We are talking about the reaction to the incident Luke not the incident. Nip over to the Chelsea board and you will find any number of threads for your comment.
When I clicked on the thread there wasn't one reply, I spent a while thinking about what you meant, so I didn't see the previous posts to mine. On Rooney, may be he would have...if a camera had been there, 30 yrs ago there were only a handful of cameras if that. I do know swearing wasn't shown much on tv...because there wasn't much tv! so yeah I think he might of.
I can see what DL is getting at but I think it's nothing to do with PC. Most things that people call PC is simply extending the honour you would give to your friends and associates to the whole of humanity and I don't think anyone should think that undesirable. Actually I think it rather good that there is lots of peer pressure to behave well. When I was young people thought drink driving was socially acceptable and the current attitude to it would have astonished most adults in the 60s. Again this is a good outcome. When I first watched football the cheating was done in a different way. It was considered perfectly acceptable to chop a skilful player down and diving would have been almost pointless because it needed to be GBH to get a penalty. I personally prefer the current approach where skill is protected and dirty players are penalised but this coupled with the much greater pressures to win simply means that there's more cheating. What is needed is re doubling of efforts to stop this.
Political correctness has it's origins in genuine and rightful indignation at the treatment of women, black people, etc. However, it has now become a weapon used by those zealots with an axe to grind to repress any opposition to their "correct thinking" Having said that, I do not feel that the Hazard incident has anything to do with P.C. It is simply a result of the far higher public profile of today's footballers. They are now entertainers, and paid commensurately. They are subjected to the same media scrutiny as TV personalities, pop stars, etc. Consequently, they have to accept the pitfalls that will inevitably come from any public misdemeanours
I agree with your sentiments entirely PS however I disagree with the methods that you describe and support. Society in the 60's was in many ways rougher and tougher for sure, but ordinary people had many rights then which have disappeared. We also have a far more violent society, there are many more murders now for example. Although official figures will tell you that the murder rate is falling that is from an all time high in 2005/6 to a current level which is still twice the level of the 1960's. People being arrested and charged for what they say rather than what they do (PC) is only found in repressive societies like Stalin's Russia or Germany in the 1930's. We are more polite only because of the threat of law. Racism is still there it is just repressed.I think this leads to a powder keg which will erupt eventually. It might be more uncomfortable in a non PC society but it is IMO a lot safer. I'd rather see my enemy quite clearly than have him hide behind some enforced politeness.
I think the FA feel the need to be PC in their response to the Hazard incident and therefore make a public spectacle of punishing him. It would not be PC to take no action. It's all about PC.
[SUP][/SUP] I understand what you're saying. I think we just view the F.A's actions differently. To me, it's not as if he's escaped completely unpunished for his actions - but I still feel the F.A's decision is a knee jerk reaction to all the usual hysterical hyperbole uttered by the red top press. In other words, I feel that they have bowed to that pressure rather than any need to be politically correct.
Something I've also said privately. The Western media have convinced the mass populous that we have a democracy and are essentially "free" whilst Eastern and Islamic states are the opposite and face endless oppression. The truth is we are under totalitarian control, as under control as the supposed socialist states. We are not free to do anything, the likes of David Cameron, Thatcher etc don't represent me, you or us as a nation, we have no say in policy making, it's all ultimately a facade.
You seem to be missing the point, I'm over the Hazard incident now, that is simply an effect of social control and PC not the root cause. The issue itself is far bigger than Wednesday but that incident sparked me to raise an issue on here that I have wanted to for some time.
I've no idea why the punishment for Rooney's outburst is being seen as an example of PC gone mad. Had he done it in a past decade then the media would have treated him far, far more harshly than he was. Have people already forgotten the likes of Mary Whitehouse and her reactionary, censorship-happy band of harpies or the incident that helped to promote the Sex Pistols? Hazard's been treated remarkably well by the press and public, in my opinion. There are far more derogatory articles and comments about the ball boy than there are about him.
Spot on When my Parents were growing up you could leave the house door unlocked or even open, go to work and come back to all your belongings. The Twitter arrests are just one example. The riots were the best thing to happen to Cameron because it allowed him to take Mao-like approach with the looters and re-emphasise his "Broken Britain" agenda. One example being one boy that was arrested for stealing one Gingerbread Man and later died in Prison. This is not something well known in public domain as the Government wouldn't want it to get out but this did actually happen.
Very well said Everyone accepts the Hazard decision was inevitable and ultimately correct, apart from Chelsea fans and a few people who take the "if that happened in the street" argument and like to brag about they'd have done more than kick him. Hazard's over it, the ballboy's over it and I don't see why everyone else isn't.
Our democracy may not be perfect, but it's still the preferable political system, considering the alternatives. What you're alluding to, I.e. everybody has a say in policy making, has another name - anarchy
The fact that Mary Whitehouse existed then and that there is no equivalent today highlights the difference between the two societies. There is no need for a Whitehouse today because the social freedoms that were being forged then that she was objecting to have been controlled. The goal posts have been moved by the authorities by the clever use of oppressed minorities. Just take the data protection act, put in place, we are told, to protect our personal information. This at a time when our government has more information on each of us than ever before in human history. Who is it protecting? Where I go, what I do when I get there, even who I am with is all available to the authorities. What I say, right now for example, is all there to be seen. Of course the Daily Mail readers will tell us that if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about. Right! I think that depends on who is deciding the 'right and wrong' and in what context.
Britain is the least Democratic country in Europe so there are plenty of better alternatives on our doorstep without resorting to anarchy
