You just could not make this stuff up. Schools that won’t tell parents their kids have lice because it will hurt their feelings. Fraternities run through re-education camp equivalents for theme parties and such some thin-skinned zealot found offensive. Towns councils threatening to fine parents for allowing their children to play with toy guns… and even advising against allowing them to play in camo-gear. Schools that ban superhero costumes. The list just goes on and on.
It is time for an all out anti-idiot offensive. Parents in idiot-enclave towns and students in moron-managed colleges must set out consciously to seek and destroy the legitimacy of the PC army. No one can take a laughingstock seriously, so we must laugh at them and share the laughter with our friends, neighbors and classmates.
Public humiliation is a powerful weapon and it is easy to make fools of these people. They have already done the hard work for you.
Harsh satire and extreme exaggeration work nicely. I once ran a guerilla theatre troop in Pittsburgh. We would appear suddenly at an appointed location in downtown or on campus with costume, leaflets and a prepared “theatrical production”. Our theatrical shock tactics were timed such we’d be on our way before anyone thought about it.
It worked well. I only got kicked in the arse once.
You will find a lot of the details on PC gone mad referenced here.
Dale, you really were a member of the Mary-Lou Ogreburg Peoples’ Bread-and-Marmite Street Theatre?
I am hugely impressed.
Of course if you don’t recognise the allusion, you’re just too young. Sorry.
Hey, why is this article “Retard Watch” categorized under “North American Affairs” Does the UK not have a PC problem?
This is a very well-written post —-
“They have already done the hard work for you” is a great line
— but suffers from the total lack of credibility of its one link — FOX.
Yes, I assume you meant the whole post to be witty in the inimitable Samizdata tradition and not to be taken as anything but a good haw-haw at the expense of the benighted. But it is obviously also a serious post; and serious inquiry and FOX have little to do with each other.
I would not trust FOX to report that the earth is round; of course that may be a bad example.
Patrick: A couple of the examples from this week’s Fox News column ARE from the UK.
David, the day we learn to distrust anything in Big Media will be the day of the libertarian revolution. In the meantime check this out.
Bosses ban lollipop lady’s fave hat
Pathetic!
It’s all good knockabout stuff, Dale. But PC is not all hats and toy guns, as you must know. Would that it were so simple. Any ideas about how we can screw the real thing?
Well, I’m joining hundreds of others for the 10th Annual DC Area Red Dress Run this coming Saturday.
I’ll be wearing this fetching Marks and Spencer minidress I picked up at Goodwill this past weekend.
Here are some pictures from last year:
The Red Dress Run
The evening before
There’s going to be a Red Dress Run in Cardiff next July. See you there, Dale!
Harry, I am not doubting that there is a lot of silly, over-compensating PC-BS going around — Hey! I live in Seattle! — but using FOX for anything except, perhaps, the time of day, weakens an argument.
FOX is just one step back from Ann Coulter — a disgrace to true conservatism and which slants things so much that while it is great for a goof, it lacks credibility.
David,
Could you please indicate which sources you would trust? Why this seething vitriol against FOX?
It seems to me that Fox is a delightful counterbalance to the left-wing statist press. And they do have some excellent commentary, not all of which comes from the right.
Michael
Absolutely Dale, couldn’t agree more. I’m in the process of investigating the reasons why some classroom assistant at my son’s junior school stopped my son and his friend from visiting a website which, he tells me, features a deerhunting game, because she alleges it to be “cruel”. This in a rural area where hunting is far more common than in most parts of the country.
Q: what is this “Fox” business?
Q: Sentence three, “Fraternities run through re-education camp equivalents for theme parties and such some thin-skinned zealot found offensive.” I’m literate (I’ve had stuff in the Telegraph and Guardian, apart from humbler titles, and editors don’t mess with my copy much) but I do not understand what this means. No-one else has queried it, so maybe my brain is giving out, or I’ve drunk too much whisky.
It’s not you Tony, I couldn’t parse that sentence so that it makes sense either…last night while drinking rum OR today while sober!
I can parse that sentence, put “, which” after “such”.
I have seen many of these linked on other blogs to articles on websites other than Fox. The vast majority are legit.
Some of what is broadcast on ALL stations is bs. Seen the BBC lately?
It made perfect sense to me when I wrote it 😉
If you must know… I started off thinking bullet points and then decided on a more conversational style and somewhere in between lost a word or two and just didn’t see it while proof reading.
Those who don’t have the stomach for reading a Fox News article may have missed that many (if not all) of the items in the story come from Tongue Tied, which is linked to by the Fox article, and well worth a read.
Sorry to be pedantic but I really would like to know – I’m not being snotty about your syntax, but just explain which “fraternities” you mean, the “re-education camps” and how/whether they’re connected with “equivalents”, and the “theme parties” (do these words belong together?)… It still doesn’t make sense to me. Thanks.
Its time for the BAT SIGNAL!!!
Parents should make up little sticky batman signs and stick them on all the school windows.
Then they should make stencils up of the Batman Bat and the Superman “S” and then sneak in and spray them on the doors and and bonnets (hood) of all the teachers cars 🙂
With the councils who banned toyguns; they should get loads of horrible green and grey and khaki paint and camouflage the councillors cars… and stick Action Man symbols on them 🙂
Tony:
Henceforth, your name shall be Flounder….
University fraternities are not known for their tact, but well known for parties and humorously non-pc themes thereto.
So a lot of Universities have tried to “cleanse” the themes by banning this and that, requiring approval of the themes and so forth.
All of this is only because some birkenstock wearing, permanantly aggrieved fool is offended by togas and the like…
Universities a decade ago didnt care much about all this. The police used to worry a LOT more about how much students drank because the would wander around drunk and get mugged or more violently violated in some cases.
So the “re-education camp” business, is largely about the foolish attempts to pasteurize so frat boys’ fun.
rgds.,
Mr. Blutarski
Scenario:
College fraternity throws – wait. Let me back up for the benefit of non-US readers. A fraternity is an organization of college students. Typically, fraternities have a “house” where members live during college, put on various social events, and have various social cross-connections with other fraternities and sororities at the same college. In some cases they serve as social bonds after college. Many fraternities are affiliated with a nation-wide organization, but most of the governance is done at the level of an individual chapter – that is to say, the members at a particular college. The students basically run them.
Fraternities have a reputation for silliness, drunkenness, and general irresponsibility, often deserved. (Oh, and if you’re in the UK, substitute “university” for “college” throughout the above.) Pop cultural reference: view the movie “Animal House”. Or “Revenge of the Nerds”.
Clear so far? Good.
Scenario: a fraternity throws one of their unnumerable parties. The party is, for example, a costume party where some members show up in blackface dressed as Amos and Andy, or a “Mexican” theme party that includes references to “wetbacks”… in other words, the party or some part of it includes references to hot-button racial issues. These references might be tasteless or might simply be politically dangerous.
The administration discovers this and flips out, threatens to expel the fraternity (meaning they no longer get official recognition), threatens to punish one or more of the students involved, or both. The settlement of the fracas often involves requiring the members of the fraternity to successfully complete “sensitivity training classes”, which are basically propaganda sessions aimed at creating a change in the attitudes that allowed them to see the above goings-on as acceptable – these aren’t exactly re-education camps, but the general idea is similar.
Ah, it’s an American culture thing I see – thanks to Joe of DC (sorry, don’t get the “Flounder” joke) and Jeanne for explaining. So they’re college fraternities, and parties therein… The US college fraternity/sorority thing always seemed extremely weird to me, offering lots of material to chuck back at any American who ever criticised English culture on grounds of eccentricity, perverse hierarchies, childish ritual etc. Nice to hear some of the parties are non-PC though.