As a political journalist and commentator over many years, few things surprise me about politicians … or human nature. But, today, I am shocked and deeply concerned about the deadly dangers of ‘politically-correct’ censorship.
The idea of ‘protecting people from offence’ (always bonkers in my view) has let loose demons few of us imagined.
You know the sort of thing. “He looked at me the wrong way”. “She brushed her hair flirtingly”. “They are anti-gay because they stir their tea in the wrong direction”!
Sound ridiculous? Look again.
Britain is rapidly turning in to a neurotic society where the hysteria of the witch-hunt is the norm.
We are a few short steps away from turning freedoms in to prisons.
By endlessly censoring our own words and thoughts, while censoring the actions of others, we are killing healthy, open, communication.
To hell with this frigid political correctness.
Starting a discussion now is like walking through a hall of distorting mirrors where words, thoughts, and conversation are killed … before … they’ve even been shaped.
FROM ‘PC’ TO TP.
You walk down that mirrored Hall of Distortions if you want, just don’t expect me to join you. It is a short journey now from political correctness to thought-policing!
I would rather run the risk of being open to be offended, than be closed down by the cudgel of this culture’s calamitous, crass, pc-censorship.
THIS PC-BLAME-GAME MENTALITY IS … DEADLY.
As I write this, a man lies dead, and his family mourning.
Carl Sergeant was sacked from his Cabinet post in the Welsh Assembly amid a swirl of ‘allegations’ of a ‘sexual nature’.
I can say no more about those allegations, because I know no more about their detail.
Worse yet, apparently, Carl Sergeant was sacked without knowing what those allegations were either!
Carl Sergeant will never know now, will he.
GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT!
British law is supposed to be based on the belief that someone is ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
The key word there is ‘proven’!
Allegations are allegations until they are proven beyond doubt.
The First Minister of the Welsh Assembly Carwyn Jones did not SUSPEND Carl Sergeant, he SACKED him! Publicly, and humiliatingly.
What part did the witch-hunt hysteria, we’re all now caught up in, play in the rush to rash judgement?
Carwyn Jones is a solicitor. The evidence he must now produce had better be compelling. The allegations made had better be tested to destruction. In this mad society any calls for the ‘accusers’ to be named, and their ‘proof’ to be made public, will be met with shrieks of “sexism”.
Tough.
There are deeper freedoms at risk here.
Carl Sergeant died with the stain of public stigma uppermost in his mind.
His wife and children already face a life sentence.
Loyalty to the Labour Party, the usual knee-jerk politically-correct instinct to ‘protect’ the ‘accusers’ must come second to demands now for openness and PROOF!
Paul Starling
