The Outsider: 2018

Monday, February 12, 2018

Political Correctness--The Downfall of American Society

Where I come from, there’s an adage that indicates an error in judgement, that says, “You’re barking up the wrong tree.” Well, today people say that such and such speech is not “politically correct”. The implication is that what is said is offensive and shouldn’t be said.

That is where things go awry. Nothing can be said that is “offensive”. It may be intended to be offensive, but the hearer has to choose to be offended, it is the hearer’s prerogative to choose his response. Many times offense is not necessarily the speaker’s intention.

It was once said, “He who takes offense when offense was not intended is a fool, yet he who takes offense when offense is intended is an even greater fool for he has succumbed to the will of his adversary.” (Brigham Young) This is a very true statement. Think about it, if someone is offended by what the other person says, then the person offended is no longer in control. His/her feelings are now in the hands of their opposition.

Here’s a prime example; members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) were first called “Mormons” as a derogatory term used to incite people to riot against the members of that church. Many were persecuted, even with physical violence and death because they were "Mormons". The President of the Church has admonished the members to use the proper name of the Church when referring to it, members choose not to takes offense at being called a Mormon. The difference is the way the hearer reacts to the word, not the intent of the speaker.

A college professor is reported to have posed something like the following question to his class, which is more hurtful, a white man hitting a black man in the face with his fist, or the white man calling the black man the “N” word (obviously I am being politically correct in not saying the word)? The consensus was that the name calling was more hurtful. Not to defend the speaker who was obviously intending to be hurtful, but who was the person taking offense?

Society has turned anyone who says something contrary to what the hearer wants to hear into an offender. Where is the responsibility of the hearer to choose whether to be offended or not? A wise man once said, “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other” (Jesus Christ). If that advice were followed, then who could be offended? Not taking offense at what others say disarms them. They are no longer in control. The person they intend to injure with their offensive speech or epithet does not respond to their harangue with anger, but calmly responds or walks away. Who then is the bigger person, he who harangues or he who walks away?

It is a shame that our society, that not too many years ago, would defuse volatile situations by either calmly responding or walking away, now chooses to burn down cities and kill people over things that someone else says or does wrongly. Would there have been reason to riot in Ferguson Missouri had someone not spread the false rumor of “hands up don’t shoot”? How many other instances have there been when individuals with the intent of inciting to riot have achieved their goal by making one group or the other an offender over something that was said or done?

I am not saying there have not been instances where things have happened that are offensive, or even inciting, but I am saying that the responsibility for the response to these instances lies squarely on the shoulders of the person who is offended, not the person who may or may not have intended to offend. Our country used to be the bastion of rational thought and action. How could we have allowed factions in among us who turn one against another for a word? Where has the ideology of thinking before acting gone? The only way to defuse a bad situation is for one or the other party to think about their actions, whether they are mindlessly inciting to riot, or mindlessly rioting over something someone else said or did. To use another adage, the “ball is always in the court” of the hearer. The choice is always in the hands of the one who receives the harangues and epithets of the other, whether to react in kind or be the bigger person and defuse the situation.

The Tapestry

The Tapestry
By William L. Pressgrove
Written in 1992, edited Nov 2009

Once upon a time, there was a land far, far away full of beauty. There was lush vegetation like tall trees, colorful flowers, winding rivers, snowy mountains, and grassy plains. The land was exceedingly rich in natural resources because the ruler of the land had blessed it with all things he had the power with which to bless it. The ruler of the land was a jealous ruler so anyone who came to live on this land had to make a covenant to worship him only. If the people ever forgot, or would not worship the ruler of the land, they would be swept off of the land because the ruler of the land would not be mocked.

As the story begins, there is evidence that the land had been peopled several times. Artifacts found in the land indicated that each group had broken their covenant with the ruler of the land and had been destroyed or they had destroyed themselves.

Another people in a distant land heard about this strange and beautiful land and desired to move to it. They made arrangements to move, many having to take great losses as they sold their goods and possessions, but to them the promise of the new land and freedom were worth all their sacrifices. These people became known as "Freemen" because of their love for freedom.

When the Freemen arrived in the new land, they found people already living there. These people were called "Landers" because they were a people who lived off the land and used it to their benefit, somewhat wisely, but the Landers had forgotten the ruler who had blessed the land, thus they had fallen out of favor with him. Therefore, the Landers lived without his protection. The Freemen learned of the ruler of the land and made a covenant with him to worship him and him alone. So, whenever there was a problem between the Freemen and the Landers, the ruler would favor the Freemen. There were several wars between the two groups because the Landers didn’t want the Freemen taking their land and gaining a foot hold in it. The Freemen prevailed and became established in the land. They prospered and began to fill the land, because they remembered their covenant with the ruler of the land.

The Freemen continued honoring the covenant they had made with the ruler, but the mother country from which the Freemen had come didn’t want them to become independent. The Freemen had to break away from the mother country’s hold on them before they could fully live the covenant they had made with the ruler of the land. They knew if they would break with the old country, the ruler of the land would assist them to become secure in the covenant they made with him.

The old country didn’t want to lose control of their colony in the new land because of its exceeding riches, so it began to exercise more control over the colony and make unreasonable demands on the Freemen. The Freemen had to pay more and more taxes for the goods they received from the mother land. The mother country taxed the Freemen without allowing them to be represented in government.

Even with the help of the ruler of the land, there was a great war between the old country and the colonists in which many of the Freemen paid the ultimate price for freedom. The greatest men of that generation spilt their blood to gain the independence they were seeking.

The people, having won their freedom began to live all the terms of the covenant they had made with the ruler of the land. They set about to fix laws by which they could remain free in this new land. They hadn’t forgotten the help they received from the ruler of the land, so they incorporated rules and regulations that allowed the people to have the freedom of choice in their new nation. This freedom of choice was a right they fought so valiantly to gain, and they recognized that it was the only way they could truly worship the ruler of the land.

The leaders of the country of Freemen made a tapestry into which was woven the rules of the government they had formed. This tapestry displayed to all the world the freedom the new nation of Freemen stood for. The tapestry was held high and was revered by all who had taken part in obtaining freedom for the new nation and had worked so hard to set up a sound government.

As time went on the Freemen, who had made the covenant with the ruler of the land and had fought beside those who died for it, passed away. Their children remembered the covenant and the tremendous sacrifice their fathers had made by holding the tapestry high and reverencing those who had made their freedom possible as well as the ruler who had help secure it.

Several generations passed away reverencing the tapestry and enjoying the freedom it represented. Eventually, those who were placed into government positions decided that they could improve the laws that the tapestry represented. They began to make these changes and told the people they were for the betterment of the country. As a symbol of each change they removed one thread from the fabric of the tapestry, one thread for every change.

All the changes made the Freemen feel that the government was caring for them and that the changes were making the country better. The tapestry didn’t appear to have suffered from the changes either. The threads that were removed were hardly, if at all noticeable.

As the years passed the Freemen became less self-sufficient and more dependent on the government to sustain them. Politicians began to realize that by making promises of more aid to special interest groups they could garner more votes from the people in exchange for more money from the government coffers. Sadly, the people began to expect more and more support from the government without ever thinking about where the government was getting money.

Before they were aware of it, the people had become so dependent of the government that they began to forget about the covenant their fathers had made with the ruler of the land. The government became more important to them than the ruler of the land. Historians began removing all references to the ruler of the land from the history books used to teach the children about the Founding Fathers of the country. Those in power also began passing laws that prohibited the mention of the ruler of the land in public places. As these changes were being made, the politicians and now even the historians took more threads from the tapestry to make it conform to their new way of thinking.

Even though so many changes were being made to the tapestry, the people still revered it and considered it to be the fabric of the country and said that it was so strong that no one or nothing could ever tear it apart. They held it high on every Independence Day to display to the world how proud they were of it. They would boast of being the greatest nation in the world. They were proud of the strength of their military. They would occasionally show their strength by defending "freedom" by supporting international causes supposedly to keep the peace.

One day, a dispute began among the leaders of the country as to whether the laws the tapestry represented were still valid because times had changed and technology had become so advanced. Some thought that the laws the tapestry contained were outdated and needed to be scrapped and a new one drafted. Others thought that with just a few more changes, that the old tapestry would be just fine. As a graphic representation of this argument, a verbal tug-of-war ensued each side being on opposite sides of the tapestry. As they began the tug-of-war it was plain to see that the tapestry would be torn apart by the argument. Those who wanted the Constitution to remain quickly made some serious concessions to the opposing party with the understanding that they would keep the "old" tapestry as the countries symbols of freedom.

The tapestry was changed so much that it was just a shell of what it had been and so many threads had been removed from the tapestry that it began to look like an old shredded cloth. As the government was discussing more changes to the tapestry, an enemy came into the land and began to take possession of it, killing and enslaving the people as they went. The mighty army was sent out to fight this intruder, but found that it was so weakened by the lack of discipline that it was no match for the invasion. You see, they had become weak because of the lasciviousness that had been allowed by their leaders, that they didn’t have the moral fiber to hold them together as a fighting unit.

Finally citizens, who had been weary of the actions of the politicians, took up their arms and the tapestry as a banner in defense of their country. They were seriously hampered in their efforts because some of the new laws that were passed made it difficult for them to retain their firearms, so they were fighting with whatever they could get their hands on. These citizens were those who had believed in and kept the covenant with the ruler of the land and were sustained by their faith that he would help them to rid their country of the invaders. Joined by those of the military who had recognized the lasciviousness that had overtaken their forces and had maintained themselves apart from those activities, these citizens prevailed and began to repel the invaders.

After much bloodshed this new army prevailed and defeated the invaders, but not before the capital city and those who were in it was destroyed. When peace was restored, the original tapestry was found almost totally shredded into pieces. It was held together by one brittle thread. It was taken to a laboratory to be restored.

The threads that had been removed were found in the archives and were brought out and laid down side by side so they could be restored to the tapestry. As this process began, the workers noticed that the threads had tiny strands of gold woven in them at various places. When they were all laid down together they discovered a word had been woven into the threads, a word that when embedded in the cloth held the tapestry together tightly but was imperceptible to the naked eye. A word that when removed bit by bit over time had allowed not only the tapestry, but the fabric of the nation to fall apart as well. That word?–God.

The Outsider

Monday, February 12, 2018

Political Correctness--The Downfall of American Society

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