Cleanse the language and culture so that we offend no one

Commentary by James Shott

Aliens can be “aliens” no longer. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) wants to refer to them in federal matters as “foreign nationals.” And if they are in the country illegally, we cannot refer to them as “illegal aliens,” they now must be transformed into “undocumented foreign nationals.”

Never mind that the proposed new designation is longer and more cumbersome, a larger problem is that the old designation is more accurate.

An “alien” is defined as: A resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization, a foreigner. “Illegal” is defined as: By law or statute, contrary to or forbidden by official rules, regulations, etc.

Ergo, someone from another country who is not a citizen, who is in the country without having gone through appropriate legal processes to be here, is an “illegal alien.”

This proposed change in our use of language is being insisted upon because Castro thinks the label “illegal alien” is demeaning and hurtful. This idea ought to have linguists concerned. If words with specific meaning can no longer be applied to people or situations that precisely fit that meaning, then we have a problem that we may not be able to survive.

Frankly, if you are in this country illegally, you do not deserve any special consideration in how we describe you. If you are offended by the designation you have earned for yourself by being in the country illegally, well then, go back home, and then if you want to return, do it the right way.

The solution to removing the hurtfulness of the term “illegal alien” is to be a legal alien or a legal immigrant by following immigration and/or visitation laws, not by changing a term used in federal documents since 1790 that accurately describes the person and the circumstance.

America once was about individual freedom. You could think what you wanted, pretty much say what you wanted, and within fairly limited legal bounds do what you wanted, and you didn’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time worried about whether what you thought, said or did might offend someone, somewhere.

America did not become the country so many of us grew up in and loved by worrying about offending someone by observing long-standing traditions, or doing normal, everyday things. It also did not become the great nation it once was by accommodating people whose life consists primarily of searching out things that offend them.

One right that is not guaranteed in the Bill of Rights or by the U.S. Constitution is the right to not ever be offended. And thank goodness it isn’t. Part of being an adult is being able to cope with less-than-ideal circumstances, and each of us has an obligation to the rest of us to “just deal with it” sometimes.

Instead, many people believe that when they are offended by something, others must change to suit their preferences.

A good example of over-reaction in the name of being non-offensive is that at least two school districts banned Halloween activities, one of them because 20 percent of the students could not or would not participate.

Milford, Conn. parents and other residents were angered when the school district decided to ban the popular Halloween parades at the city’s elementary schools, due to fear of excluding children who can’t or won’t participate in the tradition.
 
An official of the school district told the local newspaper, the Connecticut Post, “Milford Public Schools do have many children from diverse beliefs, cultures and religions. The goal is for all children to feel comfortable and definitely not alienated when they come to school.”

A petition opposing the decision read, in part: “These are our American customs and traditions and we should not have to give them up because others find them offensive!” And a school parent added, “I’m so tired of my kids missing out on some of the things we all got to do as children and are some of the greatest childhood memories I have due to others saying they find it offensive.”

The school district reversed the decision, however, some obvious questions arise: What about the vast majority who could and probably would participate? Is 20 percent the red line beyond which traditions that some don’t like can no longer exist?

Where does it stop? How few people who are offended by some activity should be able to end to it? We Americans love and treasure our traditions, and some of them have been around since before the birth of the nation.

And, finally: Is it even possible to assure, as the Milford school district intends, that all children, or adults, will always feel comfortable and never feel alienated?

President Barack Obama was likely not involved in the actions of these school districts, but these actions fit comfortably within the idea of his pledge “to fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

Fortunately, there are tens of millions of Americans who want none of it, and will fiercely resist efforts to erase treasured traditions from our lives, and further are disinclined to go crazy trying to avoid offending the terminally offended.

Cross-posted from Observations

Important bedrock fundamentals of the American culture are dying

Commentary by James Shott

Liberals/progressives may be celebrating the results of a new Gallup poll. The culture upon which America was founded and which allowed it to thrive for nearly 200 years has been seriously weakened over the last few decades. Social strictures are falling by the wayside, as responsible behavior takes a back seat to personal pleasure and convenience in some important areas.

When asked to describe themselves on social issues, the Gallup poll of more than a thousand participants reflected the following:
** 5 percent are very conservative
** 26 percent are conservative in general
** 33 percent are moderate
** 21 percent are liberal
** 10 percent are very liberal
** 4 percent can’t decide

Conservatives, moderates and liberals are virtually equally represented, and that is the first time since 1999 that conservatives have not outnumbered liberals.

The growth of Americans who self-describe themselves as social liberals parallels the transformation from a society where nearly every child was born into a family with a mother and a father into a formless mess where millions of children have a mother and a male biological parent, but no father in the home, where men commonly have multiple past and present sexual partners and offspring, but no wives or children.

The poll showed that a majority increasingly cares little for preserving the stability of the nuclear family, or of marriage before parenthood, with 61 percent saying having a baby outside of marriage is acceptable, up from 45 percent in 2002 and 54 percent in 2012.

Gallup says, “Nearly every major demographic or attitudinal subgroup has shown a significant increase since 2004 in their belief that out-of-wedlock births are morally acceptable.” The exception is Americans whose views on social issues are conservative. Their views on out-of-wedlock births “have changed little over the past 14 years. Between 2002 and 2004, an average of 35 percent of social conservatives said having a baby outside of marriage was morally acceptable. Currently, 38 percent hold this view.”

This development has a substantial negative impact, Gallup says, because “babies born to unmarried parents are much more likely to grow up in poverty than those born to married parents.” The report goes on to say “a growing body of research indicates that … children in two-parent households tend to have better academic and emotional outcomes later in life than those born in single-parent households.”

Gallup also reports the following changes from 2001 to 2015:

** The rate of approval of sex between unmarried men and women rose from 53 percent to 68 percent, while approval of divorce rose from 59 percent to 71 percent.
** The proportion of people approving abortion rose to 50 percent for the first time, with pro-lifers constituting only 44 percent. At the same time, those approving of the death penalty for the most vicious criminals dropped from 63 percent to 60 percent.
** One fairly positive finding is that while there are high levels of approval for out-of-wedlock sex and divorce, only a relative few approve of married people having affairs, although the number did rise from 7 percent to 8 percent.

Accompanying the discarding of past culturally stabilizing standards of behavior is the rise of acute hypersensitivity, a condition where the most important activity is that of searching diligently to find something to be offended by.

A metal sculpture on a university campus is the subject of much wailing and gnashing of teeth among feminists after a woman visiting the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio saw the sculpture and snapped a photo of it. The sculpture outraged the woman and her female friend, and the friend tweeted the photo, setting loose pandemonium across the land.

The offending sculpture, titled “Friends,” shows a female student sitting on one end of a bench with a book on her lap, and looking up at a male student standing at the other end of the bench with one foot resting on the seat of the bench.

While normal folks see this as an inoffensive rendering of common friendly student interaction on campus, these two women saw something sinister and deserving of outrage. What was really going on, you see, was “mansplaining,” an offense rivaling murder, to them.

“Mansplaining” is when a man explains something to a woman in a condescending or patronizing manner. It is apparently never appropriate for a man to speak to a woman when she is sitting and he is standing. Either they both must be sitting or standing, or the man may be sitting while the woman stands, thereby eliminating the male superior position.

Being offended is a natural part of life, not a reason to get special treatment. This hypersensitivity takes our attention off really important matters, like the slowest recovery in a century and the 93 million Americans forced out of the workforce, the growing number of Americans driven to poverty by liberal policies, a foreign policy that has weakened the nation in the eyes of the world, and illegals entering the country by the millions, creating a substantial threat to the nation’s stability and security.

Cross-posted from Observations

Does America have free speech, or only “sometimes free speech”?

Commentary by James Shott

Recently, more words have been added to the list that our betters say we can’t use anymore. Most recent is the word “thug,” following the riots in American cities after the deaths of African-American males in confrontations with police officers. News reports describing broken windows and looting of some businesses, burning buildings and cars, etc., by some of the rioters contained that word in what clear-thinking people would accept as accurate usage.

But it immediately was labeled a no-no, because some had decided that it was being used to replace the “N” word. That, of course, falsely assumes that the only people who behave like thugs are black.

One of Hillary Clinton’s support groups virtually dared media folk to use any of 12 descriptive words in discussing her, because doing so, they say, is sexist.

What these folks, so quick on the trigger to ban words they don’t like, forget is that here in America millions of us take the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech seriously. Just because you are offended by something someone said, you don’t get to dictate what people can and cannot say.

And now the Garland, TX event that resulted in two Muslim extremists getting their just desserts before they could murder participants and the event’s sponsor, Pamela Geller, has ignited a furor over whether the Muhammed Art Exhibit and Contest event crossed the boundaries of free speech.

Ms. Geller’s critics say “yes, she has the right to have this contest, even though it is highly offensive to Muslims, but she should not have had the contest because it drove those two Muslims to violence.” Translated into plain English, these critics are saying, “If someone might react violently to what the First Amendment guarantees you the right to say, you shouldn’t say it.” And, they imply that the two now-dispatched murderous Muslim thugs aren’t the ones who did wrong, Ms. Geller is.

In that realm of illogic, what is or is not legitimate free speech depends upon how someone might react to it, and the speaker is responsible for how some maniac might react to what he or she said. That standard, if adopted as law, would lead eventually to darned near everything being ruled improper speech, because these days being offended now rivals baseball for the title of National Pastime.

For those ignorant of the founding principles, a refresher on why there is a free speech clause in the First Amendment might be useful. Since no one cares about restricting speech that they like and approve of, the First Amendment must have been created for a different purpose.

Its purpose was to guarantee the people the right to say pretty much anything they might want to say, however unpopular, vile or hurtful it may be to some. Specifically, the right to speak against government and those involved in it was high on the list. Imagine the futility of declaring independence from an oppressive master, fighting a bloody war to achieve independence, and then not providing mechanisms that guarantee that the citizens of the new nation can think and speak like the Founders did.

Where religion is concerned, consider that Andres Serrano received $20,000 of taxpayer support from the National Endowment for the Arts for the “work of art” titled “Piss Christ,” a crucifix sitting in a container of urine. Millions of Christians and others condemned this as highly inappropriate, but no one tried to kill him, or to rewrite or redefine the First Amendment.

Contrast that with renderings of the prophet Muhammad, whom the Encyclopedia Britannica said was “founder of the religion of Islam, accepted by Muslims throughout the world as the last of the prophets of God.” The episode in Garland, TX, the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest, where two Muslim men took exception to the idea of using Muhammad as the subject of art works and showed up with assault rifles, stands in sharp contrast to the Piss Christ episode.

There are some exceptions to free speech, among them the commonly cited “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” which would spark a panic that would likely hurt people. Drawing pictures of Muhammad, however disgusting they may be, or calling thugs “thugs,” or using certain words to describe Ms. Clinton fall well short of that threshold.

We cannot and will not allow self-appointed censors to cleanse the lexicon of imagined offensive thoughts and words, whether the goal is to protect a political candidate, or because certain words or deeds are likely to offend someone.

The United States has not survived and thrived for more than 200 years by letting a bunch of ideological nannies control their every word, thought and deed.

We should expect and encourage people to use good judgment in their words and deeds, but we cannot persecute them when their legal behavior strays beyond our preferred boundaries.

The United States has its way of doing things that has worked well for a long time, including guarantees of free speech, freedom of religion, and other important individual rights. Those principles are not going to change every time a small, disenchanted group wants a change.

Cross-posted from Observations