So if we use that narrow definition of PC, how does that explain the election of Trump? Do people really want a sexist racist president so they can feel better about being sexist and racist themselves?
My point is that the people in power since Roman times, and presumably before, have known that you distract the public from the serious issues with entertainment, and keep them fed, so they don't rebel.
Nowadays people sit and vegetate in front of the telly munching ****ty snacks, at least in Roman times they'd get the exercise of toddling off down to the arena.
jeez i'm glad on this board we avoid sterotypingI agree.
cheap booze and blind eyes to certain drugs and usage so places like the cheese keep the plebs in line.
you are dead right. thats why the dole exists. not to get people up on their feet after something bad happens but they paid in and now we help them.. not its there to keep the kilroy classes down. just enough to keep them in drink and smokes and a tv in front of them while they churn out more kilroys.... and this is the types that the brexiters appealed to.

I asked this because I read somewhere that people are blaming PC for Trump's election and that at some early stage in his campaign he declared war on the whole concept.i don't know if the two are connected.
I don't believe trump was elected as an anti liberal pc free for all world.
I think he was elected cos he was not a political establishment figure who talked about making the lives of those he targeted better. He sang a good song to west Virginians about coal mines for example. he stood up in Michigan and Pennsylvanian and told them their jobs would return etc etc etc.
I really believe half the idiots who excused his sexual deviancy as "locker room talk" only did so as they didn't want to hear it. had a rubio or christie been found to be such a predator they would have been run out of town. No these people attacked clinton for not dumping bill rather than discuss trump cos they want ed trump for different reasons.
I do not doubt that a sizeable number of bigots and racists are very happy in the us as a result. but i can't beleive there was enough of them to actually make this about PC.
Of course these measures can go too far and become petty at times, but without them things would be a lot worse.
I belive this is driving some people.
Also, no matter how bad you think the status quo is, it doesn't justify any sane person voting for something that will, in all probability, turn out to be worse.
The reason I asked for your definition is that I find people these days use the term PC to include a whole load of rules and restrictions that they deem petty or irrelevant.The problem is that most people are simply interested in (things) getting better, offer nothing and there's always someone who will take advantage.
jeez i'm glad on this board we avoid sterotyping![]()
The original idea of restricting certain words or phrases that are insulting to whole groups has been hi-jacked to a degree.
The reason I asked for your definition is that I find people these days use the term PC to include a whole load of rules and restrictions that they deem petty or irrelevant.
The original idea of restricting certain words or phrases that are insulting to whole groups has been hi-jacked to a degree.
If we're using the original meaning, I find it amazing that people would elect Trump on a platform of being able to call a spade a spade again. The point is that Trump doesn't merely say that, for instance, Mexicans are dirty foreigners and that women are fair-game sex objects, he treats them as though they are - and that becomes an issue far more important than the right to call people names.
Been thinking about this so much in the last couple of days, partly because my own political alignment seems to be all over the place like a geiger counter on acid, and partly because my wife just gave birth to my second child and I am not sleeping so well, so have had lots of time to mull this over......
Let me start by telling you a little about my political background (or lack thereof, until a couple of years ago).
My mums family is full of UKIP supporters, and my dad was a sweetheart, one of the kindest men you would ever meet. He was also a supporter of the BNP.
Now straight away that has ****ed with some of your brainwaves "BNP?, kindest man you will ever meet?....barrgggghhhh".
I was deeply disappointed when I found this out about my father, he was definitely not racist, at least not to my knowledge, he had black and Greek friends, he ran a pub and I never saw him refuse entry to anyone, look down on anyone or be horrible to anybody in that way....so naturally my thought process was something akin to yours right now reading this....."Da fuq?!"
At this point, this was my early 20's, I couldn't have given a rats ass about politics. Blair, Brown etc, these were all just people on my TV. Nothing they said or did ever had any effect on me.......I was nothing to them and they were nothing to me.....
Then something changed.
My first daughter was born. Around this time I started to become alarmed with the amount of footage released on the internet of US cops shooting and killing unarmed minorities, and through investigation of these incidents I found a Youtube channel called "The Young Turks".
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks
Essentially a left wing, progressive Internet news network, covering global issues from the liberal perspective.
And I was sucked in.....I bought it wholesale. I argued with family members over all kinds of ****. Pensions, racism, socialist issues, Social, financial and gender equality.
I felt righteous. And I felt angry when I saw what I perceived as injustice, wherever I may find it. And I took to doing what they do on the Young Turks and in fact what a lot of left wing libs do these days......I attacked the Right Wing. After all, they were Right Wing....they must all be Pro Gun, Anti Abortion, homophobic and against Gender Equality etc.
If there is anything the last 6 months has taught me it's this....The Left can be worse.
They come from a place of goodness, and of well meaning, but then in their zeal to promote equality, some of them can border of fascism.
"That's not right.....you WILL see things our way. It's the only way to go".
A lot of what I feel is covered in the video I posted earlier, and in some of the posts I put on the EU debate thread, but I will repeat myself here.
Its gone too far. We have outlawed racism and homophobia! Now again, your first thought is "Good!!", but no, in my opinion, not good at all.
Basically what you are doing is telling someone that what they feel, or what they believe in, is inherently evil and against the law, and because they think this, they must be punished. Not educated, but insulted, labeled and punished.
Take the example I set the other day.
I punch someone because he is fat, with no prior record, I get charged with assault and given 6 months probation.
I punch someone because he is black, with no prior record, I get charged with "Racially aggravated assault" and given 2 years in prison.
I punch someone because he is gay, with no prior record, I get charged with a "Hate crime" and sentenced to 2 years in prison.
See what's happened there? Same crime, but because the initial motivating factor behind the assault was different, the punishment changes.
And this isn't the fault of minorities, or black people, or Right Wingers.
It's left wingers, hard lefties that have done this.
Now, given what I have just said, do you think a racist, if he is charged with racial assault and sentenced to two years in prison, will see the light and become unracist?
Or see for himself that because the victim was blacked, his sentence was increased, confirming, in his mind, his racist rhetoric, that they are given special treatment and exalted above the majority and become angry, hateful, resentful, and double down on his current beliefs...
Which do you think is most likely?
When Right wing minded folk speak up they are shot down.
Because the cultural war was won by us (The left), and it is no longer acceptable to be homophobic, racist or misogynistic (rightly so), we feel that gives us a license to secrete our views everywhere, as rigid, unbendable and uncompromising gospel. And anyone who does not agree is scum ,or racist etc. If someone speaks out with a view we do not like, they are immediately insulted, mocked and shunned. Where does this leave them? We have blocked them from ever coming left with our self righteousness, so where can they go....only place they can....to the Right.
Yes there is Right wing press (Mail etc), but as I mentioned earlier. You know who the only people are who read Right wing press? Right Wingers! Do you know who the only people who read left wing press are? Left Wingers.
In terms of converting or enlightening anyone, they are useless and serve no purpose, for both sides, except to push a narrative their readers have already swallowed, hook, line and sinker.
Also if we give Extreme Right wingers the means to get their point across on TV, they will expose their own follies, take Nick Griffin on Question time, showed the whole world what a **** he was, and it effectively ended his career. If we try to silence anyone with thoughts that differ from ours, then that just makes you fascist!
I think it is time the extreme left realised that fervour of that intensity does not help our cause, quite the opposite, it hinders it.
By all means be passionate, no one will argue against you for that, some will even admire you for it.
But the day we tell everyone that its our way, or the highway, and damn your ****ing soul if you do not agree, is the day the Left will truly lose.
With Trump as the next President, the Tories in charge here, and facing a forthcoming Brexit.....we need to be as united as ever, to debate, to talk, to get our views across in ways that enlighten and excite, not shun and insult.
Long post and its 2am, im gonna attempt to sleep.
Been thinking about this so much in the last couple of days, partly because my own political alignment seems to be all over the place like a geiger counter on acid, and partly because my wife just gave birth to my second child and I am not sleeping so well, so have had lots of time to mull this over......
Let me start by telling you a little about my political background (or lack thereof, until a couple of years ago).
My mums family is full of UKIP supporters, and my dad was a sweetheart, one of the kindest men you would ever meet. He was also a supporter of the BNP.
Now straight away that has ****ed with some of your brainwaves "BNP?, kindest man you will ever meet?....barrgggghhhh".
I was deeply disappointed when I found this out about my father, he was definitely not racist, at least not to my knowledge, he had black and Greek friends, he ran a pub and I never saw him refuse entry to anyone, look down on anyone or be horrible to anybody in that way....so naturally my thought process was something akin to yours right now reading this....."Da fuq?!"
At this point, this was my early 20's, I couldn't have given a rats ass about politics. Blair, Brown etc, these were all just people on my TV. Nothing they said or did ever had any effect on me.......I was nothing to them and they were nothing to me.....
Then something changed.
My first daughter was born. Around this time I started to become alarmed with the amount of footage released on the internet of US cops shooting and killing unarmed minorities, and through investigation of these incidents I found a Youtube channel called "The Young Turks".
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks
Essentially a left wing, progressive Internet news network, covering global issues from the liberal perspective.
And I was sucked in.....I bought it wholesale. I argued with family members over all kinds of ****. Pensions, racism, socialist issues, Social, financial and gender equality.
I felt righteous. And I felt angry when I saw what I perceived as injustice, wherever I may find it. And I took to doing what they do on the Young Turks and in fact what a lot of left wing libs do these days......I attacked the Right Wing. After all, they were Right Wing....they must all be Pro Gun, Anti Abortion, homophobic and against Gender Equality etc.
If there is anything the last 6 months has taught me it's this....The Left can be worse.
They come from a place of goodness, and of well meaning, but then in their zeal to promote equality, some of them can border of fascism.
"That's not right.....you WILL see things our way. It's the only way to go".
A lot of what I feel is covered in the video I posted earlier, and in some of the posts I put on the EU debate thread, but I will repeat myself here.
Its gone too far. We have outlawed racism and homophobia! Now again, your first thought is "Good!!", but no, in my opinion, not good at all.
Basically what you are doing is telling someone that what they feel, or what they believe in, is inherently evil and against the law, and because they think this, they must be punished. Not educated, but insulted, labeled and punished.
Take the example I set the other day.
I punch someone because he is fat, with no prior record, I get charged with assault and given 6 months probation.
I punch someone because he is black, with no prior record, I get charged with "Racially aggravated assault" and given 2 years in prison.
I punch someone because he is gay, with no prior record, I get charged with a "Hate crime" and sentenced to 2 years in prison.
See what's happened there? Same crime, but because the initial motivating factor behind the assault was different, the punishment changes.
And this isn't the fault of minorities, or black people, or Right Wingers.
It's left wingers, hard lefties that have done this.
Now, given what I have just said, do you think a racist, if he is charged with racial assault and sentenced to two years in prison, will see the light and become unracist?
Or see for himself that because the victim was blacked, his sentence was increased, confirming, in his mind, his racist rhetoric, that they are given special treatment and exalted above the majority and become angry, hateful, resentful, and double down on his current beliefs...
Which do you think is most likely?
When Right wing minded folk speak up they are shot down.
Because the cultural war was won by us (The left), and it is no longer acceptable to be homophobic, racist or misogynistic (rightly so), we feel that gives us a license to secrete our views everywhere, as rigid, unbendable and uncompromising gospel. And anyone who does not agree is scum ,or racist etc. If someone speaks out with a view we do not like, they are immediately insulted, mocked and shunned. Where does this leave them? We have blocked them from ever coming left with our self righteousness, so where can they go....only place they can....to the Right.
Yes there is Right wing press (Mail etc), but as I mentioned earlier. You know who the only people are who read Right wing press? Right Wingers! Do you know who the only people who read left wing press are? Left Wingers.
In terms of converting or enlightening anyone, they are useless and serve no purpose, for both sides, except to push a narrative their readers have already swallowed, hook, line and sinker.
Also if we give Extreme Right wingers the means to get their point across on TV, they will expose their own follies, take Nick Griffin on Question time, showed the whole world what a **** he was, and it effectively ended his career. If we try to silence anyone with thoughts that differ from ours, then that just makes you fascist!
I think it is time the extreme left realised that fervour of that intensity does not help our cause, quite the opposite, it hinders it.
By all means be passionate, no one will argue against you for that, some will even admire you for it.
But the day we tell everyone that its our way, or the highway, and damn your ****ing soul if you do not agree, is the day the Left will truly lose.
With Trump as the next President, the Tories in charge here, and facing a forthcoming Brexit.....we need to be as united as ever, to debate, to talk, to get our views across in ways that enlighten and excite, not shun and insult.
Long post and its 2am, im gonna attempt to sleep.
Irrespective of the rational economic or political arguments