Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions Society Needs to Have, 58% Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
Posted: November 1, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Think Tank | Tags: CATO, Conservative, Free speech, Freedom of Expression, Intolerance, Liberal, Opinions, Politically Correct, Tolerance 1 Comment
Emily Ekins reports: The Cato 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance Survey, a new national poll of 2,300 U.S. adults, finds that 71% Americans believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have. The consequences are personal—58%
of Americans believe the political climate prevents them from sharing their own political beliefs.
Democrats are unique, however, in that a slim majority (53%) do not feel the need to self-censor. Conversely, strong majorities of Republicans (73%) and independents (58%) say they keep some political beliefs to themselves.
[Full survey results and report found here.]
It follows that a solid majority (59%) of Americans think people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in public, even those deeply offensive to others.
[Also see – Free Speech in the Good War
On the other hand, 40% think government should prevent hate speech. Despite this, the survey also found Americans willing to censor, regulate, or punish a wide variety of speech and expression they personally find offensive:
- 51% of staunch liberals say it’s “morally acceptable” to punch Nazis.
- 53% of Republicans favor stripping U.S. citizenship from people who burn the American flag.
- 51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns.
- 65% of Republicans say NFL players should be fired if they refuse to stand for the anthem.
- 58% of Democrats say employers should punish employees for offensive Facebook posts.
- 47% of Republicans favor bans on building new mosques.
Americans also can’t agree what speech is hateful, offensive, or simply a political opinion:
- 59% of liberals say it’s hate speech to say transgender people have a mental disorder; only 17% of conservatives agree.
- 39% of conservatives believe it’s hate speech to say the police are racist; only 17% of liberals agree.
- 80% of liberals say it’s hateful or offensive to say illegal immigrants should be deported; only 36% of conservatives agree.
- 87% of liberals say it’s hateful or offensive to say women shouldn’t fight in military combat roles, while 47% of conservatives agree.
- 90% of liberals say it’s hateful or offensive to say homosexuality is a sin, while 47% of conservatives agree.
Americans Oppose Hate Speech Bans, But Say Hate Speech is Morally Unacceptable
Although Americans oppose (59%) outright bans on public hate speech, that doesn’t mean they think hate speech is acceptable. Read the rest of this entry »
Mel Brooks: ‘Stupidly Politically Correct Society is the Death of Comedy’
Posted: September 22, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks, Political Correctness, Politically Correct 3 Comments
Rozina Sabur reports: Society’s “stupidly politically correct” sensibilities will lead to the “death of comedy”, the veteran Hollywood comedian Mel Brooks has warned.
Brooks, known for his plethora of acclaimed comedy movies, said political correctness was becoming a stranglehold on comedians.
“It’s not good for comedy. Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks,” he said.
“Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering in the king’s ear, always telling the truth about human behaviour.”
The producer and director said that his iconic western parody Blazing Saddles could not be made in today’s political climate.
Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles Credit: Alamy
The 1974 comedy western starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder featured a black sheriff in a racist town.
Brooks said it was the racial prejudice portrayed within the film that was the mechanism behind its cultural significance.
“Without that the movie would not have had nearly the significance, the force, the dynamism and the stakes that were contained in it,” he said.
Disneyland Plans a PC Makeover for its Pirates of the Caribbean Attraction
Posted: July 3, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Disneyland, PC, Pirates of the Caribbean, Political Correctness, Politically Correct, Walt Disney Leave a comment
Disneyland has decided to remove the bride-auction scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
Hugo Martin writes: At Disneyland, pirates can still drink, pillage and fight.
But the swashbuckling tradition of abducting and exploiting women is being sent to Davy Jones’ Locker.
Call it a sign of the times.
The park plans to revamp a section of the popular Pirates of the Caribbean attraction that depicts a parade of women being put on the auction block — under a decidedly un-PC banner that reads “Auction, Take a wench for a bride.”
The auction will be replaced next year by a less offensive scene of pirates forcing the local townsfolk to give up their valuables. After all, who can be offended by a little pirate pilfering?
In the 62 years since Walt Disney welcomed his first visitors to Anaheim, Disneyland has sometimes struggled to adapt the founder’s version of fantasy with public sensibilities that differ from those of park visitors of the ‘50s and ‘60s.
On Tom Sawyer Island, the mock frontier rifles were removed along with the victim of an Indian arrow, who lay sprawled for years in front of a burning settler’s cabin.
An artist’s rendering of the scene that will replace the bride auction in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. (Walt Disney Co.)
For several years, the skippers in the Jungle Cruise were not allowed to blast a fake revolver at the animatronic hippos in the river until visitor complaints forced Disney to re-arm the cruise ship captains and give them the green light to fire at will.
But the Pirates attraction, the last ride that Walt Disney himself helped design before he died in 1966, may have been reined in the most to conform to a more politically correct world — a tricky task given the ride’s original rowdy spirit.
Remember those scene of pirates chasing women throughout a pillaged town? In 1997, Disney put trays of food in the women’s hands so that it looked like the pirates are lusting after the food instead of the fleeing women in their flowing gowns.
Another scene that got pitched overboard showed a pirate holding up women’s lingerie while a frightened woman, apparently naked, hides in a nearby barrel.
“At Disney, their specialty is scrubbing everything to be squeaky clean and palatable,” said Rick Rothschild, a ride designer for Disney from 1978 until 2009. “That’s the Disney way.”
But Disney is not the only company that has had to change an attraction to avoid offending today’s guests. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Harvard Tells Students Gender Identity Can Change Day-to-Day
Posted: April 22, 2017 Filed under: Education, Mediasphere | Tags: Academia, Gender, Gender identity, Harvard, LGTBQ, media, news, PC, Politically Correct, Radical Left, Safe Space Leave a comment
[VIDEO] WOKE: The Energy Drink for Empathy!
Posted: March 22, 2017 Filed under: Education, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Advertising, BLM, Funny or Die, Liberals, Parody, Politically Correct, Privilege, Progressives, satire, video, Woke Leave a comment
[VIDEO] ‘Can We Take a Joke?’ Official Trailer HD, Featuring Adam Carolla, Lisa Lampanelli, Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette
Posted: June 7, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Censorship, Humor, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Accidentally on Purpose (TV series), Adam Carolla, Ann Coulter, Ari Fleischer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bernie Sanders, documentary, Donald Trump, Film, Free speech, Penn Jillette, Politically Correct, Stand-up comedy Leave a comment
In the age of social media, nearly every day brings a new eruption of outrage. While people have always found something to be offended by, their ability to organize a groundswell of opposition to—and public censure of—their offender has never been more powerful. Today we’re all one clumsy joke away from public ruin. Can We Take A Joke? offers a thought-provoking and wry exploration of outrage culture through the lens of stand-up comedy, with notables like Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Adam Carolla detailing its stifling impact on comedy and the exchange of ideas. What will future will be like if we can’t learn how to take a joke?
[VIDEO] A Progressive’s Guide to Political Correctness
Posted: March 28, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, Education, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: college, Free speech, George Will, Marxism, PC, PC Police, Politically Correct, Prager University, Progressivism, Safe Spaces, Speech Police, The Washington Post, Totalitarianism, Washington D.C., Washington Redskins 1 Comment
Is there a point where the “P.C. Police” are satisfied? Are there ever “enough” rules governing the jokes we tell, the mascots of sports teams, or the symbols on city seals? Or should we want a society as non-offensive as the American college campus? George Will, Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, imagines what an idyllic politically correct universe would look like.
Bonfire of the Academy
Posted: November 11, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Education, Mediasphere | Tags: Activism, Berkley, Campus, Columbia, Columbia Daily Tribune, Constitutional amendment, Cornell, Far Left, Fascism, Law, Lawsuit, Liberal, Missouri, Mizzou, Politically Correct, Progressive, The Frankfurt School, Tim Wolfe, Totalitarian, Tyranny, University of Missouri, Yale Leave a comment
University of Missouri system President Tim Wolfe at the board of curators meeting shortly before he announced he would resign his post on Nov. 9. Photo: Allison Long/Zuma Press
As liberal adults abdicate, the kids take charge on campus.
By bonfire of the academy we mean a conflict of values about the idea of a university that now threatens to undermine or destroy universities as a place of learning. Exhibit A is the ruin called the University of Missouri.
In the 1960s—at Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley and elsewhere—the self-described Student Left occupied buildings with what they often called “non-negotiable” demands. In the decades since, the academy—its leaders and faculties—by and large has accommodated many of those demands regarding appropriate academic subjects, admissions policies and what has become the aggressive and non-tolerant politics of identity and grievance.
This political trajectory arrived at its logical end this week at Missouri with the abrupt resignation of the school’s president, quickly followed by its number two official. The kids deposed them, as their liberal elders applauded either out of solidarity or cowardice.
The cause of President Tim Wolfe’s resignation is said to be his failure to address several racially charged incidents on campus and the threat by its Division One football team to boycott this weekend’s game unless he stepped down.
[Read the full text here, at WSJ]
The university’s campus, in Columbia, is not far from Ferguson, Mo. Among the charges against President Wolfe was that his response to the shooting of Michael Brown was inadequate, which is to say, he did not sufficiently take the side of the protesters or rioters. Since Ferguson, the left-wing Black Lives Matter group has come to prominence and intimidated even presidential candidates. This has been accompanied by successive claims of racial grievance against public and private institutions.
In the United States, by now the instinct of the overwhelming majority of people is to address such complaints in good faith, investigate them and remediate where necessary. Only the tiniest minority would wish to see racial grievances bleed indefinitely. Yet the kids assert that America is irredeemably racist. Read the rest of this entry »
The End of History
Posted: November 4, 2015 Filed under: China, Global, Humor, Politics | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Chairman Mao Zedong, Communism, Cultural Revolution, Democratic Party, Marxism, Politically Correct, Progressivism, satire, USA Leave a comment
WSJ Self-Censors Xi Jinping Faux Pas
Posted: August 30, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, China, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: media, news, Politically Correct, Politically Incorrect, Twitter, WSJ, Xi Jinping 1 Comment
Is ‘Black Friday’ Racist?
Posted: December 1, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Black Friday, Brainwashing, Joy Behar, Marxism, Politically Correct, Racism, Sarah Palin, The view, Whoopi Goldberg 2 Comments
Fearing punishment and social alienation, a nervous liberal ponders, “Am I a racist? Is it okay to say ‘Black Friday?”
There’s nothing like tuning into an episode of “The View” for a little exploration of social sensitivities in the modern American culture.
In keeping with that tradition, on Black Friday, a term used to describe the Friday following Thanksgiving, which is the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season, the use of the word “black” to mark this occasion was a topic of discussion on “The View” for its potential “racist” implications.
Co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, who has her own primetime HLN cable show, debated the use of “black” on the Nov. 27 pre-recorded broadcast. Goldberg, a black woman, took the meaning to be a positive and that there was nothing wrong with it used that way. Behar, however, was trouble with the word “black” used in conjunction with Friday, taking the meaning as a negative (emphasis added):
GOLDBERG: Oh, hello and welcome to ‘The View.’ Today is Black Friday, all day long,” Goldberg said. “And I’m going to stay black all day because of it.
BEHAR: Isn’t it a little racist to call it Black Friday?
GOLDBERG: Well, I would have called it African American Friday, but that’s taking something away from it.
BEHAR: But there’s a negative connotation to it? Or does it mean something else?
GOLDBERG: No, it’s like when you make all the money – you’re in the black.
BEHAR: So it’s positive?
GOLDBERG: Yeah. It’s in the black, so it’s a huge great thing.
BEHAR: A lot of times, like blackmail is negative, black sheep.
GOLDBERG: Black people.
BEHAR: No, not black people.
GOLDBERG: But it used to be, it used to be.
The Vader Paradox
Posted: November 4, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Humor, Identity Politics, Movies, PC, Politically Correct, Sci-fi, Star Wars Leave a comment
pundit from another planet 