I wrote about how when Republicans are accused of saying derogatory things about any group of people or proposing discriminatory ideas that adversely affect women or any minorities, they are quick to haul out the defense that they are being criticized because of ‘political correctness’.
Ben Carson is a leading practitioner of this PC gambit, finding the scourge of political correctness in the most unlikely places. He seems to think that many of the current ills of society are due to political correctness preventing people from seeing clearly what needs to be done. That is also his default response to any criticisms of his own stances.
And now he does it again, this time with the issue of taking in refugees, where he was asked how he would handle the crisis.
“I would recognize that bringing in people from the Middle East right now carries extra danger,” Carson explained. “And we have to be extra cautious.”
“You know, we need to tighten it up and be very careful,” the candidate added. “Because we cannot put our people at risk because we’re trying to be politically correct.”
Where will he next find PC offenses? Stay tuned! It won’t be long until he tells us.
Very nearly all of the time, “Political Correctness” is really just a derogatory spin on the idea of “Treating Other People with Respect”.
Bryon Clark’s browser hack changed the former to the latter, and the results were brilliant!
Daniel,
I have been trying to think of a succinct way of capturing what people really object to when they use the term ‘politically correct’ and your formulation captures it perfectly. I am going to use it in future, if you don’t mind.