Over the past few decades there has been a movement created to make a great many changes to our society to correct for the various injustices that are perceived to have existed. For example we have, as a society, decided that it is wrong to exclude any American, regardless of cultural background, gender, sexual orientation or religious affiliation, from the opportunity to participate in public affairs of any kind. Ensuring that every American Citizen has equality of opportunity is an admirable idea as well as being part of our core beliefs; where we as a society often go astray is in the implementation of valid ideas.
We must remember: Our society is the result of thousands of years of development. Culture and beliefs cannot magically be changed with the passage of a few new laws. Real social change takes generations, and, in fact, changes that are imposed suddenly–and artificially–can only create new problems and backlash. Worse they can disrupt the very fabric of a society.
As it stands, the laws that we have passed to prevent the exclusion of minorities from our political and economic processes proceed from the assumption that minority individuals (women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, etc.) are entitled to opportunities because they come from minority backgrounds, not because they possess particular qualifications.
The original idea of not allowing the separate but “equal” concept that existed prior to the fifties for “blacks” to continue was fine, for it was clearly not equal. The thinking went astray after that change when politicians decided that all minorities, and there was no end to them, could be made to believe that they were “entitled” to special treatment (going to the head of the line so to speak to make up for past injustices). There is little doubt that today, individuals are promoted in part because of their race or gender not because they are the best for the job.
This entitlement culture resulted in a continuing fragmentation of our society into “special interest” groups each vying for victimization status. The result being that political and other decisions can no longer be made without consideration of the perceived impact on these special interest groups, regardless of the benefits these decisions may otherwise bestow. A minority person is often appointed to a public position for no other reason than to provide “fair representation” of their minority group. So, as a consequence, we end up discussing a person’s heritage or gender (real of perceived) not their ability to get the job done.
Another variation of current social thought. There was a television commercial a while back advertising a book on women and women’s issues that was written by a woman doctor. This commercial implied that only a woman could understand the problems of another woman. Therefore implying, only a female physician could truly provide effective treatment for a woman. In other words, men do not experience women’s problems so they cannot possibly deal with them effectively. It is easy to see that this logic is not only flawed, but is simply absurd. By extension, only a doctor who has had cancer would be qualified to treat a cancer patient. Most people would not buy the latter idea, but many are falsely led into serious consideration of ideas like that promoted by the “women’s” commercial, because these ideas carry the weight of “political correctness.”
Then we have the proposition that qualifications no longer mean anything. In fact, the need for qualifications can be avoided altogether by the use of such techniques as “gender normalization:” This works like this, women are given “points” to compensate for physical differences with men — in strength, for example — in order to compete for jobs with physical requirements with males especially in the military. Alternatively, the need for physical strength is written out of the job requirement so that women can qualify. What we are doing with this is developing a social handicapping system, which penalizes skill and ability, bringing standards down to the level of those of lesser ability or achievement.
Along with the above social issues we have also saddled ourselves with the concept of “political correctness.” In plain language, “political correctness” means the prohibition of doing or saying “anything” which may offend anyone for any reason be it real or imaginary.” Our language has even been modified to reflect this attempt to avoid offense of any kind.
Then we have the feminization of society. For example, with the development of birth control methods, American women were, for the most part, freed from the burden of unwanted pregnancies, not a problem. Then, partially because they had more time for other activities, women were put under pressure to work outside the home and to take on leadership roles in business and public life. They are undeniably very capable of assuming these positions.
Unfortunately, when women assume the responsibilities previously held almost exclusively by men, women not only change the social dynamics of the work place with lots of unintended consequences, but they abdicate their former responsibilities as caregivers to our children. Since the child-rearing skills of our women produced the men that conquered the world, we are losing a formidable body of skills, indeed.
The other side of the coin is that women are displacing men in the work force, and the men therefore must, in turn, become the caregivers to our children giving rise to a new tern “house husband.” So it can be seen that we could have a double negative for if the women displace talented men in the work place and if the men aren’t as good as women in child rearing that the net affect on society will be very negative from a performance perspective.
Women are now entering all fields and occupations in the United States in a hell-bent race to “gender neutralize” everything. But if jobs are to be doled out to people in proportion to their percentage of the population (quotas are the only way to be sure this happens), eventually all positions in all fields will be dominated by women, since there are more women than men in this country. One documented result is we now have more women graduation from college then men as a result of this policy.
It also means that, to a greater and greater extent, household duties will have to be assumed by men. Implicit in this train of events is the logic that household work and raising children is demeaning work, to be performed by people at the lowest social level (i.e. the smallest percentage of the population, which, in this case, means men). The twisted logic inherent in trying to accomplish this kind of transformation is beyond comprehension. Whether this next statement is political correct or not it is true that there are very real hard wired gender based roles is society. If we ignore that then we do so at our own peril.
Another very popular social trend is “multiculturalism,” which is being touted as a way to make everyone feel good about themselves, in this case about their background. As is true with all such “programs,” multiculturalism sounds like a positive idea, but, in fact, has a very negative and detrimental effect in practice. Inherent in the multiculturalism belief structure is that all cultures are equal and no one culture is better then another.
If someone really believes that is true then there is no reason for anyone to immigrate here for here in America we have a very different culture then exists anywhere else. The quote below from Teddy Roosevelt in 1919 gives a very good view on being an American.
”Rn the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all.
We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Theodore Roosevelt January 03, 1919
To a great extent but not solely the result of the 2008, 2010 and 2012 elections politicians that did not believe that the American system of the past 200 years was any good — were put in power. Their view of what the country should be like as shown partially in this writing is not what the Citizens of the country think it is and so a very serious conflict is developing. The Tea Party movement is just the beginning of that conflict. This work has been written to give the Political and Social background for why this ‘change’ is being fought so hard by such as large portion of the Citizens.
We’ll end the discussion now with a final thought on society and political correctness. Much to-do about nothing has been made in reverence to ‘names’ that people are called and how it affects’ them and how bad that is. Well the author of this work has been called just about every name in the book from ‘baby killer’ to “racist.’ And he was discriminated against in the job market because he was a Vietnam vet. Is there anyone in the world that has not been discriminated against at some time, probably not so the discussion is only on degree?
So what, is the proper response to negative words for if you allow anything like that to have any affect on you then you have given those that do or say things you don’t like “Power Over You.” Their words are a Taunt made to you and if you react to them that reaction is what they want. Don’t give them the satisfactions of making you react, ignore it. You know if there is anything that you have done that is bad and for most of us it is not true. But one thing is for sure if you react to those taunts in any way they will not stop. By not reacting to the offending words you ‘Maintain that Power’ and you become a stronger person.
Consider this old saying which was told me by my mom after some confrontation involving name calling in grade school. It is as true today as it ever was. Bullying and taunting today causes more problems then they ever did in the past because the kids today are sensitized to things like name calling. They have never been told what my mom told me.
“Sticks and Stones May Break my Bones but Names will Never Hurt Me.”
That is unless you let them hurt you by your reaction and then you are at fault for the choice was yours after all.
Like this:
Like Loading...
