The Gap:
Political Correctness impairs one's ability to think and reason. When you are unable to call a thing by its name, you have no power over it; just as in magic, to name a thing is to have some control over it. This is one of the basic, theoretical, premises of all psychotherapy. When we make an interpretation to our patients, we are giving them the language by which they can better understand the conflicts that are causing them distress. Even the therapists furthest from Psychoanalysis, the Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, fist must identify the pre-conscious thoughts that reinforce their patient's bad feelings; by labeling the thoughts and using language to combat the depressive or anxiolytic thoughts (correction: anxiogenic, ie creates anxiety is correct, rather than anxiolytic, which means to decrease anxiety), the person gains more control over their behavior. [More technically, language allows us to bind psychic energy in new structures; think back too my description of neural networks re-equilibrating in lower energy states in response to mutative interpretations.]
Most people recognize reality when they see it. They know that despite all the PC protestations that Islam is a religion of peace, it is unmistakeably true that almost all terror in the world is perpetrated by Muslims. They know that people who blow up bombs on crowded subways and buses are not militants or bombers or insurgents, but are terrorists. Most people tend to ignore such things when they happen far away, but when they happen in one's neighborhood, attention tends to be mobilized.
In Britain, the overwhelming initial response to the bombings of last week has been to support the government in clamping down on the ability of non-assimilated Muslim immigrants to freely express their hate and incite Jihad. According to the London Times on line:
...a Times poll conducted in the aftermath of the bombings indicates that an overwhelming majority of the British public favours a tough approach to terrorist suspects. Almost 90 per cent of people want the police to be given new powers to arrest people suspected of planning terrorist acts, tighter immigration controls and strict baggage inspections.
The BBC even referred to the terrorists as terrorists for almost 24 hours, but the elites at the BBC, funded by the TV tax that every British household pays, has had second thoughts, motivated by their inability to think clearly, their minds clouded by the "ideophobia" that is PC. From the Telegraph today: BBC edits out the word terrorist, By Tom Leonard. (Hat tip: Betsy's Page)
The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday.
Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers".
The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments".
Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say.
Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Today programme, has accused the BBC of "institutionalised political correctness" in its coverage of British Muslims.
Notice how PC thought presents the issue as its own adverse. The word "terrorist" is actually quite clear, concise, and revealing; it is words like "bomber", and "insurgent", and "militant" whose meanings have been disguised in order to obfuscate reality.
Perhaps even more distressing for our friends and allies in Britain, there is this item from CNSNEWS.com: Religious Hate Law Aimed At Protecting Muslims Passes UK Vote, By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com International Editor.
In a victory for British Muslim campaigners, the House of Commons Monday passed a bill aimed at curbing religious hatred, despite critics' warnings that it could worsen relations between religious communities.
This is surrender by Dhimmis, accepting the thoroughly Politically Correct notion that what determines that speech is hate speech are the sensitivities of the most aggrieved. Islamists who commonly quote the Koran calling Jews and Christians infidels deserving of death and the sons of pigs and dogs can now accuse others of hate speech when they quote the Koran.
The bill must pass the House of Lords and could yet fail and the article discusses various interesting effects (with some Muslims fearing it could inadvertently prevent their Imams from quoting the Koran and giving sermons, and others suggesting that Islam would be exempt from the law; it will be interesting to see how this plays out.)
Just so we don't become too complacent, the forces of multiculturism and political correctness are alive and well in the states, too.
Hawaiians Want Race-Based Public Policy Too
Code Pink, CAIR, and the Raging Grannies
The NAACP resorts to extortion
The gap between the elites, and the greater population is growing. In this country the last bastions of left wing elitism can be found in the MSM, the permanent bureaucracy, Academia, and the Democratic Party. They will likely become more and more irrelevant and more and more strident in their irrelevancy. Unfortunately, Europe has not had much of a history of popular participation in their political processes. Since the end of fascism the elites have been in unchallenged control. The Eurocrats will not cede power easily or without struggling to maintain their hegemony. The future for Europe is troubled; the more the elites resist reality, the more likely it will be that the break, when it comes, will be catastrophic. That portends resurgent fascism and/or civil war.
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