Goodbye, George
We warned it would likely come to this, and now it has. George Washington, hero of the American Revolution, first president of the United States and slave owner, would need to be whitewashed.
In late October, the vestry of Christ Church in Alexandria, Va., sent a letter to its members saying it would remove a memorial plaque honoring Washington and a similar one honoring Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
The action, the letter said, was taken out of a desire to provide a "welcoming" worship space for all visitors. The plaques, it said, might make certain persons feel "unsafe."
The initial action was taken because of Lee, but the church indicated Washington's slave ownership also was a factor in removing his plaque.
The War on History goes on. Will $1 bills be next?
White men unwanted
The Democratic National Committee has all but said white men need not apply for any of the eight open technology positions it has available.
Data Services manager Madeleine Leader sent around an in-staff email last week, asking that staffers forward the message to their contacts. But not every contact. Leader, in the email, said the DNC is "focused on hiring and maintaining a staff of diverse voices and life experiences," the Daily Wire reported.
The "life experiences" reference is interesting in its own right, but she goes on to say she "personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight white males, since they're already in the majority."
In other words, the DNC is interested in the best candidates for the job but simply the best who are not straight, male and white.
Cisgender, in the parlance of the gender phobic, is someone whose gender identity matches the one the individual was born with.
Contacted by The Daily Wire, Leader declined to comment, but a frustrated DNC insider told the site such behaviors only double "down on the failed strategy that has alienated staffers and voters alike. We want to be judged based on the quality of our work, not on identity politics. How can we trust the leadership of the DNC if they don't even trust us?"
Lib's dash-cam moment
A Democratic New York county legislator recently threatened an Ulster policeman who stopped her for speeding, complained about how inconvenient the stop was, tossed out "don't you-know-who-I-am?"-type words and warned she was going to record their conversation.
Alas, that already was going on, which she discovered later after seeing the dash-cam video. Before that, though, she was one unhappy camper.
Legislator Jennifer Schwartz Berky opened with the excuse that, even if she was speeding, she was moving with the speed of traffic. Then she said, "You know, I work for the county - for the county government. I'm a county legislator."
When those two didn't work, she picked up the pace with her justifications: "I'm broke. I'm completely broke. I made $20,000 last year. I can't afford to change my insurance. Please! I'm begging you. I'm a very hard-working public servant. It's going to hurt me. It's going to hurt me really badly. I'm a single mom. This is very upsetting for me."
Then Berky began to threaten, saying she would take any ticket "to the court," that she was "going to protest this in court," that she was going to record the exchange and that she didn't "know if I can trust local law enforcement, and I need a witness."
Along the way, she piled up more complaints - that she had PTSD, that she always did "everything right, and I follow the law," that she worked "24 hours a day to support my family."
Eventually, after watching herself on the police dash-cam, which has gone viral, the Kingston legislator apologized and said she would stay in the race to retain her seat.
"I hope to use [the experience] to grow and learn how to better represent the diverse working families who reside in the great city of Kingston," she said in a written statement.
Good luck with that.
Survey: P.C. not for me
A new survey by the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute indicates more than seven in 10 of us believe political correctness has become harmful.
In "The State Of Free Speech and Tolerance in America," 71 percent of respondents believe the political correctness culture has more often "silenced important discussions society needs to have" as opposed to "helped avoid offending others." In addition, 58 percent of respondents said the current culture prevents them from speaking their mind.
To that end, 61 percent believe "people often call others racist or sexist to avoid having to debate with them" as opposed to 37 percent who think "people usually only call someone out for racism or sexism when they deserve it."
Respondents also prefer a traditional role for higher education, with 65 percent saying it is important for colleges "to expose students to all types of viewpoints, even if they are offensive or biased against certain groups" as opposed to 34 percent agreeing colleges should "prohibit offensive speech on campus that is biased against certain groups."
In actuality, the truth may be worse than that. After all, many of today's students don't want to be exposed to viewpoints with which they simply disagree, much less viewpoints offensive or biased against certain groups.
How that fosters a well-rounded education is beyond us.