In my series on Political Correctness & the Denial of Reality, I described the Utopian roots of the system of thought known as Political Correctness. In Part III, I suggested three essential components of PC thought:
1. Everyone is equal, therefore the only reason outcomes are ever unequal is because of flaws in the system. In a perfect system, equality of outcomes would be assured.
2. Since everyone is equal, there can be no differences between people; men and women, therefore, are not just equal, but are identical in every way. Anatomy is no longer destiny, in fact, it is irrelevant.
3. All differences in outcome, therefore, must be the result of the powerful group, the ruling class, discriminating against the weaker groups.
PC lends itself to oppression because it requires equality of outcome and inequality of outcome is taken as a priori evidence of discrimination and oppression. The PC Thought Police have no problem telling others what they want them to think; if necessary they are perfectly willing to abridge our rights in order to enforce their "higher" rights of equality. Of necessity, PC demands that the government become the arbiter of last resort (which is one of the reasons the battle over the Supreme Court is so crucial to the left; it is the only branch of government where their ideas still hold sway.) When the left/liberals are in power they will attempt to aggrandize more power to themselves with the intention of ensuring greater justice for aggrieved groups of the oppressed. [The fact that Republicans in power attempt to increase their power, but with differing justifications, is not germane to this discussion, but it does say something about the allure of power.- SW]
Since the basic fantasy of PC is that an all powerful, all nurturing "Other" will fulfill all needs and desires, the implication that any frustration of one's desires is caused by an oppressor is a natural outgrowth of PC. This belief/fantasy has fueled an explosion of litigation in our country. Once the idea has been accepted by Judges and juries that there is always someone more powerful and wealthier who can be held responsible for the vicissitudes of life, and that victims can never be held responsible for their own foibles, there are no boundaries to suing any important person or organization for all injuries and wrongs.
The New York Times printed a story from the AP, which makes my point:
Jury Rules Port Authority Was Negligent in '93 W.T.C. Blast
NEW YORK (AP) -- A jury ruled Wednesday that the Port Authority was negligent in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 -- a long-awaited legal victory for victims of an attack that killed six people and wounded 1,000.
The six-person jury ruled that the Port Authority, the agency that owned the World Trade Center, was negligent by not properly maintaining the parking garage, where terrorists detonated more than a half-ton of explosives in a Ryder van. It said the negligence was a ''substantial factor'' in the allowing the bombing to occur.
The jury took just one day to reach its verdict. Several separate trials will now be held to determine money damages.
Apparently, the failure to spend untold millions of dollars to prevent every and any foreseeable injury or death, or even unforeseeable injuries or deaths (that become foreseeable in retrospect, of course), is grounds for finding negligence by those who are in charge.
One can imagine that if the terrorists had noticed increased security barriers and decided not to attack the WTC in 1993, but had opted instead to toss some Anthrax into the ventilation system, the Port Authority could have been held responsible for not foreseeing such an "obvious" biological attack. In hindsight it is easy to predict terrorist attacks; unfortunately, the terrorists in this world have minds and imaginations and it is literally impossible to foresee every possible terror attack; it is also literally impossible to protect against every conceivable and inconceivable terrorist attack.
I have no fondness for the Port Authority and the families of the dead and injured from the 1993 attack deserve sympathy and understanding, but this jury decision is yet another disaster for our legal system and our culture. We have now reached the point where the elite on the left insist that we should even be able to defend ourselves without any American military men or women being put at risk.
Sometimes terrible things happen that in retrospect could have been prevented or mitigated, but no country on earth has the ability to make life risk-free. Children can no longer play on jungle gyms in most areas; companies put more and more ridiculous warning labels on their products in the vain hope they won't be sued when someone does something stupid and gets hurt; we are dumbing down our society with the hope that the dimmest of all of us is make safe from his own foolishness. It would be sad if it wasn't so disturbing.
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