Sometimes I am just overwhelmed by the amount of political correctness that occurs today. In the world of Twitter, Facebook, etc., the amount of conversation has increased dramatically, but so has the hyper-sensitivity. As every word is recorded, so is it scrutinized. It really makes people overly sanitize their statements making doubly and triply sure they have not offended anyone.
Consider GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin’s recent comments on rape. Stupid, yes. Misinformed, yes. But no one truly believes that Akin believes rape is ok. His comments were taken out of context and “gotcha politics” were quick to capitalize on his dumb statement. I make dumb statements all the time and certainly knowing that they might be taken out of context makes me think twice. However, is this kind of sanitization of speech what we want? When it comes to potentially offending someone, we are hyper-sensitive.
Do you remember this guy?
What happens when you have two outspoken racists at a party? You get quite a show. We cringed watching Archie Bunker, but for whatever it was worth, you got at least the words out. It exposed him for what he was. I think that is probably better in the long run than our PC culture sometimes today. Do you yearn for the Harry Truman “tell it like it is” kind of guy. I know I sometimes do.
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