In the fallout from the White House releasing Obama's birth certificate and the predictable racism screeds, I've been thinking about what drives P.C. culture. And I think that most of what it comes from is people seeing things that contradict their world view, and instead of processing those facts and adjusting their world view accordingly, they actively deny those facts and claim that to do otherwise is immoral.
One extremely obvious example is the P.C. notion that terrorism is only part of a fringe part of Islam. It is stated all the time. Even the conservative commentators will always qualify the statement that we are at war with Muslim terrorist with statements that they are not true Muslims, but perverting the religion. And yet, we regularly see whole Islamic nations collaborating with terrorist, or even engaging in acts of terrorism. Hamas, the democratically elected party in Palestine, has condemned the execution of Osama bin Laden. Why would they do this if they did not support him? Many prominent Muslim clerics have condemned the way in which Osama bin Laden was put to rest. They have said that dumping his body in the ocean violated Islamic law. But if he was not a “true” Muslim, and other followers of Islam did not see him as one of their own, why does it matter? And it is becoming more and more clear that Pakistan knew about and was actively aiding Osama bin Laden. This is to say nothing of Iran's statements of intent to blow Israel off the map, the new election of Hezbollah's (Hezbollah is the Shiite version of Al-Qaeda) democratic take over of Lebanon, or Egypt's rioting mobs brutalizing and raping American reports who actually supported them.
But if Islam is a religion of violence and death instead of peace, then it would mean that either all cultures or all people groups are not equal. And all cultures and people groups should be completely equal, so to recognize the murderous ways of Islam wherever it rules would be wrong.
This same logic can be applied to our president. All you have to do to see that compared to most presidents the man is a complete idiot is to watch a video of him taking questions. It's painful wading through all the uh...'s and um...'s. Contrast that with this video of Clinton answering a “gotcha” question from Herman Cain back during his presidency. He almost never stumbles, draws on a lot of facts and figures that I certainly didn't know before watching the video, makes good calculations on the fly, and in all comes out looking pretty good considering that he was selling pure snake oil. George Bush was no Clinton, but even he actually manages to make his point, draw on a number of specific relevant facts, and does so without rambling.
This is in sharp contrast with other black firsts. The first black boxer to have a title bout, went on to not only win it, but gain the reputation of being the greatest boxer up to that point in history. He is still widely regarded as the best ever. Jackie Robinson, although not generally considered the best, was an extremely good. And this is not a phenomenon that is limited to just sports. Many black artists who may not have had specific break through moments, there are certainly examples, such as Ella Fitzgerald, of black people finding their way in the world of the arts and blazing very bright trails and some of the best to have ever lived. And so Obama, as the first black president should be one of the greatest ever. And any facts that detract from that are to be held as racist.
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