Perhaps we have a lack of tolerance for traditional American expressions of belief (Christianity) or criticism of political figures, something long understood to be protected speech by the magnificent First Amendment.
Here are a few examples of a decline of tolerance as traditionally understood: sending a Taunton, Mass., second-grade boy home for a psychiatric evaluation (at parents' expense) for drawing a stick figure Jesus over a cross, telling a third-grade girl in New Jersey to put away the Bible during quiet time free reading, and Florida congressional representative Alan Grayson asking Attorney General Holder to imprison a man for five years who runs a website critical of Grayson.
I wish I were making these up. I'm sure the Right has tried to squelch speech too, as the wonderful Nat Hentoff has written...but it's the Left that's in control of the schools and the movies. So the bien pensants are busy deciding what's legitimate to say, think, or do. And they're not patriotic Christians, that's for sure. Defining tolerance down, as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan may have said.
I hate political correctness, which has been described by Camile Paglia as Stalinist, and I recently came across its first use--in 1945 in, where else, the Soviet Union's police state. Reading the book The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Anthony Beever (p. 34, hardcover), one can read the following:
Here are a few examples of a decline of tolerance as traditionally understood: sending a Taunton, Mass., second-grade boy home for a psychiatric evaluation (at parents' expense) for drawing a stick figure Jesus over a cross, telling a third-grade girl in New Jersey to put away the Bible during quiet time free reading, and Florida congressional representative Alan Grayson asking Attorney General Holder to imprison a man for five years who runs a website critical of Grayson.
I wish I were making these up. I'm sure the Right has tried to squelch speech too, as the wonderful Nat Hentoff has written...but it's the Left that's in control of the schools and the movies. So the bien pensants are busy deciding what's legitimate to say, think, or do. And they're not patriotic Christians, that's for sure. Defining tolerance down, as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan may have said.
I hate political correctness, which has been described by Camile Paglia as Stalinist, and I recently came across its first use--in 1945 in, where else, the Soviet Union's police state. Reading the book The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Anthony Beever (p. 34, hardcover), one can read the following:
HT: The Helen Glover Show (Rhode Island talk show host)The fears of army political departments were confirmed by reports from NKVD (communist secret police) postal censors, who underlined negative comments in blue and positive comments in red. The NKVD drastically increased the censorship of letters home [from Soviet army guys invading Germany], hoping to control the way soldiers described the style of living or ordinary Germans and the 'politically incorrect conclusions' (emphasis mine) formed as a result. The NKVD was also horrified to find that soldiers were sending German postcards home.
Leave a comment