Political Correctness Or Something Else?

Newt posted a request for another term to be used in instances where the term "political correctness" may be too mild, as when inaction results in significant harm. One of the respondents wrote the response below that, I believe, gets to the point of what is happening in the minds of liberal/progressives today.

Mr. Speaker-

I'm for Unconditional Tolerance recommended by my fellow citizen layopinions yesterday.

Unconditional Tolerance describes the results of what Thomas Sowell outlines in his book "A Conflict of Visions". Sowell identifies for us a group of people for whom good intentions and sincerity are more important than outcomes and results. For these people, no amount of negative results is sufficient to abandon actions whose intentions that are good, as promoted by enlightened and sincere people.

Unfortunately, for these progressive minded citizens among us, the loss of 12 souls in the terrorist act at Fort Hood will be viewed as aberration, and will by no means the fault of the sincere efforts of diversity and tolerance. What is heart breaking is that the thoughts and desires progressive and liberal continue to be acted out, we have lost the thoughts, opinions and actions of 12 citizens. For these citizens and their families, the terrorism at Fort Hood is real, painful and permanent. For these people their lives will forever be changed, not so, I fear, for progressive liberals.

We already see the next step of unconditional tolerance in the decision to have terrorists tried in New York City. Here too, intentions and sincerity are first, if it were not the case, why not Fargo or Fresno? No, this is about making a point with world wide exposure. This is a shamefully transparent prosecution of the actions prior administration in protecting its citizens. Like the guy at your work or school, always eager to throw someone “under the buss”, in order to save, protect or perhaps enhance themselves. This is about "I'm right and you're wrong"; this is about Obama, his vision of himself and that of his reality, and not at all about the reality in which you and I must live.

In our reality words have meaning, bullets penetrate and wound people, and too many of those people die. In our reality people who inflect great harm on others for the sake of their ideals, are called terrorists. Terrorists do what they do because their reality is different than ours, and they want us to abandon ours and abide by theirs. These people are not influenced by reason, good intentions or sincerity of others, they just know their "reality", their sincerity and vision for the world around them; they are fundamentally and unapologetically intolerant.

In this, terrorists are not so foreign to the desires of progressive liberals. Not that progressives or liberals approve of terrorism, they certainly do not, but they understand it because it is within the penumbra of what they deem sometimes necessary. Being so convinced by their own "enlightened" the progressives among us are confident that the ends justify the means; outcomes are independent of the process by which they were achieved. This is why an act that is so clearly and obviously terrorist in nature, intent and execution, is less clear to liberals. They are reticent of the label “terrorism” because they understand. You can see the con-trail of this sensibility through the “if all else fails, force it” approach of the democratic congress on the healthcare bill. Motivated by sincerity of their own good intentions, they believe that force is occasionally necessary to achieve their desired outcomes, and herein lays an underlying sensitivity to those who are similarly motivated.

By way of remedy, may I recommend Intolerable Ambivalence? Perhaps I and others can refuse to remain ambivalent to what people say, even when it is very well said. Perhaps it is OK to call the President a "liar" when he is indeed lying even though it is not OK to call what happened at Fort Hood a terrorist act.

It is time to call'em as we see'em.