By Rachel Alexander
Monday, April 22, 2013
Has society really become quite thin-skinned, or is
acting “offended” a new tactic that is being used to shut down legitimate
political debate? Progressives are increasingly claiming to be offended
whenever those on the right disagree with their left-wing positions. It doesn't
matter what the issue is; the left will divert a legitimate political debate
into an accusation that the right disagrees with them because they are full of
hate towards them. This puts the right on the defensive, and removes the real
debate from discussion. It then becomes difficult for the right to ever prevail
with their position, because to do so would mean “hate” had won.
Economics? Disagree with welfare, and you're full of hate
and intolerance towards the poor. Social issues? Disagree with the left on
abortion or gay marriage, and you don't like women or gays. Foreign policy?
Disagree on foreign policy, and you hate Muslims, Palestinians, and the poor in
less fortunate countries. Second Amendment? If you support gun rights, then you
have a cold and callous view towards the victims of gun violence. Affirmative
action? If you disagree with affirmative action, then you're a racist. Unions?
Disagree with them, and you despise working-class Americans.
The offended attitude ploy has become stifling. The left
has brainwashed thousands of people across the country into seeking out chances
to be offended. Meanwhile, these same people who act hysterically offended by a
differing political view will pay $90 to attend a comedy show, laughing the
hardest of anyone at the comedian's racist, misogynist, and obscene jokes. This
is evidence they're not really offended by those who merely harbor different
political positions on issues.
Try to make a joke about any of these issues with one of
these thin-skinned victims and they will tear into you at best, report you to
your employer or appropriate government agency at worst. We're seeing more and
more people lose their jobs over simply posting an outspoken viewpoint on
Facebook. The left will whip up its victims into a frenzy and have them bombard
the employer with angry complaints until the employer complies and terminates
the employee.
The left is expanding its victims to include almost all
Americans. Now everyone has something to be offended about. Even the right is
falling into this victim mentality. Fat? You're a victim. Smoker? You're a
victim. Single mom? You're a victim.
The left has turned generations of Americans into wimpy
fourth graders ready to start whining at any minute. At the same time, those
same offended folks are walking around on eggshells at work, in public, and on
social networking programs, paranoid of someone else catching them saying
something “insensitive.”
It is a dishonest stretch to assert that because someone
has a differing political opinion than you on an issue, they hate you. Look at
all the people on the right and the left who are friends with each other. They
don't hate each other, or they wouldn't be friends. Sneakily, the left will
point to a handful of hateful individuals around the country, and use a broad
brush to paint everyone on the right as sharing their views. This is lying.
Lying in order to convince Americans of your viewpoint is despicable and shows
how desperate the left has become.
Using the ruse of being offended to shut down legitimate
political debate is censorship. If you try to point this out, however, the left
will bring up an extreme example, such as terrible words used against blacks in
the pre-civil rights era. This is a red herring, because virtually no one today
agrees that racial slurs are acceptable. If someone is using disgraceful slurs
against someone on welfare, or against gun control proponents, that is one
thing. But to merely disagree with the concept or welfare or gun control is not
the same as being full of hate towards those people.
The absurdity of this concept can be seen by looking at
some of those on the right. Mark Mattioli, the father of 6-year-old Sandy Hook
victim James Mattioli, has been speaking out against gun control. He doesn't
“hate” the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, in fact, he and his wife loved
their son more than anyone. To equate him with hate merely for opposing gun
control is a pretty cruel tactic by the left.
Many blacks speak up against affirmative action and are
viciously attacked by the left. Blacks don't “hate” themselves; there has never
been a quote by a conservative black saying they dislike themselves, nor have
there been hate crimes committed by conservative blacks against themselves. The
entire concept is the height of foolishness. Yet the left routinely goes after
outspoken conservative blacks more viciously than they go after, say, doctors
who mutilate girls' genitalia in Africa, supposedly one of their key causes and
something truly abhorrent. It has become so bad that the word “blacklash” has
been coined.
The latest victim of the left's attacks on conservative
blacks is Dr. Benjamin Carson. Carson, the director of pediatric neurosurgery
at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., dared to express a few political
opinions as a speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast, for which he was highly
praised later by the Wall Street Journal. The left has gone after him hard ever
since.
The hypocrisy can be seen by visiting the White House
website shortly after Carson gave his speech. The website wasn't even viewable
until you clicked through a huge gun control message from Obama. There was no
massive outrage, it was merely mentioned on a few conservative websites.
Apparently for the left, it is O.K. for a left-wing black man to use the
national government's website to promote an overtly political message, but not
for a conservative black man to use the national prayer breakfast to also
declare some political opinions.
The phony offensive ploys must stop. We are not a nation
of crybaby fourth graders. Don't buy into the victim mentality, and call out
the tactic when the left uses it. The left is not the harmless crybabies they
appear to be at first. If we don't speak up now, they will bully us into giving
up our First Amendment rights by threatening our jobs, licenses and
reputations. As Charlton Heston once said, “Political correctness is tyranny
with manners.”
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