"What a tizzy the neo-Confederates will have when they learn that the slogan on their new Georgia state flag originated with, not a rebel, but a patriot -- one appointed by Abraham Lincoln."
NO Bonehead ... its about politicians pandering to select groups who advocate that typically un-American value of Political Correctness! For your further edification on what PC really is I'll enclose the following excerpt. Its a little lengthy but a good read!
' PC is the new American religion, and it is more fanatical than any fundamentalist religion ever thought of being. It is more dangerous than any fundamentalist religion because it now has control of the court system, the trial lawyers, the media, and one of the major parties. PC-ism is dangerous because it demands equal conditions and, more importantly, equal outcomes. It does so by taking money and tribute from one group and handing it to the government or to some aggrieved PC entity. When an individual rises to prominence or wealth, the PC philosophy says it is because of some unfair condition in society.
PC has succeeded for the most part because it got control of the language, revised history, created division, destroyed the Bill of Rights, made traditional, or Christian, Western culture and values the repository of all evils.
The soldiers of modern PC have successfully put the establishment of Western tradition on the defensive. Meanwhile, they have effectively killed free speech at the universities, in discussion, in the mainstream media, and among various groups of Americans, and stunted the growth of creativity and art, as well as political discussion. The result is the balkanization of America and the growing radicalization of various groups of Americans fed up with the fact that their free speech and their belief in constitutional government and the Bill of Rights are being destroyed.
PC is more dangerous than communism because it has taken the moral high ground through manipulation of the facts and denial of the truth.
Grounded in egalitarianism, PC is of the same milieu as that of the French Revolution. Maximilien Robespierre, the French lawyer and chief butcher of that revolution, was probably the first adherent of PC.
The bloody terror of that time was not nearly as cruel and bloody toward the rich and the noble in Paris as it was toward the people in the countryside of France. The blood of ordinary French people who dared speak against the "terror" ran freely in the streets of every province and town in France; ordinary people were massacred by the thousands.
To the first soldiers of PC, "liberty and fraternity" were concepts applied to citizens who went along with its excesses and supported completely the leaders of the massive bloodletting. Even those who followed the new regime in sheep-like fashion were not spared. They died like everyone else, rich or poor, screaming their allegiance to the Revolution and to the leadership of the Revolution.
Whether it is the PC mind-set of today or that of the French Revolution, free speech is only free when it follows PC notions of what is or is not allowed, and even then you might not be safe.
Today PC culture and philosophy are doing a much better job of creating the New Age totalitarian state than communism or the French Revolution were able to do. It is succeeding because it uses the language and the innate sense of decency of most Americans and of the Western tradition, which they have absorbed through their culture, religion, and the tenets contained in the Founding documents.
The sensible and fair American understands that the country has never been perfect. Most Americans know that various groups of people have been abused and treated unfairly, and America has turned itself inside out trying to address those injustices and grievances. However, the truth is that addressing those grievances is not what PC is about. PC is about destruction and tyranny. The leaders and followers of PC want complete and total capitulation. They want Western culture and tradition to go away. Yet none of them are quite sure what will replace it except some ephemeral PC platitudes.
This phantom utopian state considers all humankind to be perfectible – if only there are enough rules, regulations and readjustment to new notions of right and wrong. The problem arises when the standard utopia varies from person to person, just as it did during the French and Russian revolutions. The American Founders gave us incredible concepts, in the basic documents of the Republic, that allow for anyone to believe what he will and for that belief to be allowed free expression. In the world of PC, communism, and fascism, the only "freedom" left is the decision to submit to the tyrannical state or die.
The great jurist Robert Bork defined what is happening in America very well: "… our culture is now politicized … our politics [are] culturized … the idea that everything is ultimately political has taken hold. … [I]t is [about] the oppression of women, Western imperialism, colonialism, and racism. Political correctness now assaults one's opponent as not merely wrong but morally evil."
PC is rampant even in the high culture of America. The Smithsonian Institution is not immune. At an exhibit in the 1990s that featured the American Frontier from 1820-1920, the Smithsonian's historians mutilated historical interpretation so badly that historian and former librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin wrote: "A perverse, historically inaccurate, destructive exhibit. No credit to the Smithsonian."
Political correctness is neither objective nor inclusive nor fair. It condemns the brilliant and too often lauds the mediocre, inane and barbaric. Political correctness, in its demonization and vilification of traditional Western culture and philosophy, creates the eventual conditions for its own demise. Yet it does not recognize this as it glorifies non-Western cultures and conditions while totally ignoring their barbarisms.
The problem with PC is that what it seeks to replace Western traditional or classic culture with will not be egalitarian, fair or inclusive. What will fill the vacuum is a chaotic blend of banality, half-truths and political philosophy, based on primitive notions of good and evil, fair and unfair, justice and truth.
PC is more tribal and separatist than anything currently going on in the Aryan Nations, militia groups, skinhead cults and odd but still free associations of people in the United States and the world today. It will continue to do vast harm to the United States, which has been by far the most fair and inclusive civilization in the history of humankind.
If PC achieves final victory, American social, intellectual, spiritual and political life will become more tyrannical and diabolical than any yet invented by the dark side of human nature.
Words Matter
It wasn't that long ago that the language of communism sounded pretty ridiculous. Remember laughing at such phrases as "running-dog capitalists" and "exploiters of the poor and downtrodden"? These and other inanities were easy to laugh off.
It is another circumstance, however, to laugh off phrases like "despoilers of the environment" and words like "racist," "bigoted," "homophobes," "sexist," "chauvinist." It is much more difficult to laugh off such terms as "extreme right wing" or "white supremacist" or "patriarchal oppressors of women and minorities." However, such use of language is absolutely no different from what communists did from the 1920s to the 1990s.
Inherent in accusatory language is a value judgment based on nothing but hatred for traditional values. These days it is a safe bet to target Western traditional culture and values and those rights as defined in the American Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
Those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. I repeat, for the hardheaded PC types: Those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. If such had been the case, Gloria Steinem, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, the Sierra Club, the Green Party, PETA, the National Council of Churches, members of the U.N. and all the other PC groups would be serving heavy-duty time in the slammer. However, those of the PC faith in turn do not tolerate ideas or those who follow Western tradition, Christianity, or Orthodox Judaism.
Intolerance is part and parcel of all dictatorial creeds, and PC is merely the most recent manifestation of that tendency of mankind to seek control over others through any means possible. Attacks by the PC crowd on targets from Dr. Laura to the Boy Scouts, from capitalism to farmers, from pro-life to Christmas displays, from guns to tobacco, from home schooling to parochial schools continues, and tyranny over these groups through legislation and the courts has been very successful.
The root of all stupidity, in all times, is pride, arrogance, disrespect and intolerance. Add a lack of forgiveness, envy, bitterness and self-pity, and PC is currently the ultimate in a pathetic religion of victimology and moral one-upmanship. It manipulates the facts and distorts the truth. Western society has seen this before, and each and every time it has led to bloodletting and tyranny.'- Dianne Alden
Its about the Peoples 1st Amendment right! You and Wlat have your heads so far up and locked in your butts, that you're wondering through life looking out of a plexiglass stomach.