Infrastructure of Tyranny--Political Correctness

In the first part of this survey of what Conor Friedersdorf has called the "infrastructure of tyranny,"  we looked at the practice of extraordinary rendition, which is basically the art of making people disappear.  In the second part of this survey, we looked at black site prisons, or where people have been disappeared to.  In the third part of the series, we looked at secret detention, or simply not acknowledging that a person is in your hands.  In the fourth part, we looked at indefinite detention without trial.  In the fifth part, we looked at assassination without trial.  In the sixth installment, we looked at the goal of Total Information Awareness.  In the seventh installment, we examined the repeated enactment of legal decisions secretly without public knowledge or review.  In this eighth installment, we'll take a look at the seemingly innocuous spread of political correctness throughout the Western world, also known in certain circles as "newspeak."

“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men”--George Orwell

From a remarkable piece, we hear something of the origins of the term. Excerpts:

...I first heard the phrase "politically correct" in the late 1940s and early 1950s in reference to the political debates between Socialists and members of the United States Communist Party (CP). These debates were an everyday occurrence in my neighborhood in the Bronx until the McCarthy committee and HUAC silenced political talk on the streets. Members of the CP talked about current party doctrine as the "correct" line for the moment. During World War II, the Hitler-Stalin pact caused many CP members considerable pain and often disgrace on my block, which was all Jewish and mostly Socialist. The "correct" position on Stalin's alliance with Hitler was considered to be ridiculous, a betrayal of European Jewry as well as Socialist ideas. The term "politically correct" was used disparagingly to refer to someone whose loyalty to the CP line overrode compassion and led to bad politics. It was used by Socialists against Communists, and was meant to separate out Socialists who believed in equalitarian moral ideas from dogmatic Communists who would advocate and defend party positions regardless of their moral substance.

Given that history, it was surprising to hear right-wing intellectuals in the 1990s using the phrase "politically correct" to disparage students and professors who advocate multiculturalism and are willing to confront racism, sexism, or homophobia at the university. Yet it is not uncommon, for example, for right-wing critics to accuse students (or other professors) who insist that women's voices or the voices of people of color be included in the curriculum of making rigid, oppressive demands that infringe upon academic freedom. The implication of these accusations is that people calling for compliance with antisexist and antiracist education today are similar to the Communist party hard-liners who insisted on compliance with the "correct" line on the Hitler-Stalin pact. It is a clever ploy on the part of neoconservatives, a number of whom were former CP members and know how the phrase "politically correct" was used in the past, to insinuate that egalitarian democratic ideas are actually authoritarian, orthodox, and Communist-influenced when they oppose the right of people to be racist, sexist, and homophobic. The accusation of being "politically correct" is a weapon used by right-wing professors, and publicized by conservative media critics, to protect themselves against criticisms of their own biases by students or other, usually younger, professors. It is a way of diverting the issue of bias within the university to issues of freedom of speech without acknowledging that the right to question professorial authority is also a free speech matter...--Herbert Kohl, “Uncommon Differences: On Political Correctness, Core Curriculum and Democracy in Education”, The Lion and the Unicorn, Volume 16, Number 1, June 1992, pp. 1–16 | 10.1353/uni.0.0216

From the above, we can see that political correctness in its original form meant literally to be correct according to the standards of a certain political group with a particular ideology--that is, to toe the party line.  In states with a single party, as in the Russia of Stalin, Lenin, and Khrushchev, all citizens would be expected to do so.  In states with many parties, or at least two major parties, wouldn't you expect a certain freedom when it comes to what you say?  And yet, behold what until very recently was the law in Canada. Excerpts:

...The effect of killing Section 13 will be debated for years among anti-racist groups and civil libertarians. But it is undoubtedly a turning point. Since 1999, Canadians who felt aggrieved by material transmitted online have been encouraged to seek redress under federal human rights law, which targeted material “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” based on grounds of discrimination like race, religion or sexual orientation. Storseth’s bill repeals the provision outright, leaving the Criminal Code as the primary bulwark against the dissemination of hate propaganda by electronic means.

With it will go one of the most divisive disputes to grip the country since the introduction of the Charter of Rights itself—a contest of values that over the past five years has pitted Canadians’ desire to protect minorities from discrimination against the bedrock principle of free speech. Mainstream media outlets, most notably Maclean’s, have been hauled before commissions to answer for their published content. The commissions themselves have come under fire for allowing their processes to be used as a bludgeon against legitimate expression, tailored as they are to encourage complainants to come forward. Meantime, a Saskatchewan law similar to Section 13 has become the subject of a Supreme Court challenge that could invalidate hate-speech provisions in most provincial human rights codes. By year’s end, it is conceivable that no human rights commission in the country will be in the business of adjudicating published material...

Who was impacted while that law was on the books? A number of folks.  Ezra Levant, one of the most widely known targets of the Human Rights Commissions in Canada, sums up what the system meant (and, in some provinces, still means). Excerpts:

...It is not the Canadian way to criminalize hard feelings. We criminalize violence or other crimes. Not Section 13. It criminalized the feelings itself, without any proof of any harm coming from it.

It is no surprise that, for the first 32 years in that law’s existence, not a single person who was prosecuted under it was acquitted.

It had a 100% conviction rate — usually a laughable statistic from a dictatorship’s legal system. But that’s the thing — the enforcers of Section 13 had more in common with those countries’ sham trials than with Canada’s tradition of impartial and professional courts.

Canada’s human rights commissions and tribunals — there is one in each province and territory, in addition to the federal one — are not run by real judges. Most of them aren’t even run by lawyers.

They’re political appointees, usually activists who specialize in newfangled human rights. That is, the booming industry of hurt feelings.

Unlike real judges, these rulers are not required to be neutral; are not required to abide by legal precedent; do not have the same rules of evidence as real courts; allow hearsay; do not have the same standard of proof as a court; have powers of warrantless searches and seizures; and do not have legal aid for poor people who are accused.

On the other hand, complainants — people who claim their feelings were hurt — usually have the case prosecuted for them by government-funded lawyers.

And there has never been a case of a frivolous hate speech complaint being rejected with a cost order against the complainer.

No wonder the laws attracted bullies, eager to use what was initially meant as a human rights “shield” instead as a political “sword” to skewer enemies who have “hurt” their “feelings.”

Astoundingly, more than half of all Section 13 prosecutions in the past decade were filed by one man, Richard Warman. He is not gay or black or Jewish; he’s a privileged white man, a lawyer, a government bureaucrat and a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

He actually filed complaints to the CHRC while he worked there.

And he won, again and again, and was awarded tens of thousands of dollars from the people he complained against — though they were usually on trial for being rude to gays or blacks or Jews.

After 36 years, this un-Canadian star chamber is now finally shut down. But similar laws against hurt feelings still exist provincially in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan...

In several cases, Catholic clergy and other ministers have been defendants.  Macleans magazine, something of a Canadian institution, was not exempt from being investigated and brought before a commission.

There are also the rising tide of consequences for failing to be politically correct when it comes to gay marriage.  Excerpts:

...We are all well aware that even if Parliament tells us that two men — or three or whatever daft thing they next try to enforce — can marry each other, this would have no validity whatever in the Catholic Church. We can’t and won’t attempt to “marry” two people of the same sex.

But the issues at stake do not essentially relate to this. They relate to things that are already happening: a teacher reprimanded for saying that true marriage can only be between a man and a woman; an office worker disciplined for giving his views on the subject in a private email.

We are seeing the enforcement of something horrible, something which, in fact, does not have the true backing of the law but is simply being accepted as standard practice: the crushing of opposition to same-sex “marriage” and the attempt to impose a standard view on the subject on everyone.

Essentially, the position is this: If I am a firefighter, a social worker, a teacher, a policeman, an office worker for a local authority — or if I hold any sort of public position, such as that of magistrate or borough councillor, I may face dismissal, serious penalties and massive public humiliation simply because I disagree publicly with the government’s policy in this area.

This has not been spelled out in law, but it is happening; and, over the next months and years, there will be endless legal cases relating to this as people struggle to assert a right to free speech that current practice denies them.

I can announce my opposition to the government’s policy on Afghanistan or Europe or the building of the new high-speed railway, and all this is — at present — recognized as freedom of speech.

But if I announce, for example in a letter to a local newspaper or on Twitter, that it is absurd and gravely wrong to impose on Britain the notion that two men can marry each other, then I may face serious penalties.

The Coalition for Marriage — an excellent campaigning organization fighting to defend true male/female marriage — has publicized some truly shocking cases where people have been disciplined for sharing an opinion supportive of marriage between a man and a woman...

Let's move from Canada to the United States, now, and examine a cause which has recently rallied the US Catholic Bishops as almost nothing else in a very long time: religious liberty.  Questions have been raised regarding the administration's party line on religious liberty--or rather, on freedom of worship. Excerpts:

...Knox Thames, director of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom -- a Congress-controlled body tasked with monitoring religious freedom abroad - spoke at a recent briefing about the worry, reportedly saying he sees a change in lingo and that it's not an accident. Well-known religious freedom advocate and Georgetown University professor Thomas Farr reportedly agreed.

The whole subject of what the United States means by the term "religious freedom" may be up for a more full public debate soon, with the new administration and USCIRF scheduled to go out of business next year. Folks like Thames and Farr say limits on religious liberty are often indicators of human rights problems in countries generally, and that health of religious freedom correlates with economic growth. But some American advocates say the United States needs to clarify what it means by "religious freedom" in a post-9/11 world, and what are its priorities? A decade ago the term implied fighting limits on persecuted communities, often Christian, but today religion is discussed differently in foreign policy, with a special emphasis on violence by Muslim extremists.

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Here is the full quote of Knox Thames, the USCIRF director. It's what he said at the Feb. 3 public staff briefing about the future of U.S. religious freedom policy sponsored by the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on International Operations, Human Rights and Oversight:

"I have noticed a change in terminology by President Obama and Secretary Clinton over the past months. Starting during the President's trip to Asia, he referred to 'freedom of worship' on several occasions, but never once mentioned 'freedom of religion.' This trend has continued with Secretary Clinton. In her speech at Georgetown University and her more recent Internet freedom speech, both times she only referred to 'freedom of worship.'"

"Religious freedom is one of those unique rights that, to be fully enjoyed, other rights like association and speech must also be protected. Words matter, and so it's unclear whether this new phraseology represents a change in policy. Hopefully this language only reflects speech writers trying to create good prose and not a shift in policy, as it would mean a much narrower view of the right. It will be interesting to hear what language the President uses at the Prayer Breakfast, if he talks about religious freedom issues."...

There's plenty more where all this came from--Ayaan Hirsi Ali's remarkable life story; Theo Van Gogh's death; and more.