Posted by
Rich on Thursday, June 12, 2008 9:54:40 AM

I have the greatest respect for Tom Tryon from the Sarasota Herald -Tribune. In his column, "
Age-based stereotypes go unchallenged as campaign unfolds", Tom comes to the defense of Senator John McCain.
As a conservative and supporter of Senator McCain I appreciate that. Thanks, Tom.
However,
as an America I am not concerned by comments made by late night
comedians about Senator McCain's age as I am about them not being able
to talk about Senator Obama's race. Why can't late night comedians make
stereotypical jokes about Senator Obama being black? The answer:
Political Correctness.
David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli Prime
Minister, once said, "The test of democracy is freedom of criticism."
This is the problem. Don't get me wrong. I do not want hate speech or
name calling. Certainly not cursing. Rather I want "freedom of
criticism".
There are groups in America that have made any
public criticism about them off limits. These groups include blacks,
Hispanics, homosexuals, Muslims, and others. We have seen well known
talk show hosts like Don Imus fired because of one critical statement
about black women. We have seen a Senator not reelected due to a joke
using the word "macaca". We have seen people of honest background and
with good intentions called racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and
bigots.
What we have in America today are "thought police". The "thought police" invoke their "code of silence
pogroms"
on those that criticize them. A pogrom means to "to wreak havoc, to
demolish violently". That is what the 'thought police" do. They destroy
the critic by invoking the pogrom of "political correctness".
It
is forbidden to say Radical Islamist but it permissible to say dirty
Zionist. It is just fine to produce public art that displays Jesus
Christ's image in urine but it is forbidden to desecrate the Koran. It
is alright for journalists and commentators to to curse the President
of the United States but journalists and commentators cannot identify
the killer of a mother and unborn child as a black man or the child
molester of a 8 year old boy a homosexual when writing or reporting a
story. It is applauded when we joke about Jews, Christians,
Evangelicals, and Red Necks but forbidden to joke about Allah, print
cartoons of Mohammed, or punish those that curse America from the
pulpit. It's just not politically correct.
Tony Perkins wrote an article
on how our neighbors in Canada have created their own form of "thought
police" and named it the Human Rights Commission. Here is
the sad and shocking story of political correctness gone amuck:
"Nowhere
have politicians more miserably failed that test than in Alberta,
Canada, where the gatekeepers of political correctness--the Human
Rights Commission (HRC)--have sentenced a pastor to a lifetime of
silence. The case was initiated in 2002, when Rev. Stephen Boissoin
published letters to the editor opposing same-sex "marriage" in the Red
Deer Advocate.
At the time, Canada was embroiled in a debate
over whether to legalize counterfeit marriage across the country. When
Professor Darren Lund of Calgary read Boissoin's editorials, he filed a
complaint with the Alberta HRC, alleging that the content of the
articles was "hateful." The Commission appointed a tribunal to
investigate Boissoin, led by an unelected bureaucrat Lori Andreachuk.
Last November, Andreachuk found Boissoin guilty of discrimination and,
without the benefit of his testimony, forbade him from uttering
"anything disparaging about homosexuals."
Notice that Andreachuk
does not ban him from speaking about anything "illegal" but bars him
from any negativity toward gays and lesbians. The official punishment,
issued without so much as a public hearing, includes everything from
personal emails to congregational sermons. As if the lifetime speech
ban were not tyrannical enough, Andreachuk also ordered Boissoin to
compensate Professor Lund, who was not a victim of the so-called "hate
crime," $5,000. Under the terms of his sentencing, the Reverend must
"cease publishing...remarks about homosexuals" and submit a written
apology to Lund for publication in the Red Deer Advocate.
Ezra
Levant, who is under similar scrutiny for printing cartoons about
Mohammed, notes in a new column, "[Boissoin] has to publicly humiliate
himself, by publicly declaring his contrition--a contrition he does not
feel--and his abandonment of his deeply-held religious beliefs."
With
all respect Tom I really wanted you to say that so long as the
discourse is civil all topics are on the table. With freedom of speech
comes the freedom to criticize without retribution.
Tom, as a
journalist, you should be more worried about the limits put on you and
your fellow journalists by the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage.
What America has is not "freedom of criticism" but rather "political correctness".