Freedom of Speech ? Or Not!

[Teresa]

Well, what do we have here? Looks like a small case of some people being
  able to dish it out, but not take it. Let's start at the top.

The story begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical
engineering  professor named Indrek Wichman. Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim
Student's  Association.
The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the Danish cartoons
that  portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The group had complained
the  cartoons were "hate speech."
Enter Professor Wichman. In his e-mail, he said the following:
;
Dear Moslem Association:
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest
your  protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like
beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide
murders,  murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey), burnings of Christian
churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the
imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls
and  women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in
Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris, France.This is what offends me,
a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of my colleagues. I counsel
you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to
be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests." If   you do
not like the values of the West - see the 1st Amendment - you are free to
leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please
return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of
troubling Americans.

Cordially,
I. S. Wichman
Professor of Mechanical Engineering

As you can imagine, the Muslim group at the university didn't like this
too  well.  They're demanding that Wichman be reprimanded and mandatory diversity
training  for faculty and a seminar on hate and discrimination for freshman. Now the
Michigan chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray. CAIR, the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, apparently doesn't believe that the good professor
had the right to express his opinion.
For its part, the university is standing its ground, saying the e-mail was
private, and they don't intend to publicly condemn his remarks. That will
probably change.  Wichman says he never intended for his e-mail to be made public, and
wouldn't  have used the same strong language if he'd known it was going to get out.
How's the left going to handle this one? If you're in favor of the  freedom of
speech, as in the case of Ward Churchill, will the same protections be demanded
for Indrek Wichman? I doubt it.

We are in a war. This  political correctness crap is getting old .[/color]

[Wilma]

What does the Constitution say about "Political Correctness"?

[kdfrawg]

The Constitution is oddly silent on the subject of Political Correctness. Within certain limits of common decency (something which may have eroded significantly since then) it appears to me that our forefather said pretty much what they felt. It is true that their words were usually framed politely (another dying art), but one was rarely unaware of where they stood.

It seems to me that Political Correctness is another name for taking away our free speech rights by the simple expedient of peer pressure. That is the way, in fact, that most of our original "rights" have been eroded. (As an aside, I wish that they had been termed "responsibilities" rather than "rights".) If we were able to properly define the meaning and usage of "common decency" and "public politeness" we would be a step closer to once again being the republic which we started out to be.

[Janet Harrington]

Um.  Me thinks that the words "political correctness" are words only used in the 21st century.  I don't believe, nah, I'll just say it, the Consitution does not say anything about "political correctness".  So there.  When the Consitution was written and passed by our great and wise forefathers, political correctness was not something they gave a rat's ass about.

Now, here lies the problem.  Too often we worry so much about offending someone or a group, etc.  In the Old Testament, the Book of Amos was written by Amos from Tekoa.  Amos was sent by God to warn the Israelites to stay away from Bethel because the people of Bethel were corrupt in their worship.  Bethel was turned into a Jerusalem substitute.  The people of Bethel were blatantly idolatrous.  It was Amos' job to warn the Israelites about the ways of Bethel.

Amos was compelled to prophesy about what was going to happen and how God was going to punish those people.  I am sure that Amos offended many people.  However; Amos did not stay quiet.  Amos gave his message again and again and again.  

The example that Amos gives us is to stand up against these injustices, stand up for what we believe.  Stand up and tell the left to put their opinions where the sun don't shine.  What's right is right and what's wrong is wrong.

"Political correctness" is a word that the United States needs to quit using.  We need to go back to what our Consitution says and quit trying to twist and turn the words of our forefathers.

Enough said.

[Wilma]

Down with Political Correctness.  Can I say that?

[Janet Harrington]

Yes you can.  I say we protest against "political correctness".  I say we promote manners and ethics and morals and all that good stuff.  I say we fight to keep political correctness out of our Constitution.

[flo]

this is gonna show my mentality - but here goes - when I first heard "politically correct" I pictured a bunch of stuffed shirts, at a sit down dinner, all "correctly" using the right fork etc, eating small bites and carrying on meaningless conversation and trying to impress one another.  Now that I sit back and read this, sounds like a bunch of politicians to me.

[kdfrawg]

Both of your descriptions sound perfectly valid to me. As it turns out, generally speaking, political correctness means not saying things that will embarrass those in power or any other group that may cause those in power problems if embarrassed. It is, in essence, a wonderful way to limit free debate without having to pass any laws to do it.

[Wilma]

So why is it wrong to embarass those in a position of power?

[kdfrawg]

I don't think it's wrong.

It's the person in power that thinks it is wrong.

You may deduce from the above two statements that I am not a person in power.

You would be correct.