Official political correctness thread

I thought it was time we had an official thread to post stories and items of interest relating to political correctness. I'll start us off with one example::

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/29/11-year-old-football-star-told-not-to-score-too-many-touchdowns/

This story is a perfect, easy-to-understand illustration of one of the things that is so wrong with the world today, particularly the United States: punishing achievement and penalizing success.

This is EXACTLY the sort of scenario Ayn Rand wrote about in ATLAS SHRUGGED over 50 years ago, when her characters went through the Railroad Unification Plan designed to cap the amount of success the top earning transport companies could earn so that the business landscape would be more "fair" for other, lesser successful or failing companies. Here we have a kid who can apparently score touchdowns at will, and instead of developing that talent and encouraging him to be the best he could be, he's being held back so that less athletic, less capable kids won't feel badly about themselves. The United States should just go ahead and change its mascot from an eagle to a tampon, because the bleeding-heart liberals are absolutely going to destroy the human spirit in this country, and will instead raise generation after generation of pussified-kids who are unable to cope with failure (or, as liberals call it: "Incomplete success"). We've already raised a generation or two of ego-maniacal, self-centered kids who believe they were special the moment they slithered out of the womb, and for having done nothing or having accomplished nothing of value in life other than to exist and grace us with their presence.

That's a 'differently abled' avatar you've got there, Gravitas. I assume it came with federal support?

Erica Ambler wrote:

That's a 'differently abled' avatar you've got there, Gravitas. I assume it came with federal support?

Jerri Blank, I am proud to say, has never taken a hand-out in her entire life. When times were tough she made money the old fashioned way: on her back...on her knees...with a Mexican donkey named Ramone....in a bus station making chump change with some Indonesian business men...but she never was on the government dole (except for the times that she was put in jail for prostitution, theft, and whipping up a batch of illegal narcotics called Glint that accidentally killed Poppy, the head cheerleader of Flatpoint High)

Here's one you'll like, Grav - as of today, cigarette vending machines are banned in England. As in, completely banned in all locations. Yes, you read that correctly - vending machines that sell cigarettes are now illegal in England. That's right, against the law. Wouldn't happen Stateside, surely?

I see political correctness as the great comic movement of the late-20th and 21st centuries.

I won, bitches!

I think speech is still a lot freer in the United States than it is anywhere else. For instance, America permits the Westboro Baptist Church to rant away on the grounds of freedom of speech, whereas those folks are banned from even setting foot in Britain (one of them tried a couple of years ago, I think, and was blocked from coming in by the Home Secretary) and would be arrested for "hate speech" for spouting over here what they spout in the States.

Loomis wrote:

Here's one you'll like, Grav - as of today, cigarette vending machines are banned in England. As in, completely banned in all locations. Yes, you read that correctly - vending machines that sell cigarettes are now illegal in England. That's right, against the law. Wouldn't happen Stateside, surely?

I sense that this is a trap.

Yes, I believe vending machines that sell cigarettes are now banned. I can't recall seeing any since the late 80's.

But I wouldn't consider that a form of political correctness, though. I think they were banned in the United States for theeeeeeeeeeeee childrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrren.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Here's one you'll like, Grav - as of today, cigarette vending machines are banned in England. As in, completely banned in all locations. Yes, you read that correctly - vending machines that sell cigarettes are now illegal in England. That's right, against the law. Wouldn't happen Stateside, surely?

I sense that this is a trap.

Yes, I believe vending machines that sell cigarettes are now banned. I can't recall seeing any since the late 80's.

But I wouldn't consider that a form of political correctness, though. I think they were banned in the United States for theeeeeeeeeeeee childrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrren.

Which is a form of political correctness, no?

To be honest, I'd be surprised if cigarette vending machines were banned in the States (although you'll know much better than me what things are like Stateside), because such a ban strikes me as, well, un-American, whereas Britain is now pretty much the most smoking-intolerant country on earth. We're charged more for cigarettes and taxed more highly on them than just about anywhere - indeed, I gather that Britain is the second most expensive nation in which to be a smoker.

You guys still permit smoking in certain sections of bars and restaurants, I believe, whereas over here there's a total, and I do mean total, ban.

Loomis wrote:

Which is a form of political correctness, no?

To be honest, I'd be surprised if cigarette vending machines were banned in the States (although you'll know much better than me what things are like Stateside), because such a ban strikes me as, well, un-American, whereas Britain is now pretty much the most smoking-intolerant country on earth. We're charged more for cigarettes and taxed more highly on them than just about anywhere - indeed, I gather that Britain is the second most expensive nation in which to be a smoker.

You guys still permit smoking in certain sections of bars and restaurants, I believe, whereas over here there's a total, and I do mean total, ban.

I suppose it could be a form of political correctness, just as the Surgeon General's warning at the end of LICENSE TO KILL REVOKED was a form of political correctness (too bad there wasn't a Surgeon General's warning at the beginning of the film to caution viewers about the side effects of watching such an awful film, but I digress).

I see the total ban on smoking differently, though. There's a war on individual rights from the respective governments in the U.K and the U.S., and a desire to try and eliminate all risk in our lives. We both live in societies that are more and more centered around protecting and pandering to the lowest, dumbest citizens and, in the process, punishing the rest. So a child under 18 buys a pack of cigarettes from a vending machine? That now means NO ONE can buy them from a vending machine? In the United States the government is pushing the auto manufacturers to install alcohol breathalyzers in the steering wheel column so that people who MAY have had something alcoholic to drink will be unable to drive because the car will shut itself down and not allow the person to drive. It's like we're all having our freedom of thought and choice and personal responsibility removed from us because the people in charge believe we're too stupid to think and do for ourselves.

Here's another example:

From The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/02/san-francisco-happy-meal-ban-mcdonalds_n_777939.html

San Francisco Bans The Happy Meal
San Francisco has banned the Happy Meal, on the day of the return of the McRib no less. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors earlier today passed an ordinance requiring meals that included toys with their purchase to meet specific nutritional guidelines. The vote, achieved with a Gavin Newsom veto-proof majority of 8-3, effectively bans the Happy Meal.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Erica Ambler wrote:

That's a 'differently abled' avatar you've got there, Gravitas. I assume it came with federal support?

Jerri Blank, I am proud to say, has never taken a hand-out in her entire life. When times were tough she made money the old fashioned way: on her back...on her knees...with a Mexican donkey named Ramone....in a bus station making chump change with some Indonesian business men...but she never was on the government dole (except for the times that she was put in jail for prostitution, theft, and whipping up a batch of illegal narcotics called Glint that accidentally killed Poppy, the head cheerleader of Flatpoint High)

My sort of woman. I've got to find that show. I feel sorry for Poppy the cheerleader though. You know, it always saddened me that you Americans couldn't find a role on the world stage for Bambi Woods. She would've made a hell of a goodwill ambassador. Instead, she's buried under some construction site.

On the subject of PC, an ex accused me of making inappropriate remarks to her the other day, but I think she was mistaken. When I said I'd like to buttfuck her, I meant it as a compliment not absurdist satire.

http://eric-brothers.suite101.com/debbie-does-dallas-star-bambi-woods-alive-a343539

Where's the evidence that that Bambi interview ever took place?

http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2007/05/debbie_does_dal_4.html

Quote :

Unfortunately, the one thing this story does lack is corroboration, any single piece of hard evidence that would prove I actually HAD been in contact with Bambi, and wasn't the victim of some hoax. And while response to the story has been good, others share similar concerns. I feel it's only fair that readers know this, because I can't say for sure one way or the other. Certainly, from the tone of her emails, and the lengthy correspondence I had back and forth, I'm almost certain this is Bambi herself. But you have to understand, there's no way I can be sure.

It's bollocks.

M007RE reckoned Bambi is buried beneath Helmut Jahn's CitySpire Center.

If so, I think there should be a blue plaque.

Interesting that a discussion of political correctness has arrived at the location of Babi Wood's body. Perhaps Bambi's death marked the solidification of the PC?

Loomis wrote:

over here there's a total, and I do mean total, ban.

That's what I thought but I've been wandering around England this weekend and there were people smoking all over the place. I was pretty surprised.

I meant a total ban on smoking anywhere indoors (other than a private residence). You can still smoke outdoors pretty much anywhere in Britain, but not in any restaurants, pubs, bars, cafes, etc. There are no longer smoking sections inside such places, and no longer any carriages on trains in which one may smoke. There are no longer any smoking rooms inside office buildings - anyone who smokes at work must do so outside in the open air.

Basically, smoking is now banned everywhere in Britain except in private homes and the great outdoors.

Santa wrote:

Loomis wrote:

over here there's a total, and I do mean total, ban.

That's what I thought but I've been wandering around England this weekend and there were people smoking all over the place. I was pretty surprised.

In buildings, or just on the street?

People are allowed to smoke outside in the UK as long as it's raining. They are also pelted with rotton fruit by highly paid public sector employees. Stray dogs are encouraged to piss on smokers.

It's part of a new EU initiative called Respect.

I imagine in the next decade, under the latest Blue Labour or Red Tory party, under the EU's jurisdiction, we'll have mandatory tobacco detectors placed in our homes, along with the usual energy saving crap.

Smoking is banned in all bars and restaurants in Canada, in fact I think its safe to say all indoor facilities.

Smokers stand outside buildings getting rained on and pissed on by dogs.

Also, 90% of packaging is covered in gruesome imagery of smoking related death and disease. Meanwhile, the same liberals who champion this ghastliness go bananas when anti-abortion protestors display images of butchered fetuses.

Conclusion: double standards OK as long as standards meet correct "thinking."

Bloomberg wanted to ban smoking on the streets of New York. I lit up in Times Square last weekend, without an issue, but realized it's banned there, after the fact.

You're also not allowed to smoke on the balcony of your own apartment, but no one gives a damn about that. I sure don't, at least.

On top of all the rules set by the Gestapo, a pack of smokes doesn't cost less than $11.45.

Sharky wrote:

I imagine in the next decade, under the latest Blue Labour or Red Tory party, under the EU's jurisdiction, we'll have mandatory tobacco detectors placed in our homes, along with the usual energy saving crap.

There's talk of a new law prohibiting smoking in cars carrying children as passengers, and I can certainly see that coming to pass in a couple of years, probably in the form of a catch-all "no smoking in a motor vehicle, full stop" law. Also, I doubt we're more than a year or two away from a packet of cigarettes costing £10.

Quote :

You're also not allowed to smoke on the balcony of your own apartment, but no one gives a damn about that. I sure don't, at least.

But you're allowed to smoke inside your own apartment, presumably. Or are you? Odd if you can smoke inside but not on the balcony.

Hank, Jr. makes a comment prejudicial to Barack and ESPN yanks his intro tune from Monday Night Football. In all fairness to ESPN, if they hadn't done this the NFL, one of the most PC organizations in America, probably would have sued them.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/ESPN-pulls-intro-after-Williams-Obama-comments-100311?GT1=39002&ocid=ansfox11