Facepalm intersectionality.

The state of the country today - not that everyone thinks this way, but that there are enough people that think it's okay to be this way.

Why have you let this happen America?  Complacency? Shame? What is it? 

I understand with the election of Trump and the growing backlash against political correctness that perhaps the pendulum has begun to swing back in the right direction but there is so much damage to the national fiber to undo.  It will take decades to repair the corrupted thinking of generations of gullible people.  It should never have come this far to start.

Norm MacDonald versus teacher

Norm MacDonald is not in favor of political correctness and he's not afraid to stand up for it.  It's hurt his career but not his comedy, at all.

[Warning - language]

Gorka & Rubin Discuss PC culture and foreign policy

One of president Trump's early and vocal supporters, Sebastien Gorka visits the Rubin Report to discuss political correctness and foreign policy, as well as other things. Rubin's interviews are so good that I've included all of the Gorka videos here as they are all worth the watch.

Video II:



Video III:

Political Correctness Machine - double plus ungood

It must be stopped.

George Carlin on political correctness

Liberal icon George Carlin, does not like political correctness.  And he's right.

In case you missed it, Jerry Seinfeld gets real

Jerry Seinfeld recently lamented political correctness on college campuses, and by extension, society as a whole (warning - language):

Asked why he avoids performing on college campuses, Seinfeld...said, "I hear that all the time. I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC.’"...

He did so in the form of an anecdote about his 14-year-old daughter:

My wife says to her, ‘Well, you know, in the next couple years, I think maybe you’re going to want to be hanging around the city more on the weekends, so you can see boys.’ You know what my daughter says? She says, ‘That’s sexist.’ They just want to use these words. ‘That’s racist.’ ‘That’s sexist.’ ‘That’s prejudiced.’ They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

Seinfeld went on to describe this sort of political climate as a detriment to comedy and praise Louis CK for “not worry[ing]” about political correctness.”

Seinfeld followed it up on Late Night with Seth Meyers, about half way through the clip, after the self-important New Yorker magazine guy gets his say.

Way to go Jerry.  Seriously, good job.

Left-on-Left political correctness attacks?

As a conservative, my inclination when liberals are arguing with liberals over liberal-centered issues is to stand back and let them go at each other.  So when the New York Times decided to fire Jill Abramson for demanding equal pay for equal work as Executive Editor with her regards to her male predecessor, that was my first inclination.  Provided the fight stays on the left.  I don't know that it will stay there, because it seems to be a media hot-button issue right now. 

In fact, The New Yorker for example, jumped right on the story:

Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect. Sulzberger is known to believe that the Times, as a financially beleaguered newspaper, needed to retreat on some of its generous pay and pension benefits; Abramson, who spent much of her career at the Wall Street Journal, had been at the Times for far fewer years than Keller, which accounted for some of the pension disparity. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson’s total compensation as executive editor “was directly comparable to Bill Keller’s”—though it was not actually the same.

The political correctness of equal pay is unequivocally a progressive agenda item.  Although equality is not a liberal-only issue.  Equality affects everyone.  But gender equality is, as every other form of equality, about equal opportunity, and not equal outcome.  Not every female would deserve equal pay with every other female in a given role, and to compare any two people, with different experience, and different skill sets will inevitably result in different value that they can offer in a role.  Therefore different pays are to be expected, always.  True equality comes from equal opportunity, not equal outcome. That would be a Marxist resolution.  Is the marketplace willing to hire female Executive Editors?  If so then equal opportunity exists.

Unless.....

That equal offer of employment comes with a clearly reduced level of compensation.  I'm not talking about 10% less - that could be attributable to a difference in experience. So too perhaps could a 30% difference in pay.  Maybe.  But a 50% difference in pay would seem to be a different scenario.  It could be gender based, or it could be a bias against Abramson individually.  Either way, the notion of equality is not being applied.

All that said, it is hard to argue that equal pay for equal work is some sort of unreasonable concept.  Within an acceptable range as defined by experience etc., it is likely the norm in most companies.  If women all end up at the bottom of the range and men all at the top, maybe there is still a problem, but proving that is not so simple.  Comparing women in company A to men in company B with similar roles is not necessarily an apples to apples comparison.   This is something that calls for a layered analysis, which is an expensive proposition to research and not necessarily even possible given the secrecy surrounding pay in many companies.  In other words, there is no easy answer, no A-HA, no "gotcha!" in this discussion.

Which is all the more reason as a conservative to step aside and watch the New York Times once again be subject to criticism and concern - especially on an issue that as a liberal media outlet, they should be championing.  Holding the NYT up to their own standards is something Alinsky might do if he were on the conservative side of the political spectrum.  I'm happy to do so, with the proviso that this doesn't turn into another attack on conservatives as per usual.  As a conservative, I believe in free markets - even when it comes to labor.  If Abramson is worth as much as her predecessor (or more, or less) she should be paid accordingly.  And if she isn't being paid what she is worth, she is free to leave and seek more gainful employment - the free market will see her get offers in accordance with what she has to offer. This should be true for every woman, and every man.  Underpaying someone will result in only being able to hire inferior employees.

As far as being able to leave for better employment, I suspect that is actually what is happening in this case already.

Why do we get the ugly guy?

This photogenic liberal, Drew Barrymore had this to say "I just didn't understand the American political system, and I felt really stupid about that." while she was busy pushing her "documentary" about the importance of voting. And she wore this shirt.

Meanwhile, Rowan Atkinson, not the most photogenic and not necessarily a conservative, came down on the side of conservatives with this comment as well as the one below with respect to the over-reach of political correctness.

 



“‘I’m not intolerant,’ say many softly-spoken, highly educated liberal-minded people,” Atkinson said. “‘I’m only intolerant of intolerance.’ And people tend to nod sagely and say, ‘Oh yes, wise words, wise words.’ And yet if you think about this supposedly inarguable statement for longer than five seconds you realize that all it is advocating is the replacement of one kind of intolerance with another.”

The law, he said, is “indicative of a culture that has taken hold of the program of successive governments that with the reasonable and well-intentioned ambition to contain obnoxious elements in society, has created a society of an extraordinarily authoritarian and controlling nature.”

But it's not likely he's going to be as respected by a lot of people for his comments as Barrymore would be for her shirt.

Juan Williams fired. Liberal intimidation extends to the left too.

Everyone on the right side of the blogosphere has already talked about this. I'm not going to be the first to offer this opinion but I think it bears repetition.

While I typically disagree with Juan Williams, his firing for expressing a personal feeling was wrong and he has been done an injustice.

There. I said it. I'm not leaping to his defense because NPR is a very liberal organization and Juan Williams supposedly said something politically incorrect. I'm not leaping to his defense because he said it on Fox news. His firing was simply wrong. It is ironic that conservatives are coming to his defense and liberals seem to be happy he's gone because he went off the p.c. reservation. That's not universally true of liberals, I should add.

But my point is that unlike many other liberals who go on Fox, Juan tried to operate with journalistic integrity. His comments were typically well phrased and reasonably thought out. Definitely liberal, and 99% of the time I disagreed. But I respected, even prior to last night, how he operated. No name calling, no denigrating (that I saw), and talking based on facts instead of p.c. emotion.

Shut down free speech, even on the left, liberal elite? Just before the election too? People are onto you. Dumb move.

Oh, and it's some Christian holiday too.

Earlier this week it was reported on ABC some town in Iowa decided to rename Easter to 'Spring Holiday'.  The de-Christianification of America continues.  They cited separation of church and state as their reason. It's more like separation of city officials and brains. Despite the ever-receding influence of Christianity in American politics and culture, it is still the dominant religion on the planet and in the U.S. It has nevertheless been tarnished and sullied at every turn by various progressive zealots.

The latest example, today Google's main page.