The Little Engine of Cant

 
Dymphna has recently lamented the deleterious effects of political correctness on the culture at large. Earlier I addressed the issue of “the enemy within” and how PC undermines our country and our culture. This narrow thinking puts us in mortal danger from the Great Islamic Jihad.

Political correctness insinuates itself into the body politic under many aliases – multiculturalism, diversity, tolerance, conventional wisdom, progressive thought (how’s that for an oxymoron?), all the smelly little orthodoxies of our time. It comes in a number of varieties and flavors.

As a public service, I have gathered together the ten basic principles of PC. You might call them the Ten Postulates of PC; or maybe they could be couched in the imperative as the Ten Commandments of Multiculturalism.

1. America is uniquely evil.
2. America is never justified in defending itself.
3. Illiterate people from poor societies are superior to Americans.
4. The Earth would be better off without human beings.
5. Making a profit is always immoral.
6. Differences between individuals or groups are unfair.
7. For Designated Victim Groups, strong feelings excuse all behavior.
8. Policies informed by Judæo-Christian principles are inherently suspect.
9. Conservatives are hypocrites; liberals are sincere.
10. There are no acts of God; there are only acts of Government.

There are numerous corollaries, extensions, and exceptions to the Ten Postulates, so a little exegesis is in order.

1. America is uniquely evil.

American “democracy” is a charade. The US is really a fascist dictatorship ruled by the Bush cabal manipulated by Zionist neocons.

Other countries can be arranged in descending order of evil: Israel, Britain, Australia, Italy, and so on, until we arrive at the Arab countries, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. Cuba, of course, has no evil in it whatsoever.

There are occasionally exceptions to American evil, but only under a Democratic administration, and with the approval of France and Germany.

2. America is never justified in defending itself.

War never solved anything. Negotiations through the UN are always the best way to address issues. Nations coming together in goodwill through common dialogue can work with each other to solve their problems. If Americans were more sensitive to the diverse concerns of other cultures, there would never be any aggression against us.

Etc blah yak.

3. Illiterate people from poor societies are superior to Americans.

People who are raised without all the technological distractions that afflict us in the West are better able to reach intuitive understanding of the world and live in tune with their environment. Just ask Drew Barrymore – she thinks it’s better to live in an earthen-floored hut without electricity than in a Malibu beach house.

Like, y’know, these people, they can, like teach us stuff about Mother Earth and all that.

4. The Earth would be better off without human beings.

Humankind is a scourge, an affliction, upon the face of the planet. We must reduce our ecological “footprint”, preferably to zero. The human population must be drastically reduced.

Exception: we Greens will remain, in order to decide who has to die.

5. Making a profit is always immoral.

Property is robbery. All economic activity should be controlled by special government bodies to make sure prices are fair and nobody gets ripped off. See #6 below.

6. Differences between individuals or groups are unfair.

Affirmative action. No child left behind. Everybody is above average. No game has a loser. Nobody is richer than anyone else. Nobody is stupider than anyone else. No one knows more than anyone else.

We await with eager anticipation the equality of the grave.

7. For Designated Victim Groups, strong feelings excuse all behavior.

When South Central LA is burning, it’s understandable because members of a Designated Victim Group were aroused to ire by a court verdict. When Arabs crash jets into skyscrapers, they’re angry because our policies have made them poor and backward, and, besides, Israel oppresses their Palestinian brothers. When a junior thug eliminates half his high school class with gunfire, it’s because he was bullied and held in contempt by jocks.

8. Policies informed by Judæo-Christian principles are inherently suspect.

To act on moral principles is judgmental, and we must not be judgmental. Except, of course, when condemning racists, sexists, homophobes, bigots, fundamentalists…

9. Conservatives are hypocrites; liberals are sincere.

If a conservative’s policies benefit his constituents, he’s being cynical. When a liberal lines his pockets with public funds, sleeps with his secretary, and assaults his subordinates – well, he’s doing it “for the children”.

10. There are no acts of God; there are only acts of Government.

When a tornado takes out a trailer park, the government’s warning system is inadequate. When a hurricane devastates South Florida, building codes must be improved, and FEMA will pay for the damage. When people die in floods, earthquakes, ice storms, and asteroid strikes, the government is to blame for not warning them or protecting them.

On the positive side, government creates jobs and distributes benefices through the generosity of its welfare programs. Government makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall, especially on subsidized agriculture.

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Political correctness is a corrosive ideology that has eaten its way through most of the major institutions of Western culture, leaving them hollowed out and weakened in the face of the Great Islamic Jihad. Our enemy is filled with righteous zeal, ready to die for his beliefs, and has no doubt in the superiority of his religion. We Westerners, with our self-deprecatory posturing and theology of self-loathing, have inadequate spiritual defenses against this onslaught.

Scandinavia is the canary in the coal mine of the West. As Rune and Fjordman have repeatedly demonstrated, something is rotten in Denmark (and Sweden and Norway). The Netherlands is already plucking the first fruits of its radical multicultural tolerance.

These brave people in Europe are giving us their early warnings. It is past time to update our virus definitions before the PC Worm shuts us down.

29 thoughts on “The Little Engine of Cant

  1. 11) All lists and categories are inherently hierarchical and to be condemned and deconstructed. The only category that can be excused is that of victim of all the others.

  2. I think that the very fact we haven’t instituted two of the first steps for America to protect herself is telling.

    Those steps are stopping Muslim immigration/deporting illegals, and racial/religious profiling. Hint: it ain’t grandma that’s going to blow up your airplane! Nor is it a 30 year old white male. It’s going to be… wait for it…
    middle eastern men, likely more than one.

  3. jeez, Islamophobe…

    With incorrect thoughts like that you can forget any job as an airport screener. Norman Mineta must be shaking with rage by now…

    ~D

  4. Little do all you lizardoids know that this site is secretly maintained by the PC Police to lure in the Enemies of Multiculturalism. Ha! Now we know who you are. Beware!

  5. Great site Dymphna, Baron.

    I think that the goal here is indoctrination to the new groupthink progressivism which values the group over the individual. While a lot of us here in the US were trumpeting the death of communism, the Marxists were simply rethinking their game plan.

    Multicultural ideologists have incorporated this essentially Hegelian Marxist “privileged vs. marginalized” dichotomy into their framework. As someone said recently, multiculturalism is not “multi” or concerned with many groups, but “binary,” concerned with two groups, the hegemon (bad) and “the Other” (good) or the oppressor and the oppressed. Thus, in global progressive ideology, “equity” and “social justice” mean strengthening the position of the “victim” groups and weakening the position of “oppressors”-hence preferences for certain groups are justified in the mind of the modern leftist.

    But this ideology has a religious component, too, as is demonstrated so beautifully and frequently on the leftist web sites recently. Sin is no longer a violation of God’s law but merely insensitivity toward designated “minorities.” Redemption is to be found in confessing that you belong to a wicked race (the Europeans) and paying penance to non-Western peoples. Penance takes many forms–foreign aid, reparations, liberal immigration laws, generous asylum policies, affirmative action, quotas, self-debasement, and general confessions of sinfulness. As a result, Europeans now believe that the path to righteousness and acceptance before God requires repudiating their people and civilization. An “act of rejection by the non-victim group directed against their civilization, gender, race, or ancestors indicates sanctified living in a world or society held to be reprobate.”

    The religious character of the ideology accounts for the fanaticism of its supporters, their eagerness to persecute opponents, their hysterical reactions to reasoned dissent, and the lack of resistance from Western populations to the hostile and ethnocidal policies imposed on them by their governments. Cultural and political authorities defend multiculturalism and political correctness as the essence of morality, in a manner that appeals to the lingering Christian heritage of the population. Opposition thus appears as evil, and elites resort to demonization whenever they or their policies are challenged.

  6. David, I agree with you exactly. I meditated on the religious nature of PC/Multiculturalism in my “Enemy Within” posts.

    The projected sense of sin extends beyond the purely leftist/Marxist political sphere and saturates the entire culture of the elite left. The environment, women’s rights, race, children, euthanasia — each has its designated sinners lying on the wrong side of the issue.

    By some perverse logic, all of these issues lead the West down the garden path of narcissism towards nihilistic self-destruction. God help us all.

  7. Baron,

    excellent posts. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts, both here and at Belmont. I’ve noted at my “home blog”, Redneck’s Revenge, (which was started when someone similar to yourself was banned from The Command-Post for just such a comment as your post- albeit less diplomatically ;))

    As I was saying, I’ve noted before that I fear leftist dogmatists (whom I refer to as redeemers) more than I fear Islamic fanatics, mainly because you can look and listen to an Islamic fanatic and recognize that you are in danger. We don’t view leftists the same way. Obe can only imagine how harmless the residents of a sleeping Europe and Russia thought a starving Jew-hating artist and a seminary reject were.

    DC (aka- johnnymozart)

  8. As an exercise in understanding the left, it rings true and is well reasoned.

    Now stop analyzing, and actually imagine incorporating any one of those 10 into your worldview. Imagine what you would have to do to your mind to get to that place… the twisted evil logic that you would have to perpetrate upon yourself.

    I enjoyed your post, and then I felt sick.

  9. a4g, join the club. Every time I read one of Rune’s or Fjordman’s communications about what’s going on in Scandinavia, it horrifies me. I was in Scandinavia back in the ’60s, and I remember those places fondly. The idea of what is happening now is sickening…

  10. re #4 – The environ-fascists really annoy me. In the long run, the Earth will be a cooked cinder once the sun exhausts its hydrogen and begins burning helium. The only hope the bunnies and daisy’s have of surviving the last great bar-b-que is if mankind develops enough technology that we can scoop them up and move them to a more friendly place to live!
    Those screaming children should learn something before they impose their self hating wisdom on the rest of us!

  11. Great post David. I have long planned to write a post about the religious nature/zeal of modern leftism (you could have added that besides their obsession with “sin”, they also have their own worship services and hymns {aka “peace marches” “teach-ins” and their oft repeated slogans, and their own witch-tribunals.)

    Your post is better than anything I could write about the same topic. Do you mind if I copy it and post it on my own blog as “Quote of the Week” (with accreditation of course.)?

  12. You are so right. A radio announcer here yesterday used the old saying ‘sounds like the pot calling the kettle black’ then hesitated, saying ‘I hope that’s not racist’. When people have to think carefully about the pc police before saying anything, nothing gets said.

  13. Since you’re the source, I’ll post this here too:

    How about this decalogue for the neo-neocons? And just what DO you believe, other than that all people who are not you are somehow suspect?

    1. America is uniquely good.
    2. America is always justified in attacking and subverting other nations.
    3. Americans, by virtue of our wealth, are morally superior. Why else would we be so rich?
    4. God gave the earth to homosapiens to do with as we wish, no matter what.
    5. Making a profit is always moral, no matter what the individual or social consequences.
    6. Differences between individuals are always the result of differences in moral worth. There is the elect, and there is the preterite.
    7. For Americans, belief in our principles excuses any behavior.
    8. Any policy that can be justified by a reference to biblical scripture is good, no matter if interpretations of the text differ.
    9. Conservatives are good; liberals are vile, spoiled, materialistic, morally depraved whiners.
    10. All earthy events are manifestations of God’s will, especially if they are in our favor. Science is irrelevant. The phrase from the US Constitution, “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…” is simply a poetic flourish.

  14. Lichanos, I recognize that Manichæan complements can be formed for each postulate. As I noted on neo-neo’s site, I used grotesque exaggeration to make my point. It is possible to tar the Right with the same broad brush which I used on the Left.

    But there is a distinction in the extent of the satire: on the Right, you have to turn over rocks on the extreme fringes before you can find people who believe things resembling your converse postulates. But on the Left, views not that far off my satire are approaching the mainstream. Witness Howard Dean calling Republicans “evil”, or Michael Moore likening al Qaeda terrorists to “minutemen”. How many Republican ex-governors or chairmen of the RNC have said anything like what you list here? How many Republican former Presidents sit next to advocates of your lines at the Republican convention?

    Give me a break.

  15. Baron, it appears that the Congress and administration do indeed adhere to certain of Lichanos’ “commandments”; the current energy bill seems so close to #5 as to be nearly self-parodying.  All it does is feed money to certain entrenched interests.

    Paying off one’s supporters without actually doing anything about the nation’s problems (most of the helpful elements were stripped out, and some added elements are actively harmful) in this time of war is betrayal of the citizens and national interest – and I speak as a confirmed anti-leftist, one-time reader of Rand and small-l libertarian.

    There are plenty of things being said by GOP bigwigs or appear to be accepted wisdom among Red state folks which provide an uncomfortable level of support for 1, 4, 8 and 10 as well.  That’s half the list… and yes, it gives me pause.

  16. Engineer-Poet — I’m not a Republican, I’m a conservative, so I hold no brief for the Republican party in general. They are a bunch of big-spending spineless so-and-sos, just marginally better than the Dems at this point in history.

    But the examples you cite — while true — are not the professed principles of the party; they are capitulations to sleazy expediency on the part of our elected representatives.

    I avert my fastidious gaze from their disgusting behavior, as I would from the making of sausage.

    Moore and Dean, on the other hand, represent the principled wing of the “Democratic” party. That’s the difference, and it’s significant.

  17. Great post. Nice distillation of the masochistic schadenfreude that is the modern American left.

  18. Baron:  One party does sleazy things against the national interest “out of its principles” (positions adopted to buy votes from its interest groups).  The other does them out of “sleazy expediency” (exactly the same, only not so loud).

    As a citizen and voter, this is a distinction without a difference.

  19. Poet, I disagree. To have sound principles and then sometimes violate them is better than to have dangerous, lethal principles and abide by them. Look at the mess in Canadian politics right now and you can see where it leads: the socialists (i.e. Liberals) got into the corrupt mess they’re in, much worse than anything we have in the USA, by applying their statist principles.

    Take this principle: “When our party controls the levers of state, what we do is right by definition.” (The Clintonian model) This leads inexorably to severe corruption, and it is where the left would drag us if allowed.

    I’m all for pillorying the Republicans who line their pockets, slather on the pork, and blow with the winds of the polls. But at this particular juncture of history, they are measurably better than the alternative, because their principles are better. IMHO.

  20. By holding the bleepers accountable. Take names and numbers. Call them. Make yourself heard. No one salivates like a politician.

    I support the Club for Growth since they have a system for promoting fiscally conservative national politicians. They tried to wedge out what’s-his-name in PA, but he’s too entrenched. Next time, their guy will win. They went after Daschle. Supported the guy in LA. A good group.

    We also keep close tabs on who votes for what. And we donate to our fiscally conservative, principled congressman, a good man who’s been in a long time and is loathed by the liberals.

    It is my fervent hope that the blogosphere makes the doings in DC more transparent. Google “Thomas Legislative Info”…run by the Library of Congress.

    ~D

  21. “We are Americans, you will be assimilated. Your cultural uniqueness will be added to our own. Resistance will be celebrated in our history books for generations to come.”

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