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They have incorporated feminist and environmental issues into their platforms and debates as well as an awareness of the importance of ethnicity. But this has not been sufficient to alter the thrust of the historic socialist project. A real rupture is needed. . . . A postmodern Marxist approach with its emphasis on social and identity movements is most capable of making this break.22

Infiltrating social and identity movements was the ticket for the failed Marxists and other leftists in the twenty-first century. The foundation had been laid, especially in the academy. As the left gained controlling influence in media, education, and politics, the promotion of political correctness as a legitimate force in American life surged. While PC was defined and applied by Marxism early in the twentieth century, the reality of its tactics and goals that emerged after World War II became a cause for alarm among intellectuals.

The Unspeakable Becomes the Unthinkable

Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) was a German philosopher known for his defense of moral idealism and liberal democracy at a time when fascism and the crushing of the individual coalesced in Nazi Germany. During World War II, Cassirer wrote about the danger of leftist extremists changing language. His classic Myth of the State was published posthumously in 1946:

If we study our modern political myths and the use that has been made of them we find in them, to our great surprise, not only a transvaluation of all our ethical values but also a transformation of human speech. . . . New words have been coined, and even the old ones are used in a new sense; they have undergone a deep change of meaning. This change of meaning depends upon the fact that these words which formerly were used in a descriptive, logical, or semantic sense are now used as magic words that are destined to produce certain effects and to stir up certain emotions. Our ordinary words are charged with meanings; but these new-fangled words are charged with feelings and violent passions.23

Published in 1949, just three years after Cassirer’s Myth of the State, Orwell’s 1984 warning about the possibility of a very real totalitarian future has become our present. The left manipulates language to come up with new labels, new words, changed meanings, and misrepresentations to deceive the public. And not obscure words with which academics wrap themselves, but the most basic and fundamental of terms like what is a “woman.” They also need to keep constantly changing language and meaning to keep the populace guessing what words are acceptable in society and what words are not. This is at the heart of nudging people toward self-censorship and, more alarmingly, toward an intellectual retreat from even thinking about the issues. After all, if it’s too dangerous to speak of certain things, then self-protection suggests not even contemplating them.

How serious is the left at making speech an inherently dangerous exercise? Serious enough for Stanford University to establish the “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” (EHLI), wherein they would present problem words and phrases that should be eliminated from our lexicon due to their harmful effects, and the likelihood of offending people due to their racist and bigoted histories. In the “language guide” they offer up ten categories of prohibited words.24

The New York Post reported the list of more than one hundred banned words was thirteen pages long and included the word American, with the guide explaining that it “often refers to people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas,” and advised US citizen should be used instead. Also, the word immigrant is a no-no and should be replaced with person who has immigrated. Under their listing addressing “ableist” slurs, the phrase walk-in hours must be jettisoned for the more inclusive open hours, so as to not insult the wheelchair-bound.25

It didn’t end there. Forbes shared a number of other word crimes presented by Stanford’s exclusion project, including master (and extended terms like master list) because “historically, masters enslaved people, didn’t consider them human and didn’t allow them to express free will, so this term should generally be avoided.” You guys is no good because it “lumps a group of people using masculine language and/or into gender binary groups.”26

Mentally ill and insane are to be jettisoned, we’re told, because they are “ableist.” Or, perhaps the researchers were anticipating the reaction to the report.

Guru? Yeah, no. It would insult the Buddhists. And whatever you do, don’t call what you write a white paper. Because it implies white equals good. My favorite? The leftist political fringe, which had been lecturing us for years to use the term trigger warning if something potentially disturbing for the faint of heart might be mentioned, are now telling us to stop using the phrase—you guessed it—trigger warning because of the anxiety the warning itself can cause.27

When exposed, the project came under such sustained criticism and mockery that our betters at Stanford University, considered one of the more important education institutions in the world, panicked. Within two weeks of their release of the language guide, they killed the project, removed its website, and in its place coughed up an awkward attempt to explain and apologize. The Stanford chief information officer insisted the project “was created to address racist terms historically used in IT, such as ‘master’ and ‘slave’ to describe aspects of systems.”28 How that morphed into a thirteen-page booklet with more than 150 words wasn’t fully explained.

Moreover, he noted, “The feedback that this work was broadly viewed as counter to inclusivity means we missed the intended mark. It is for this reason that we have taken down the EHLI site.”29 The university’s president also issued a statement saying, in part, “at no point did the website represent university policy,” that those involved meant well, and that “Stanford’s ‘efforts to advance inclusion must remain consistent with our commitment to academic freedom and free expression.’”30

Michael T. Nietzel, a former university president, wrote this about the absurd premise of the soon-to-be debacle: “Many of the words and phrases on the list are now normal forms of speech completely divorced from whatever offensive connotations can be imparted to them by invoking a history that reasonable people are not referencing when they talk. No one who uses the term seminal (yes, it’s on the list) is doing so to ‘reinforce male-dominated language.’ Likewise, when faculty say that their research is undergoing blind review, they are not insulting people who cannot see.”31

Stanford’s “internal” goose-stepping into the censorship realm was not unique, but part of a widespread leftist agenda. Remember, nothing is a coincidence with the left. Having come from and escaped from that realm, I assure you, they are organizers and planners. On the left, nothing is left to chance. About a year prior to Stanford’s public relations face-plant, the woke at Canada’s CBC network in Ottawa decided it would be a great idea to create their own list of “words and phrases you might want to think twice about using.”32 Their list of forbidden words was as preposterous as Stanford’s, confirming the obsession with training us to accept the absurd. Their list of the forbidden included blackmail, black list, and yes, black sheep (racist), grandfathered in (racist and patriarchal), spirit animal (racist), savage (racist colonizers), and even brainstorm (hurtful to those with brain injuries), among other problematic words like dumb and lame. That’s one way to keep your critics quiet.

Twenty years ago we saw an iteration of this crazy-sauce agenda presented to the public when the woke mob tried to cancel picnic—yes, picnic—as a racist word allegedly stemming from people gathering to watch black people being lynched. This allegation was so preposterous, the website Snopes did a fact-check at the time and, lo and behold, found it completely false. The outlet noted, “Specious etymologies seem to be all the rage of late, and a dubious claim about ‘picnic’ fits that trend . . . neither the concept nor the word ‘picnic’ has anything to do with crowds gathering to witness the lynching of blacks (or anyone else, for that matter) in America.”33

Nineteen years later, Reuters stepped up and performed their own fact-check when the picnic word hoax returned for a second act. They come right to the point: “Fact check: The word picnic does not originate from racist lynchings. . . . Images circulating on social media make the claim that the word ‘picnic’ originates from the racist, extrajudicial killings of African Americans. This claim is false.”34

None of this is about protecting people from words. It’s all about training people to believe that the language itself is systemically racist, and frightening people into not even knowing what is safe to say.

This is a perfect example of the left’s commitment to changing the rules of normal life in such a haphazard and illogical way that people will opt to retreat from public life out of fear of what might come if an unknown rule is broken. It also trains us to accept (or else!) the illogical and idiotic changing of the most benign of words into warped racist attacks as an exploitation of our desire to be fair and unbiased. For the proposed victims of all these menacing, bigoted, and violent words, it instills a belief that danger is embedded in the language itself.

Political correctness was never about empathy and fairness, or even about vague and ubiquitous matters of “sensitivity.” It has one goal—to control. To achieve this, PC begins to train us to distrust—or even fear—the intentions of others, and even our minds, our intentions, and our values. This mental conditioning manipulates the target—us—by exploiting our empathy and desire to do no harm to others.

With all this in play, the PC arguments and rules ultimately create a fear not just of speaking freely, but of even thinking freely. It’s difficult to know the rules of what speech and thoughts are politically correct at any given time because the rules keep changing, are often contradictory, or make no sense. A phrase or term that’s considered perfectly proper in one year can be labeled a slur or a microaggression the next. As with victims of domestic violence, this gaslighting causes us to question our perception of reality and lose trust in our sense of self.

And that’s the point.

As political correctness has grown more extreme and absurd through the years, there has always been a price to pay for violating the PC codes. At first, you are accused of being a racist, sexist, ageist, xenophobe, homophobe, transphobe, or some other kind of bigot if you didn’t conform to the Newspeak du jour. Next, you are called “problematic,” or “dangerous,” and your right to free speech disappears.

Any hint of rebellion in your speech is now seen as evidence of a fully compromised mind. Use the phrase “brown bag” or refer to a “picnic” and it is assumed that is just the tip of a racist iceberg.

Prescient Warnings

In 2006, when it was still possible to somewhat challenge leftist orthodoxy without facing the guillotine, the Harvard Business Review challenged political correctness as a “double-edged sword,” causing problems in communication, trust, and relationships in the workplace. In “Rethinking Political Correctness,” the publication stated:

We are troubled, however, by the barriers that political correctness can pose to developing constructive, engaged relationships at work. In cultures regulated by political correctness, people feel judged and fear being blamed. They worry about how others view them as representatives of their social identity groups. They feel inhibited and afraid to address even the most banal issues directly. People draw private conclusions; untested, their conclusions become immutable. Resentments build, relationships fray, and performance suffers. . . . These dynamics breed misunderstanding, conflict, and mistrust, corroding both managerial and team effectiveness.35

The left’s success with manipulating the public through political correctness ultimately led to government picking up the mantle by enacting hate crime laws and policy.

Make no mistake—hate crime laws serve the imperative leftist agenda goal of normalizing the concept that the federal government has a right to punish you for a thought crime in addition to the physical crime you are accused of committing.

As I discuss at length in The New Thought Police, prosecuting hate crimes is the act of criminalizing what people are feeling (hate isn’t even a thought, it’s a feeling) when they commit an act that is already a crime, such as murder, assault, rape, or robbery, etc. The secret Marxist sauce is the hate crime charge applies only to feelings that leftist bureaucrats have determined to be politically incorrect. As an example, if someone murders a woman (who happens to be gay) because he hates women, that’s not a hate crime. But if a killer murders a woman who’s gay and he hates gay people, that is a hate crime. Both murders involve hate. In both cases, the victim is homosexual. But the hate crime enhancement applies only to a specific type of hate felt by the murderer. It wasn’t who was killed, per se, that matters to the state. It was what the perpetrator was feeling, and in this case, against a class promised protection by the leftist establishment.

The hate crimes concept was accepted by Americans in part because we were convinced that we needed to make a special statement (beyond regular criminal justice) against bigotry-inspired crimes. But for the left, the real goal is enshrining into society and then into law the notion that thoughts and feelings alone can be criminalized, making the argument for thought crimes possible. If we allow them, it’s only a matter of time before leftist totalitarians focus on that ultimate end goal, reinforcing a deeply ingrained personal fear meant to impact each of us.

This is the beginning of the legal enshrinement of the idea that some people must be discriminated against for us all to become equal.

There is another factor here for minorities to consider who believe we benefit from hate crime laws. As a gay woman myself, I refuse to accept a crime committed against me to be considered more serious than the same crime committed against a woman simply because she does not fit into a politically designed protected class and I do. To justify this discriminatory cruelty, liberals argue that the murder of the gay woman must be considered more serious because it’s meant to send a message of hate to the whole gay community, creating fear throughout that community. But the fact is, every murder sends a message and creates fear throughout the community in which it takes place, and often beyond. We are all impacted, emotionally and otherwise, by all crimes, regardless of the personal attributes of the victim or the feelings of the perpetrators.

If we truly want a system that is based on fairness and equality, we must reject the notion that some people matter more than others. This is one of the foundational elements of civil rights in this country and was the basis of every civil rights movement. Judicial punishments for murder, rape, assault, robbery, or any other crime must be applied equally, and victims must be treated equally.

Here Mr. Orwell makes another helpful appearance. Again warning about the dangers of emerging fascism, one of the most remembered lines in his 1945 political allegory Animal Farm comes when the animals overtake a farm from cruel and unfair humans, with the intention that all creatures will finally be treated fairly and equally. Yet pig leaders emerge, unfairness and inequality return, and the sign declaring the farm’s commandments is painted over. The main commandment itself remains “All Animals Are Equal,” but is changed to “All Animals Are Equal, but Some Are More Equal Than Others.”

We know what’s been happening in this country, the same disgraceful leftism that has condemned hundreds of millions of people the world over. Orwell watched it unfold in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. It destroyed those two countries and almost condemned the world. It was predictable and predicted. Many have warned us, perhaps none as brilliantly as Orwell.

Criminals and victims of crime are being treated differently in our country right now based on what demographic categories they fall into. This is already happening with “no bail” and even “no jail” rules being implemented in Democratic-controlled cities throughout the country. “Progressive” district attorneys are refusing to apply the law and setting violent criminals free as a direct result of embracing a political theory that codifies using different standards for different groups of people in the judicial system in a scheme to achieve Marxist “equity.” That, of course, is wrong and unjust. It foments division, crime, more victims, and chaos in our communities. And it is exactly what the left thrives on.

All this is part of the left’s effort to reinforce “otherness” through division and societal rules and laws, attempting to normalize the obscenity that some people are more important than others and are entitled to preferential treatment. If you don’t agree with hate crime legislation or so-called equity rules, you are falsely attacked as a bigot.

The goal is to have your friends and neighbors attack you for your speech, your beliefs, and your values. Trust and camaraderie are abandoned. The left reinforces fear, shame, and confusion against those it targets, but it wants citizens to fear everyone except, ironically, the omnipotent bureaucratic state responsible for the divided and desperate state of nature to which we are subjected.

In Orwell’s 1984, the citizens of Oceania fear the Thought Police, who arrest and punish people for unapproved personal and political thoughts that pose a threat to the totalitarian government. The Thought Police keep track of what Newspeak labels “thoughtcrime” with the help of omnipresent cameras, microphones, and informers. Today, social media, website cookies that track our online activity, cell phones, computers with powerful programs, tracking devices, facial recognition software, surveillance drones, communications satellites, tiny hidden cameras and microphones, and other monitoring devices are ubiquitous and track us constantly. When writing 1984, Orwell warned us about the totalitarian agenda, but modern technology has provided governments with far more powerful ways to keep track of us and our thoughts than anything available to the novelist’s fascist antagonists.

Are sens

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