Newsgroups: alt.politics.correct
Subject: Re: This "PC" stuff
From: mzener@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 14 Aug 92 08:23:03 EDT
 <1992Aug12.215730.15812@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Aug13.122704.1@eagle.wesleyan.edu> <1992Aug13.185551.27709@midway.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Wesleyan University

hasn@midway.uchicago.edu (Sheheryar Hasnain) writes:

> SH:  Thanks for the lecture on US law.  What "is" and what "is not" a right
> is a matter of opinion and not fact.

   Clearly.  Take abortion, f'rinstance.  Lots of people with lots of good
arguements on either side.  Is it a right?  Not for this thread to say. 
Freedom of speech is a bit easier, though, being mentioned pretty clearly in
the First Amendment.

> SH:  I don't see defenders of free speech challenging the fact that treasonary
> speech is illegal.  From all that I have heard lately, the concept of free
> speech in the US is an extremely exagerrated phenominon.  What about liability
> of the press?  Is that free speech.  What about the "whistleblowers" of 
> major corporations that are fired.  Are they protected by this so called
> free speech defense?  

   Treason is assisting enemy nations in times of war.  Robert George wrote a
good paragraph about this -- if you want to know more, read that.  Liability of
the press?  If you mean that the press isn't allowed to libel someone, then I
don't see how you object.  Libel is a direct attack on one person,
intentionally and malicioulsy lying to defame him.  
   Corporations are allowed to fire "whistleblowers" becuase they are private
entities too.  If an employee wishes to damage his company, his company can let
him go.  It's the employer's right to do that.

> I'm begining to find the free speech
> defense to be a pretty bad excuse for most anti-PCers and right wingers.
> Lets face it, anti PCers merely want to maintain power or its access
> in traditional hands.  

   Y'know, I'm gettin' pretty tired of hearing about this.  Simple fact -- most
people opposed to PC espouse individual rights, not group rights or government
rights.  Thus, we wish to see individuals succeed on their own merits.  Yes,
that means there will be a disproportionately small number of minorities in the
wealthier income brackets, but only for now.
   When there was a wave of Jewish immigrants, did they languish in poverty for
long?  No.  Italians?  No.  Irish?  No.  Asians?  No.  Hispanic?  We haven't
had time to tell yet.  Black?  No THERE is another matter.  Why so many poor
black?  Well, there are lots of reasons.  Being slaves didn't help the first
wave of immigrants.  Once emancipated, many moved north, only to find that many
of the factory jobs were drying up.  Lingering racism didn't help at all, nor
did the Depression, nor this ridiculous welfare system that's in place (about
that wlfare system -- I'm not sure where I remember reading this, but a fairly
reputable source once reported that before the Great Society welfare programs,
there was a higher rate of unemployment amoung young white men than young black
men.  Telling, that).  
    How to solve that?  Not the issue here.  The point is that the arguement
that the "traditional hands of power" are trying to keep it all to themselves
is ludicrous -- those hands have always been changing.  If thery're trying to
keep hold of it, they're doing a poor job.

> (deleted stuff on the Constitution since I'm not American and 
> hold no value for it --  Sorry I brought it up)  

   I think we all know in what esteem you hold the Constitution of the United
States.  I hate to tell you this, but it is the basis from which all law in
this country stems -- it is our society's moral code.  You can disagree with
it, but it is there.
 
> SH:  Languages are merely tools of expression.  English is my third language
> and in none of the others does "man" or "his" stand for the neutral or "all
> people"(languages differ I know but I thought I would mention that).  
> If it does in English, that merely stresses the chauvanistic nature
> of the language.  Simple.  

   Groan.  Well, it _does_ in English, and all that means is that it does.  It
is not the words that matter, it is the ideas behind them.  I don't care if you
say black, Negro, Afro-American, African-American, colored person, person of
color, or even nigger, for that matter.  I know what you are trying to mean. 
The PC crowd thinks your word choice is vitally important.  This replacement of
ethic and idea by Word Choice Du Jour is one of the most common features of PC,
the silliest, the least rigorous, and the most often worried about.
   A language cannot be chauvanistic -- it is a collection of sounds but
together to represent objects and abstractions.  The people who use the
language can be, but not the language.
   To claim that English is chauvanistic becuase the male form is the neutered
form is silly -- you'll note that in every case except when talking about
people, all our forms are strictly neutral.  In English, every noun is
neutered.  These other languages you claim to know most likely can't make that
claim.  If anything, English has gone very far toward entirely removing gender
from itself!
 
>  MZ: As I said earlier, people have
>> the right to say whatever they like, and not the right not to be offended.
> 
> SH:  Once again thanks for the law lesson.  Maybe blacks and women would never
> have gotten the right to vote if everyone viewed "law" as "unchangeable." 

   Blacks and women got the vote when the laws came better into step with the
moral code that is supposed to guide them.  That transition took fighting
prejuidices lasting long before recorded history -- did you really expect it to
happen the day after the Constitution was ratified?
 
> Power to the people 

   I always have gotten a laugh from this being the common rallying cry of
those who want the governemnt to control most everything.

   In looking over these posts and taking that phrase to its logical extreme,
it seems, Sheheryar should be the only one NOT using it.  Oh, wait, I forgot; 
white men don't count as people.   ;->  

Max Zener


Newsgroups: alt.politics.correct