that was so offensive to those on the left? This: "We are very much supportive of the family - the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."
Emanuel - Obama's former chief of staff - said Chic-fil-A does not reflect Chicago values. Likewise, the gay community became unhinged, calling Cathy's comments "hateful." It's faulty reasoning to say that an expression of support for a family led by a heterosexual married couple is "hatred" toward gays. Cathy inferred no hate, only his religious views about traditional families - something that was quite normal in the America I knew. But then again, the America I knew believed Jesus was more than a curse word.
In a show of support for Chic-fil-A, Fox TV show commentator Mike Huckaby called for a "Chic-fil-A Appreciation Day" which resulted in record sales for a single day. The great Silent Majority spoke loudly. Not to be outdone, the gay community couldn't take it lying down; they staged a reprehensible "in your face" protest by clogging the family restaurants with make-out sessions - sick, if you ask me - as the ultimate show of disrespect for Christians.
That never would have happened in the America I knew. People had more respect than that. But then again, we didn't have groups attacking the institution of motherhood by calling for the outlawing of breast feeding in public. This P.C. crowd is more tolerant of obscene rap lyrics than a mother supplying healthy nourishment from her breasts.
Imagine if the right behaved the same manner. My wife and I recently stayed at a Utah motel which was followed up by an email asking us to rate our stay in multiple areas, one of them being if the motel was "gay friendly." Am I to assume that the motel is hateful to heterosexuals because they only appear to be concerned about pleasing gay customers? Do I accuse the chain of being hetero-phobic? Do we stand out in front with placards that say, "This motel hates straight people"? Do I get the mayor of St. George, Utah to threaten to block their expansion?
Political correctness often defies logic:
• The Maine Human Rights Commission proposed banning any gender divisions in public schools after ruling that a school discriminated against a 12-year-old transgender boy by denying him access to the girls' bathroom.
• The PCers even had something negative to say in 2007 when the principal of Waterford High School in Stanislaus County became a national media sensation by requiring two feuding students to get on their knees and apologize to each other as a way to avoid punitive actions. In the old America, you would have been a disgrace to not make amends and apologize on your own accord. But to many on the left, the principal was wrong.
• Thirteen persons were killed in 2009 after the Army's middle management ignored concerns about the radicalism of Army Psychologist Nidal Malik Hasan (a Muslim) and he opened fire on an Army base in Texas. They took no action against him out of fear they'd be accused of profiling.
• CSUS president Marvelene Hughes changed the mascot of the Warriors because she saw it as an offense racial slur against Native Americans (a P.C. term that replaced "Indian" commonly used when I was a boy.)
• Denair school officials told a student not to fly his American flag on his bike because it was provocative to Latino students.
• The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors outlawed McDonald's from giving out toys in Happy Meals if the food did not meet a standard of which they approved.
• The same board condemned SF Mayor Edwin Lee for wanting a stronger police frisking policy to check for guns on suspicious people. But, again, San Francisco has declared itself a sanctuary city to harbor those who broke federal immigration law, condones people dressing up like sex organs to chase others in some parades, and wages war against cars and car owners with an aggressive parking ticket program.
I am kind and respectful to all whom I meet. But don't expect me to buy into P.C. party line, sacrificing common sense at the altar of tolerance, or accepting the practice of "all inclusiveness."
How do you feel? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com
The very liberal direction of the state seems odd given how, if you look at a precinct by precinct map of California, we're geographically a red state. The conservative bloc in California, however, is outweighed by heavy concentrations of liberal voters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Jose and Sacramento. They pull the state in a direction the rest of us don't want to go, fueling some calls for the state to be divided in half. I'm not sure that's something that should happen but please don't tell me to leave if I don't go along with the P.C. nature of my state. I was here - 51 years to be exact - before the P.C. crowd arrived. That enables me to have a perspective that California and nation is going bonkers.
Permit me to touch on a few areas of P.C. grating on my conservative soul.
First of all, "green" has become a religion to some. "Go green" is the mantra of the P.C. even when it doesn't make economic sense. Their god is the environment; oil companies, incandescent light bulbs and Wall Street the great Satan. Our recycled governor recently flew to L.A. to ceremonially sign a bill to get the bullet train project going - a project that we can't afford and which no working class person will be using. Only in California would a governor be so quick to build a train from L.A. to Madera that nobody will use but be so unwilling to build new dams for much-needed water for farmers.
But now, the almighty religion of green seeks to elevate the hybrid car owner. Shopping centers are popping up - one in Modesto - offering upfront parking spaces for hybrid vehicles; as if the owner needs to be rewarded for going green. Saving on gas isn't good enough? We have to reward hybrid owners with a shorter walk?
Seeing how 63 percent of adult Americans are overweight or obese, we should be encouraging others to park farther from stores and walking. Americans are just too fat.
Whoops, I just broke a PC rule. In America we can't hurt anyone's feelings even if it's truth. Today we engineer terms that take off the harshness of terms we use for people. It's not PC to refer to "fat" people as "fat." Likewise, liberals don't like the term "illegal alien," preferring instead "undocumented worker," softening the criminal nature of crossing the border illegally. We're reminded that aliens are only seeking a better life. (The PC crowd also deceptively confuses opposition to illegal immigration as opposition to legal immigration.) Okay, so perhaps we should retool the terms "shoplifter," "purse-snatcher" or "metal thief" - the one who steals to seek his better life - by calling them, say, an "unauthorized resource reallocator." Sounds PC enough since we wouldn't want to damage self esteem by calling them what they are - thieves.
The people in the country I grew up in esteemed police for keeping law and order. Some ethnic advocacy groups routinely protest laws being enforced. Case in point: Up and down California - Ceres included - we've seen legal and illegal residents of Mexican descent pressing local police to turn a blind eye to the enforcement of drivers' license and insurance requirements. As if ethnicity should allow some to receive special privilege when it comes to breaking U.S. laws.
Even more disturbing, throngs in Anaheim recently went on riotous crime sprees to protest police killing six questionable characters. Common sense says if you live like a gang banger and are shot and killed by an officer as you run away and are stupid enough to reach for your waistband - as if to fetch a weapon - you stand a very good chance of being killed. But tell that to the community of Anaheim - which is 53 percent Latino - which staged riots over a rash of police shootings. I cannot understand what justifies a lawless crowd to break windows at Starbucks, throw rocks at police or Molotov cocktails at businesses as a way of saying police had no right to return gunfire when auto theft suspect Joel Acevedo, 21, shot at them during a chase.
We seem to live in a country of disconnect, which doesn't like accepting responsibility for much, nor believe that bad behavior has consequences. Joel Acevedo is dead because: a) He was driving a stolen vehicle and decided to not stop when officers commanded him to and; b) then did the supremely stupid act of shooting at officers. Don't blame police for his stupidity.
Equally infuriating is how politicians like the mayor of Anaheim pander for votes and acquiesce, cater and kowtow to minority factions and throw their police chiefs under the bus. How pathetic that an official would be so P.C. he would second-guess the actions of his professionally trained officers.
In the America I knew, elected officials stood for law and order. They were also friendly to people of faith and clergy. But when Chic-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy said in comments published in the The Baptist Press that his faith does not condone homosexuality, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel went on a hostile attack. Emanuel hinted he'd like to block their restaurant expansion. What did Cathy say that was so offensive to those on the left? This: "We are very much supportive of the family - the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."
Emanuel - Obama's former chief of staff - said Chic-fil-A does not reflect Chicago values. Likewise, the gay community became unhinged, calling Cathy's comments "hateful." It's faulty reasoning to say that an expression of support for a family led by a heterosexual married couple is "hatred" toward gays. Cathy inferred no hate, only his religious views about traditional families - something that was quite normal in the America I knew. But then again, the America I knew believed Jesus was more than a curse word.
In a show of support for Chic-fil-A, Fox TV show commentator Mike Huckaby called for a "Chic-fil-A Appreciation Day" which resulted in record sales for a single day. The great Silent Majority spoke loudly. Not to be outdone, the gay community couldn't take it lying down; they staged a reprehensible "in your face" protest by clogging the family restaurants with make-out sessions - sick, if you ask me - as the ultimate show of disrespect for Christians.
That never would have happened in the America I knew. People had more respect than that. But then again, we didn't have groups attacking the institution of motherhood by calling for the outlawing of breast feeding in public. This P.C. crowd is more tolerant of obscene rap lyrics than a mother supplying healthy nourishment from her breasts.
Imagine if the right behaved the same manner. My wife and I recently stayed at a Utah motel which was followed up by an email asking us to rate our stay in multiple areas, one of them being if the motel was "gay friendly." Am I to assume that the motel is hateful to heterosexuals because they only appear to be concerned about pleasing gay customers? Do I accuse the chain of being hetero-phobic? Do we stand out in front with placards that say, "This motel hates straight people"? Do I get the mayor of St. George, Utah to threaten to block their expansion?
Political correctness often defies logic:
• The Maine Human Rights Commission proposed banning any gender divisions in public schools after ruling that a school discriminated against a 12-year-old transgender boy by denying him access to the girls' bathroom.
• The PCers even had something negative to say in 2007 when the principal of Waterford High School in Stanislaus County became a national media sensation by requiring two feuding students to get on their knees and apologize to each other as a way to avoid punitive actions. In the old America, you would have been a disgrace to not make amends and apologize on your own accord. But to many on the left, the principal was wrong.
• Thirteen persons were killed in 2009 after the Army's middle management ignored concerns about the radicalism of Army Psychologist Nidal Malik Hasan (a Muslim) and he opened fire on an Army base in Texas. They took no action against him out of fear they'd be accused of profiling.
• CSUS president Marvelene Hughes changed the mascot of the Warriors because she saw it as an offense racial slur against Native Americans (a P.C. term that replaced "Indian" commonly used when I was a boy.)
• Denair school officials told a student not to fly his American flag on his bike because it was provocative to Latino students.
• The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors outlawed McDonald's from giving out toys in Happy Meals if the food did not meet a standard of which they approved.
• The same board condemned SF Mayor Edwin Lee for wanting a stronger police frisking policy to check for guns on suspicious people. But, again, San Francisco has declared itself a sanctuary city to harbor those who broke federal immigration law, condones people dressing up like sex organs to chase others in some parades, and wages war against cars and car owners with an aggressive parking ticket program.
I am kind and respectful to all whom I meet. But don't expect me to buy into P.C. party line, sacrificing common sense at the altar of tolerance, or accepting the practice of "all inclusiveness."
How do you feel? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com
