The Insidious Effect of Political Correctness

By Dr. Ben Carson

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

When I was in high school in Detroit, there was a great deal of emphasis on clothing. As I became increasingly interested in fitting in with the "in crowd," fashion supplanted academic achievement in my hierarchy of importance. My grades plummeted, and I became a person who was less pleasant and more self-absorbed.

My mother was disappointed because she thought I had enough insight and intelligence to avoid the flypaper trap of acting like everyone else.

Fortunately, after wasting a year pursuing acceptance, I realized that my dreams went far beyond silk shirts and sharkskin pants. I decided to forsake the "in crowd" and redoubled my academic efforts in time to rescue my sinking grade-point average and gain admission to an Ivy League university.

To say that the "in crowd" was disgruntled when I abandoned their association would be a gross understatement. It eventually became clear to them that I would not rejoin their ranks under any circumstances, and they left me alone.

Despite the insults hurled at me, at the time of graduation, my classmates voted me "most likely to succeed." This indicated that they knew the prerequisites for success but were unwilling to fulfill them, and they wanted others to remain shackled to their underachieving lifestyle.

Political correctness (PC) operates in much the same fashion. It is in place to ensure conformity to the prescribed expressions and lifestyles dictated by the elites.

There are rewards of acceptance and praise for members of the "in crowd" as they attempt to silence or destroy any who dare think for themselves or express opposing views. Similarly, the purveyors of PC seize upon a word or phrase, which they emphasize in an attempt to divert attention away from the actual issue that doesn't fit their narrative.

I have stated in the past that Obamacare is the worst thing to occur in our country since slavery. Why did I make such a strong statement? Obviously, I recognize the horrors of slavery. My roots have been traced back to Africa, and I am aware of some horrendous deeds inflicted on my ancestors in this country.

The purpose of the statement was not to minimize the most evil institution in American history, but rather to draw attention to a profound shift of power from the people to the government.

I think this shift is beginning to wrench the nation from one centered on the rights of individual citizens to one that accepts the right of the government to control even the most essential parts of our lives. This strikes a serious blow to the concept of freedom that gave birth to this nation.

Some well-known radicals have publicly written and stated that in order for their idea of a utopian, egalitarian society to emerge in the United States, the government must control health care, which ensures the dependency of the populace on government. Historical analysis of many countries that have gone this route demonstrates the obliteration of the middle class and a massive expansion of the poor, dependent class with a relatively small number of elites in control.

This is sobering information, and those who want to fundamentally change America would much rather demonize someone who is exposing this agenda than engage in a conversation that they cannot win. Others join in the fray, happily marching in lockstep with those who are attempting to convert our nation to something we won't recognize, having no idea that they are being used.

Vladimir Lenin is sometimes credited with coining the phrase "useful idiots" to describe such individuals.

It is time in America for the people to open their eyes to what is happening all around them as our nation undergoes radical changes without so much as a conversation out of fear of being called a name, of facing economically adverse actions or of enduring government harassment, characterized by the perpetrators as "phony scandals."

Political correctness is antithetical to our founding principles of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Its most powerful tool is intimidation.

If it is not vigorously opposed, its proponents win by default, because the victims adopt a "go along to get along" attitude. Major allies in the imposition of PC are members of the media, some of whom thrive on controversy while others are true ideologues.

The true believers would be amusing if it were not so sad to behold them dissecting, distorting and repeating words in an attempt to divert attention from the rise of government control.

The American people must learn to identify and ignore political correctness if we are to escape the bitter ideological grenades that are destroying our unity and strength. Political correctness is impotent if we the people are fearless. Let us emphasize intelligent discussion of issues and leave the smear campaigns to those with no constructive ideas.

Three Hours of Waterboarding with Jon Stewart

By Marita Noon

Monday, March 17, 2014

On Thursday, February 27, I received an email that said: “I'm a producer at the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We're working on a segment about fracking & I wanted to reach out to see if you'd be interested in participating. I read your column in Town Hall a few months ago & it's just what we're looking for—we'd like to have someone dispel a lot of the myths & untruths about fracking.” I responded that, yes, I was interested. After doing my research, I agreed to participate.

On March 6, I flew to New York City for a taping on March 7. I knew that the Daily Show is a comedy show masquerading as a news program. My peers told me horror stories of how the show had treated others whose views didn’t mesh with those of Jon Stewart—not that the guests were personally abused, but that the final product didn’t represent what was really said during the taping. I weighed the pro and cons and decided to take the risk. I figured that no matter how good I might be, I was unlikely to change the opinions of the young audience that watches the Daily Show and thinks it is real news. Additionally, my audience doesn’t generally watch it—and if they do, they’ll know my comments were heavily edited, as my views are well known. What really pushed me to accept the invitation was the fact that the following week, March 10-13, I was scheduled to be in Southern California speaking on college campuses and my Daily Show taping would enhance my “street-cred” with the potential audiences.

I knew I was not the first person to whom they had reached out. Others had turned them down. If I said “no,” they’d continue down some list until they found someone who’d say yes. I figured it might as well be me because I know that I know my topic. I know I will represent it accurately. The next person on the list might not be as well informed.

I expected that they’d try to spring something on me and make me look foolish. Based on the pre-taping interviews, I felt that I had a sense of where the interview would go. They had a few questions about which I was unsure. I sent an email to the several thousand people on my enewsletter list asking for input on specific questions. Many sent me helpful information that I read on the plane on the way to New York. I talked to industry experts. I studied up as if I was heading in for a final exam. I wanted to be sure they couldn’t trip me up.

When I walked into the offices of the Daily Show, I felt that I was ready. I told them: “I know your job is to make me look bad, but mine is to be sure I look good.” I wore a favorite red silk blouse with gold jewelry.

The team was very kind to me. They shot some “B roll” of Aasif, the correspondent who’d be doing the interview, and me walking toward the room where the taping would take place and some of me working at a computer. I was escorted to a dark, dreary-looking room with camera and sound guys, and Jena, the producer.

The interview started straight enough. They asked one of the questions they’d asked via telephone: “Why do environmentalists hate fracking?” I explained that I didn’t think it was really about fracking, as thousands, if not millions, of wells had been drilled using hydraulic fracturing since modern techniques were developed in 1949. I pointed out that a primitive form of fracking was done in the late 1800s when a nitro glycerin torpedo was dropped down a well hole. Despite this long, safe, and prosperous history the frack attacks had started in October 2007—shortly after the technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling were successfully combined and began to unleash America’s new energy abundance.

I continued: It is not really about fracking. It is about fossil fuels—and hating them. The average person doesn’t have a clear understanding of the role that energy plays in their lives (which is why I do what I do). All most people know about energy is the price of gasoline and they know “drill, baby, drill.” They know that increased production of oil translates to lower prices at the pump. So the anti-fossil fuel crowd can’t come out with an anti-drilling campaign, but they can use a term that sounds scary and that people do not understand: fracking—the vernacular for hydraulic fracturing.

To prove my point, I told about driving through Starbuck’s two days earlier. I’d bantered with Jason, the young man selling me my Café Mocha. I told him I was going to New York for the Daily Show to talk about fracking; that they’d have a pro-fracking guest and an anti-fracking guest; that I was the pro-fracking guest. He replied: “Whatever that is.”

Because people, like Jason, do not know what fracking is, the antis can give it whatever definition they want and use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to turn people against the proven technology that is almost singly responsible for creating millions of jobs in America and bringing us closer to energy independence than previously ever thought possible. In a recent Fracking by the Numbers report, on page 6, Environment America offers a definition that basically covers the entire drilling process from permitting to production—including “to deliver the gas or oil produced from that well to market.”

Once they had scared people, those against fracking set out to stop the procedure—with the ultimate goal of banning it all together. Since 96-98% of all oil-and-gas wells drilled in the U.S. today are stimulated using hydraulic fracturing, banning fracking essentially bans oil-and-gas production.

I backed up my opinions by citing the November 2013 elections where four towns in Colorado and three in Ohio had fracking bans on the ballot. All passed in Colorado and one in Ohio. Earlier in 2013, the commissioners in the little county of Mora, NM, voted to ban all oil-and-gas drilling outright—not just fracking (however, the Los Angeles Times coverage of the Mora County story called it a fracking ban—illustrating how the two concepts, drilling and fracking, have become interchangeable). Even though some of the communities voting to ban fracking have no potential oil-and-gas drilling, the wins provide momentum for a national movement. In a press release celebrating the Mora County vote—which also calls it a fracking ban—the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the group fomenting opposition in Mora County, said: “Mora County joins over 150 communities across the country which have asserted their right to local self-governance through the adoption of local laws that seek to control corporate activities within their municipality.” In January, 2014, left-wing advocacy group MoveOn.org heralded its “#FrackingFighter” campaign in which it calls for “grassroots organizing and people power to beat back big industry in town after town and county after county.” They declare: “now it’s time to double down on our strategy.”

Aasif asked about fracking accidents. I asserted that there were none that I was aware of and cited the fact that three leading Obama Administration secretaries—hardly fossil-fuel fans—had declared fracking to be safe: former Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and current Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.

Now, in hour three of what I told the crew was like three hours of waterboarding where they kept throwing stuff at me in hopes I’d give something up, the tone changed. Suddenly, Aasif repeatedly asked me about pizza and whether it was appropriate compensation for a “fraccident.” I stopped and told them: “I will not say that word.” Since I was not aware of any fracking accidents, I wasn’t going to let them get me on camera saying “fraccident.” He pushed on anyway and carried on about how wonderful New York pizza was. Surely, it would be appropriate compensation for a “fraccident” that caused a four-day fire and killed one person. No, it wouldn’t. I offered: “The courts have established damages for loss of life and loss of property.” He continued with the pizza theme. Somewhere in there, he mentioned Chevron. Frustrated, I finally said something to the effect of: “If the person who’d received the damages wanted pizza, then yes, it would be appropriate.”

When we were about to wrap, they thanked me and, on camera, gave me a pizza.

Later I received an email from the producer who’d invited me saying: “Thanks again for coming out for this interview. I hope it wasn't too silly! Aasif & Jena thought you were great, though.”

On the plane on the way home, I reflected on the experience and deduced what they were up to. I sent the producer a follow up email: “I am glad that Aasif and Jena thought I was great. I told them it felt like three hours of waterboarding. I can’t wait to see what you all do with it. I am assuming that you are going to do a fake news story on a fracking/drilling accident that results in a four-day fire and one death and the evil oil company offers pizza as compensation. You will have me saying that there has never been a fracking accident that I know of. Then you have me saying, yes, I watch the news…”

Once I was back at my desk, I did a search on Chevron, accident, and pizza. The story came up. It wasn’t a fake accident, but it also wasn’t a “fraccident.” While the exact cause of the Greene County, PA, well fire is still under investigation, the local news reported: “Chevron had previously completed drilling and hydraulically fracturing, or fracking, the well and was in the final stages of using steel pipe to hook it up to a pipeline distribution network for production.” The Pennsylvania Depart of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Scott Perry stated: “the problem may have come from a defect in the wellhead itself. Chevron’s wellheads are ringed with collars that have set pins running horizontally through them.” Perry says one of the pins may have blown out of the collar, releasing the gas.

Apparently, according to the DEP the “gas well explosion is the first serious Marcellus shale well blowout in our region.” Houston-based Wild Well Control, which responded to the Greene County accident, says in the past year it responded to five-surface well blowouts accompanied by fires. The statistics suggest major fires are relatively rare.

The accident referenced by the Daily Show, took place in a rural area and no homes were endangered. But Chevron realized that the increased truck traffic and other activities inconvenienced the folks of Bobtown. In an effort to be a “good partner” in the community, Chevron offered vouchers to the only eatery within 80 miles. While the locals aren’t upset with Chevron for the gesture, saying: “The whole issue was blown out of proportion," comedians have had a field day with it and the anti-fossil fuel crowd is using it for messaging. A petition has been started at MoveOn.org (surprise) demanding that Chevron apologize for the free pizza—calling it “an insult.” There are currently 1200+ signatures, mostly from distant locales, but none from Bobtown. Local resident Gloria Garnek commented on the contrived controversy and the coupons: “People here, you know, we were kind of overwhelmed a little bit with all the publicity and people coming in. So I think it’s a nice thing.”

Thank you, Daily Show, for flying me to New York and taking good care of me while I was in town. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about hydraulic fracturing and alerting me to Bobtown Pizza. Without the March 7 taping, I wouldn’t have told the story of the anti-fossil fuel crowd’s efforts to ban fracking and exploit the good people of Bobtown.

While it felt like three hours of waterboarding, I believe I’ve been able to make some good come from the experience. I can’t wait to see how they turn three hours of recording into a 3-5 minute segment when it airs in late March or early April.

The Left Versus Minorities

By Thomas Sowell

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

If anyone wanted to pick a time and place where the political left's avowed concern for minorities was definitively exposed as a fraud, it would be now -- and the place would be New York City, where far left Mayor Bill de Blasio has launched an attack on charter schools, cutting their funding, among other things.

These schools have given thousands of low income minority children their only shot at a decent education, which often means their only shot at a decent life. Last year 82 percent of the students at a charter school called Success Academy passed city-wide mathematics exams, compared to 30 percent of the students in the city as a whole.

Why would anybody who has any concern at all about minority young people -- or even common decency -- want to destroy what progress has already been made?

One big reason, of course, is the teachers' union, one of Mayor de Blasio's biggest supporters. But it may be more than that. For many of the true believers on the left, their ideology overrides any concern about the actual fate of flesh-and-blood human beings.

Something similar happened on the west coast last year. The American Indian Model Schools in Oakland have been ranked among the top schools in the nation, based on their students' test scores. This is, again, a special achievement for minority students who need all the help they can get.

But, last spring, the California State Board of Education announced plans to shut this school down!

Why? The excuse given was that there had been suspicious financial dealings by the former -- repeat, former -- head of the institution. If this was the real reason, then all they had to do was indict the former head and let a court decide if he was guilty or innocent.

There was no reason to make anyone else suffer, much less the students. But the education establishment's decision was to refuse to let the school open last fall. Fortunately a court stopped this hasty shut-down.

These are not just isolated local incidents. The Obama administration has cut spending for charter schools in the District of Columbia and its Justice Department has intervened to try to stop the state of Louisiana from expanding its charter schools.

Why such hostility to schools that have succeeded in educating minority students, where so many others have failed?

Some of the opposition to charter schools has been sheer crass politics. The teachers' unions see charter schools as a threat to their members' jobs, and politicians respond to the money and the votes that teachers' unions can provide.

The net result is that public schools are often run as if their main function is to provide jobs to teachers. Whether the children get a decent education is secondary, at best.

In various parts of the country, educators who have succeeded in raising the educational level of minority children to the national average -- or above -- have faced hostility, harassment or have even been driven out of their schools.

Not all charter schools are successful, of course, but the ones that are completely undermine the excuses for failure in the public school system as a whole. That is why teachers' unions hate them, as a threat not only to their members' jobs but a threat to the whole range of frauds and fetishes in the educational system.

The autonomy of charter schools is also a threat to the powers that be, who want to impose their own vision on the schools, regardless of what the parents want. Attorney General Eric Holder wants to impose his own notion of racial balance in the schools, while many black parents want their children to learn, regardless of whether they are seated next to a white child or a black child. There have been all-black schools whose students met or exceeded national norms in education, whether in Louisiana, California or other places around the country. But Eric Holder, like Bill de Blasio, put his ideology above the education -- and the future life -- of minority students.

Charter schools take power from politicians and bureaucrats, letting parents decide where their children will go to school. That is obviously offensive to those on the left, who think that our betters should be making our decisions for us.

Make Democrats Pay for Obamacare and Obamanomics

By David Limbaugh

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

My humble advice to the GOP: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Don't fail to grasp the significance of the Florida election. Make Democrats pay for their president and their shared agenda.

Don't listen to any in the liberal media, the Democratic Party spin machine or any establishment Republican types who tell you Obama didn't get his metaphorical head handed to him in the Florida special election for a House seat last week. Ignore those who tell you that you can't tie this anchor around Democratic candidates who either supported Obamacare when it was being pushed or defiantly stand by it now.

Rejoice that White House officials and many Democratic apparatchiks are denying that Obamacare was "on the ballot in Florida" and are applauding without an ounce of credibility that Obamacare has now turned the corner because the government's website is allegedly now functioning more efficiently.

For people surely know by now that the primary flaws in this law are not merely in the dysfunctional rollout website. In every respect, the law has been an unmitigated disaster that was born of a fraudulent narrative by a fraudulent president.

The Clintons planted the germinating seeds for Obamacare, when Hillary and crew started pushing the 46 million uninsured meme. It was an outright lie from the beginning, because they knew that the numbers were grossly distorted -- that this number included illegals, people who could afford health care insurance but chose not to buy it, people who were eligible for government benefits but didn't avail themselves of it and many who were reported as uninsured but were only in that status for a short period of time.

These toxic seeds didn't bear poisonous fruit until years later, when Obama had laid the groundwork for a groundswell of public angst over economic "injustices" and income inequality. He and his propaganda ministers, with the full and unqualified help of his now corrupt party -- and this is critical for us to recognize and exploit going forward -- leveraged false guilt by telling multiple lies in order to pass this law.

But just as the stated reason for the law (uninsured) was a lie, so were Obama's promises concerning what the law would and would not do. Instead of decreasing the cost of care, it is increasing it; instead of allowing us to keep our plans and our doctors, it is forcing a severance of our relationships with both; instead of improving access to care, it is decreasing it; instead of helping people and providing them with care they weren't getting, it is robbing care for those who already had access to it -- including cancer patients; and it is putting important health care decisions in the hands of heartless bureaucrats and out of the hands of loved ones and their doctors, which is horrifying when you contemplate it but utterly predictable. If you need a picture book to see how this will inevitably lead to the equivalent of "death panels," then you are being willingly obtuse or dishonest because of raw partisanship. This legislative debacle is not even getting people insured. And on top of all this, the law is a squeezing vise on our individual liberties.

While some Democrats and their operatives are wising up and admitting what a political nightmare this law is for their party, others are stubbornly clinging to the fantasy that Obamacare will be "a plus" eventually, possibly even by November, because perceptions of the law will change by then.

Others are blaming Republican partisan negativity for the law's disasters. "Never defend; always attack," advises Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin.

The problem with that is that the law is a self-evident failure -- a nightmare like we've rarely seen before in American policy and politics.

That said, I would caution Republicans that this doesn't mean they can't squander the opportunity that Obama and his party have handed them on a silver platter. In obedience to the idolatrous gods of "bipartisanship," collegiality, civility and moderation, they are fully capable of blowing it by failing to scream from the rooftops just how terrible this law is, that Obama knowingly and deliberately lied about it, that his entire party backed him on it, that millions of American people are being hurt as a result and that any Democrat who now tries to distance himself from the bill is nothing but a political opportunist unworthy of the voters' trust.

In short, unlike their previous mode of operation, Republicans must be unafraid to hit this hard and capitalize on it in every future election, especially in November.

And it's not just Obamacare; Obama's entire agenda has been an unmitigated train wreck, and Republicans need to quit being afraid to call it that and make all Democrats pay for enabling this national destroyer.