Critical Thinking vs Political Correctness

With the recent re-emergence of interests in airport security, a concept that is the anathema of Political Correctness has reared it head again; the concept is “critical thinking”. Any one who has paid any attention to the news since 911, knows that we have more to fear from Middle Eastern men as Islamic terrorists, than any one else. But Political Correctness does not allow the government to concentrate on any particular ethnic group, even in the name of protecting US citizens from annihilation; instead we are searching grandfathers and very attractive women. When political correctness first reared it’s head in the late 1960s, it was almost cute; Policemen are Policepersons and Garbagemen are Sanitary Engineers. What soon became apparent however, was, built into Political Correctness, is the Orwellian concept of stifling critical thinking.

So-called profiling (or better described as critical per-judging) is a survival instinct that has kept mankind alive up until this point in time. Further, we have confused the concept of prejudice with discerning a threat; to prejudge based on past experience, or known to Law Enforcement as the “duck factor”. Political Correctness tells us that if you are walking down a street at night and there is a group of young men dressed in gang attire, it would be prejudice, demonstrating your bigotry or racism, to be concerned about your safety and cross the other side of the street. Political Correctness says, anyone has the right to dress anyway they like, so to pre-judge a person as a gang member, regardless of the circumstances, is based on race only, and not Critical Thinking that takes into account not only a persons dress, but their age, their mannerisms, the time of day, the location, recent incidents in the area of gang activity, and their non-verbal communications; in other words the duck factor; If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I’m going to assume it’s a duck.

Political Correctness does not allow for critical thinking, because critical thinking empowers the individual and the purpose of Political Correctness has always been to redefine reality in the name of collectivism; in other words the individual can not be trusted to do his own thinking, so society is going to create a set a zero-tolerance rules; since critical thinking can not exist anywhere zero tolerance exists. The result of zero tolerance has run the gambit from tour de farce to preventable tragedy. You have a litany of grammar school students that have been expelled for bringing plastic forks to school, to the Fort Hood shooter who murdered 13 soldiers and wounded 31. Fort Hood was an exercise in Political Correctness. The Army psychologist, turned Islamic terrorist, was well know to anti-terrorist agencies, but was never scrutinized because of his Muslim beliefs. Not only that, in 1993 President Clinton made Army bases gun free zones, leaving the soldiers unarmed and unprotected on their own base.

Another area in which Political Correctness has invaded the American society are hate crimes. Certainly the fact that persons who are victims of crimes because of their race, sex, religion, sexual orientation or any other state of being, is a sad commentary on today's society. But to punish a criminal, not for his crime, but for his thoughts, goes beyond the rule of law spelled out in the equal protection clause of the Constitution. It also has started us down the slippery slope of creating thought police, that prosecute those, not for their actions, but their beliefs. Simply put, a person should be judged by his actions, not on the bases of the nature of his victim. Political Correctness want's to legislate morality by defining victims by class and have created hate crimes to forward this agenda.

If critical thinking is the anathema of Political Correctness, then the manifesto of critical thinking is the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Preamble states, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”. If you need a litmus test for a political leader, listen for the word “Liberty”. There are other words and phrases in our founding documents, but “secure the Blessings of Liberty” define us as a people and a country. The Constitution does not guarantee the fairness of Political Correctness, but it “establish(es) Justice”, in order to “secure Liberty”. Beware of promises of a “fair and just” society. The phrase is often use to describe aspects of the Constitution but was rarely, if ever, used by our founding fathers. In 1787 a “fair and just” government was one that left it’s citizens alone; as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, to pursue their god given rights of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Thomas Jefferson first used John Locke’s writings, using the phrase “Pursuit of Property”, however the word Property had become synonymous in some states as slave ownership, so he changed the word to Happiness. The use of Life, Liberty and Property, would later show up in the 5th Amendment to the Constitution).

In the final analysis Political Correctness is all about being fair. It is not fair that a person can not dress up like a gang member without being harassed by the police, it is not fair that a young woman can’t dress up like a prostitute without being propositioned by men and it is not fair that a Middle Eastern man be treated with extra scrutiny at airports, just because there are factions of his religion that believe in world domination through terrorism. It is also not fair there are individuals and/or groups of people that are truly bigots, sexist and racists that truly pre-judge without critical thinking. All this means that individuals just can’t be trusted to their own critical thinking, but don’t worry, because the Liberal mindset will do your thinking for you; and that thinking has zero tolerance for any deviation from Political Correctness. Only a tyrannical government can espouse a doctrine of fairness, so look to political leadership that espouses Liberty and Justice; the two concepts are mutually exclusive, so “choose well”.