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it's time to askAre we too PC to live?
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
it's time to ask
Are we too PC to live?
davidr@thisisdavidr.net, 5/23/2002
This week's top headlines frame a grave dilemma facing America.
Questions swirl about whether the government knew enough details of the September 11th attacks to have prevented them. Senior Bush administration officials warn that more attacks are not just expected but inevitable, and that casualties will be heavy. And at the same time John Magaw, head of the Bush administration's dubiously named "Transportation Safety Agency", announced that pilots will be prohibited from carrying firearms in the cockpit because, well, someone might get hurt.
The time has come to address the serious question of whether America, and its population, has now become too politically correct to live.
The question is literal, not rhetorical. Nine months have past since the September 11th attacks. Our military has pacified Afghanistan and disrupted the Al Qaeda training camps, but cells in other countries continue to plan. Other planned attacks have been detected and prevented by police in several nations, flight crews, airline passengers, and observant citizens.
Government officials appear to have credible evidence that ongoing terrorist attacks directed against the American population are now to be expected as part of future life. We have seen intelligence that Al Qaeda desires to use a radiological or chemical attack, probably by bombing part of our own infrastructure, against us.
But even now, when the certainty of attack and the probability of successful mass murder stare us in the face, we just cannot stop playing the PC game.
There are no National Guard units carrying Stinger missiles atop our nuclear power plants. That would be "too militaristic" and might "agitate the public". Instead, the men and women of our Guard stand watching enormous lines of passengers shuffle through security checkpoints. These huge checkpoint lines would make an airport attack now more lethal than ever before. Recent tests show that our "enhanced" airport security probably would not catch the September 11th hijackers even if they performed the exact same attack again. Instead of intelligently profiling potential mid-eastern terrorists for more intensive questioning, our newly federalized airport security agents harass grandmothers and Medal of Honor winners. Attractive female travelers have resigned themselves to being regularly fondled in the "random" screenings. None of this is helpful. And everybody understands that it's all for show. But we just keep playing the game.
John Magaw, who ran Clinton's BATF, is a professional government anti-gun zealot. He says he may be willing to consider allowing pilots to use stun guns, which the FBI says should not be used to defend against multiple determined attackers. Mr. Magaw knows that stun guns would not be an effective defense. He wants only air marshals to carry guns on planes. Under 1% of all airline flights can be equipped with air marshals in the next few years, and almost all of them are used on flights into Washington DC. Mr. Magaw knows this as well. He knows that air marshals cannot effectively defend our air transportation system. The government is prepared to shoot down passenger aircraft with fighter jets before facing the specter of re-arming pilots.
Re-arming pilots? Oh, yes. During the 1960s, United States pilots were armed, and defeated at least two hijackings. Legislation allowed them to carry weapons until July of 2001, when that power was removed because "no one was using it". Magaw has bitterly resisted reversing the decision. He says that only law enforcement officials should carry guns on planes. Well, make that some law enforcement officials. Until fairly recently, any law enforcement official could travel armed, but during the Clinton years a new FAA directive barred state law enforcement officials from bringing their guns on airplane flights. After all, we can't be too careful with those police officers. Magaw has not reversed that directive either.
One has to wonder - just whose side is this government on, anyway?
But more than that, we need to finally ask the question: has America, as a society, actually become too politically correct to survive?
Again and again, we see officials denying reality, saying things that are just bizarre, and fighting for points of political philosophy that could well result in their own deaths. America is performing the cultural equivalent of sitting in a burning room and arguing that the fire's heat is overstated. I understand that some people react to trauma by denial, but we need to get these people out of power immediately before they get us killed.
Prominent anti-gun groups like the Violence Policy Center (VPC) have called for increased gun control - removing more arms from the hands of American citizens - to prevent them from being bought by sleeper agents and shipped overseas to terrorists. The fact that media professionals read that claim with a straight face scares me to death. People in positions of social influence actually take seriously the idea that we should disarm ourselves in time of terrorist attack because terrorists might get their hands on some of our weapons. What a brilliant idea! Shall we start with the police? After all, their distinctive uniforms make them high-profile targets for terrorist holdups...
Senator Ernest Hollings claims that the pilots do not need to be armed because we can instead just pass a law requiring the pilots to keep the cockpit door closed. Reinforced cockpit doors should be installed on all planes by sometime in 2003, but they will still be vulnerable should the terrorists do something determined, such as sticking some plastic explosive on the lock. And, of course, airplanes are not designed with kitchen or sanitary facilities in the cockpit, and cannot easily be re-fitted with these things. But all of those issues will somehow magically go away because Senator Hollings will write a law.
Senator Hollings works in Washington, D.C., in a building known to be targeted for terrorist airplane attack. He may well die in the next year due to his own law. At some level, he must know this. But he still opposes arming pilots, because "guns are bad".
The airline industry lobbied hard to block arming pilots. They are apparently concerned with the liability of pilots having guns (although the liability of their aircraft being used to destroy skyscrapers appears not to rate consideration). If we have another attack like September 11th, we can reasonably expect that every American airline will go out of business. The airlines have chosen to support the possible destruction of their entire industry to avoid the possible liability of a court case. Only an insane mind would make that choice.
Top administration officials have solemnly declared that attacks are "almost certain", that terrorists are "sure to eventually acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons", and that suicide bombings against the American public are "inevitable". They have admitted that many Al Qaeda terrorists have entered the United States, and say that they cannot possibly find them. But the vast majority of our law enforcement officers are going to go out tonight and arrest people for nonviolent offenses like prostitution or drug use. If the threat is so real, we should reassign those officers, at least temporarily, to tracking terrorists. But for some reason that no one will name, this will not happen.
At one time, political correctness was annoying. Then it became a threat to our culture. And now, it has become flat-out self-destructive insanity. Political correctness has become an actual mental illness, causing people to refuse to acknowledge the world around them, even if they risk danger or death from their denial. And we cannot mount an effective defense against the terrorist attack while denying reality.
Is the American society now actually too PC to live?
I'm afraid we might well find out.
Copyright 2002 davidr; all rights reserved. For approval to publish this column, contact davidr@thisisdavidr.net
http://www.thisisdavidr.net/columns/too_pc_to_live.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Are we too PC to live?
davidr@thisisdavidr.net, 5/23/2002
This week's top headlines frame a grave dilemma facing America.
Questions swirl about whether the government knew enough details of the September 11th attacks to have prevented them. Senior Bush administration officials warn that more attacks are not just expected but inevitable, and that casualties will be heavy. And at the same time John Magaw, head of the Bush administration's dubiously named "Transportation Safety Agency", announced that pilots will be prohibited from carrying firearms in the cockpit because, well, someone might get hurt.
The time has come to address the serious question of whether America, and its population, has now become too politically correct to live.
The question is literal, not rhetorical. Nine months have past since the September 11th attacks. Our military has pacified Afghanistan and disrupted the Al Qaeda training camps, but cells in other countries continue to plan. Other planned attacks have been detected and prevented by police in several nations, flight crews, airline passengers, and observant citizens.
Government officials appear to have credible evidence that ongoing terrorist attacks directed against the American population are now to be expected as part of future life. We have seen intelligence that Al Qaeda desires to use a radiological or chemical attack, probably by bombing part of our own infrastructure, against us.
But even now, when the certainty of attack and the probability of successful mass murder stare us in the face, we just cannot stop playing the PC game.
There are no National Guard units carrying Stinger missiles atop our nuclear power plants. That would be "too militaristic" and might "agitate the public". Instead, the men and women of our Guard stand watching enormous lines of passengers shuffle through security checkpoints. These huge checkpoint lines would make an airport attack now more lethal than ever before. Recent tests show that our "enhanced" airport security probably would not catch the September 11th hijackers even if they performed the exact same attack again. Instead of intelligently profiling potential mid-eastern terrorists for more intensive questioning, our newly federalized airport security agents harass grandmothers and Medal of Honor winners. Attractive female travelers have resigned themselves to being regularly fondled in the "random" screenings. None of this is helpful. And everybody understands that it's all for show. But we just keep playing the game.
John Magaw, who ran Clinton's BATF, is a professional government anti-gun zealot. He says he may be willing to consider allowing pilots to use stun guns, which the FBI says should not be used to defend against multiple determined attackers. Mr. Magaw knows that stun guns would not be an effective defense. He wants only air marshals to carry guns on planes. Under 1% of all airline flights can be equipped with air marshals in the next few years, and almost all of them are used on flights into Washington DC. Mr. Magaw knows this as well. He knows that air marshals cannot effectively defend our air transportation system. The government is prepared to shoot down passenger aircraft with fighter jets before facing the specter of re-arming pilots.
Re-arming pilots? Oh, yes. During the 1960s, United States pilots were armed, and defeated at least two hijackings. Legislation allowed them to carry weapons until July of 2001, when that power was removed because "no one was using it". Magaw has bitterly resisted reversing the decision. He says that only law enforcement officials should carry guns on planes. Well, make that some law enforcement officials. Until fairly recently, any law enforcement official could travel armed, but during the Clinton years a new FAA directive barred state law enforcement officials from bringing their guns on airplane flights. After all, we can't be too careful with those police officers. Magaw has not reversed that directive either.
One has to wonder - just whose side is this government on, anyway?
But more than that, we need to finally ask the question: has America, as a society, actually become too politically correct to survive?
Again and again, we see officials denying reality, saying things that are just bizarre, and fighting for points of political philosophy that could well result in their own deaths. America is performing the cultural equivalent of sitting in a burning room and arguing that the fire's heat is overstated. I understand that some people react to trauma by denial, but we need to get these people out of power immediately before they get us killed.
Prominent anti-gun groups like the Violence Policy Center (VPC) have called for increased gun control - removing more arms from the hands of American citizens - to prevent them from being bought by sleeper agents and shipped overseas to terrorists. The fact that media professionals read that claim with a straight face scares me to death. People in positions of social influence actually take seriously the idea that we should disarm ourselves in time of terrorist attack because terrorists might get their hands on some of our weapons. What a brilliant idea! Shall we start with the police? After all, their distinctive uniforms make them high-profile targets for terrorist holdups...
Senator Ernest Hollings claims that the pilots do not need to be armed because we can instead just pass a law requiring the pilots to keep the cockpit door closed. Reinforced cockpit doors should be installed on all planes by sometime in 2003, but they will still be vulnerable should the terrorists do something determined, such as sticking some plastic explosive on the lock. And, of course, airplanes are not designed with kitchen or sanitary facilities in the cockpit, and cannot easily be re-fitted with these things. But all of those issues will somehow magically go away because Senator Hollings will write a law.
Senator Hollings works in Washington, D.C., in a building known to be targeted for terrorist airplane attack. He may well die in the next year due to his own law. At some level, he must know this. But he still opposes arming pilots, because "guns are bad".
The airline industry lobbied hard to block arming pilots. They are apparently concerned with the liability of pilots having guns (although the liability of their aircraft being used to destroy skyscrapers appears not to rate consideration). If we have another attack like September 11th, we can reasonably expect that every American airline will go out of business. The airlines have chosen to support the possible destruction of their entire industry to avoid the possible liability of a court case. Only an insane mind would make that choice.
Top administration officials have solemnly declared that attacks are "almost certain", that terrorists are "sure to eventually acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons", and that suicide bombings against the American public are "inevitable". They have admitted that many Al Qaeda terrorists have entered the United States, and say that they cannot possibly find them. But the vast majority of our law enforcement officers are going to go out tonight and arrest people for nonviolent offenses like prostitution or drug use. If the threat is so real, we should reassign those officers, at least temporarily, to tracking terrorists. But for some reason that no one will name, this will not happen.
At one time, political correctness was annoying. Then it became a threat to our culture. And now, it has become flat-out self-destructive insanity. Political correctness has become an actual mental illness, causing people to refuse to acknowledge the world around them, even if they risk danger or death from their denial. And we cannot mount an effective defense against the terrorist attack while denying reality.
Is the American society now actually too PC to live?
I'm afraid we might well find out.
Copyright 2002 davidr; all rights reserved. For approval to publish this column, contact davidr@thisisdavidr.net
http://www.thisisdavidr.net/columns/too_pc_to_live.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and
talks like a duck, but is not a duck is a
politician. Bush is a politician.
JMHO....
bud
If it weren't for lawyers, I wouldn't need a lawyer.