Seems the nation has lost its collective sense of humor judging by a couple of incidents in the news recently. First, Senator John McCain drew charges of racism for a quip regarding Iran's claim of having sent a monkey into space. McCain wondered if the monkey was not, in fact, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Cue the church of the aggrieved and offended - even a fellow member of Congress called McCain's remark racist.
When it is beyond the pale to make a joke about a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, routinely refers to Jews in the most vile terms, and fantasizes about Israel's destruction, then nothing can ever be said about anyone, no matter who true or appropriate, no matter how loathsome the subject, nothing. Have we become so pecksniffian as to take offense at everything, even those things that should be offended from time to time?
The second example comes from the education system, whose self-righteousness meter is calibrated at a nuclear level. A second grader in Colorado was suspended for pretending to throw a grenade at imaginary monsters on the playground. Pretending. On the playground. At imaginary monsters. And these are the people many of you trust your children to on a daily basis. If pretending is now tantamount to terrorism, the theater arts are in for a rude awakening. Unless, of course, their targets are white males, particularly of the Southern variety, and the point is to paint said targets as wife-beater-wearing, gun-totin, gap-toothed hayseeds.
We are beyond political correctness at this point; we have moved into social paralysis, where anything said about anyone at anytime is subject to purposeful misinterpretation. This week, CNN's Don Lemon opined in almost sympathetic terms about the wanted killer and how the suspect's actions, at least prior to his killing people, are practically acceptable given the black community's experience with cops. That a cartoon style gaffer's hook did not come from off-set and yank Lemon out of sight is hardly unbelievable.
A commentator opined that perhaps Lemon's new boss, Jeff Zucker, had that bit of broadcast stupidity and would have a chat with his anchor. Not likely and for two reasons: 1) it is entirely possible that Zucker believes the same thing Lemon does, that cops always have it in for minorities and that any skepticism of law enforcement on their part is justified. But I think 2) is more likely: Zucker, a balding, middle-aged white man, would not dare challenge Lemon as the former knows nothing of "the black experience" and to call out obvious stupidity would be akin to a racist remark in itself.
This is where we have come people, from PC police to thought police, a near-Orwellian experience where offense is taken whether intended or not, where apologies are demanded, where the victim industry rides herd over everything from Tweeter feeds to Victoria's Secret advertisements. You heard about the Vicky's Secrets flap, right? Oh, yeah; a model wore an Indian headdress and the pious lost their minds. Because every company uses its models to purposely insult entire groups. It's madness and it is not going to slow down. And when you have lost the ability to laugh at yourself or anything else, no matter how much truth lies behind a joke or quip, an important part of the social fabric has unraveled, and people withdraw from one another a little bit more.
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