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  Prior to my decision to withdraw as commencement speaker, I spoke to some prominent members of the gay community at Johns Hopkins. In doing so I found out two important things: First, bestiality is particularly abhorrent in the gay community and the mention of it evokes a very emotional response. Had I known that, I would have avoided the topic, since the last thing I wanted to do was to cause unnecessary offense and distract from the matters at hand.

  Second, I asked if there was any position a person could take that did not include approval of gay marriage that would be acceptable to the gay community. After some consideration, I was told that there really was no other acceptable position. This explains why there was such a ferocious attack on my comments—there really was no argument that could have been made that would not have drawn an emotional response instead of a rational argument.

  Responding to the PC Police

  Not only is it important for Americans to communicate about difficult issues, but the method and tone of communication are also very important. Abrasive and reactionary speech can be at least as bad as silence, feeding right into the hands of the PCP. Saul Alinsky advised his followers to level sharp attacks against their opponents with the goal of goading them into rash counterattacks that would then discredit them. To avoid falling into this trap, those of us who are interested in civil discussion should prepare ourselves to refrain from reacting in fear or anger to those who disagree with us or even attack us.

  I frequently remind my attackers that our greater purpose is to engage in intelligent conversation and solve problems. Most who disagree with me are good, intelligent people who also want to solve problems in a reasonable manner. As for those who are not so well intentioned, it is very difficult for them to continue attacking someone who is calm and reasonable. They usually realize fairly quickly that they are the ones who look like fools if they refuse to engage in problem solving.

  It is particularly important when dealing with adversaries to know what points you want to make while remaining focused. This makes constant interruptions, attacks, and attempts to change the subject more difficult. If you are an effective representative of American values, the secular progressives will make every attempt to destroy your character by exposing any mistakes, misstatements, or misdeeds from your past. Naturally, there are no perfect people, present company included, which makes the threats of exposure extremely potent. If a misdeed from your past is exploited, it is best to admit to it, condemn it, and ask, “What more do you want?”

  Sometimes I am asked, “How do you maintain your cool when faced with ridiculous claims and statements by your opponents?” There was a time when I was a hothead, and my temper wreaked havoc in my life until I learned to take myself out of the center of the circle. The real key to staying cool and calm is to relinquish selfishness and always consider the feelings of others. When someone is being particularly mean and nasty, I simply think to myself, He or she used to be a cute little baby, I wonder what happened? Thinking about that question will soften your attitude and lessen the likelihood of an inflammatory confrontation.

  As we discussed earlier in this book, offense and sensitivity are frequently feigned for the purpose of garnering sympathy and further reinforcing the validity of political correctness. However, two can play that game. When the offended party proclaims the injury you have wrought upon them with your words, say something to the effect of: “I can see that you were deeply hurt by my choice of words. It was not my intention to hurt you and for that I am sorry. Now I would like for you to know what I intended to communicate to you and I will use different words that will hopefully convey the spirit of my thoughts and allow our discussion to continue.” If the offended party was truly offended, that will be a sufficient statement, but if they were only pretending to be offended, they will continue to harp on their perceived mistreatment. This exercise is useful because it helps you learn what you are dealing with. If it is just a misunderstanding, frequently the conflict can be alleviated by this kind of open communication.

  True Wounds

  Sometimes a true wound can be so deep that it clouds the thoughts of the injured party to the point that they can no longer be objective. In such cases, continued explanations tend to result in diminishing returns or even exacerbations of the misunderstanding. I vividly remember the case of a disabled woman whom I greatly admire because she adopted many children with disabilities that were even greater than hers. Many of her children had complex neurosurgical problems that engaged my skills for many hours at a time. After caring for her many children over the years, one of them experienced a shunt malfunction that caused rapid accumulation of pressure in the head due to the spinal fluid’s inability to escape. I rushed into the hospital in the middle of the night, even being stopped by the police for speeding. We operated on the child and repaired the shunt, but unfortunately the child suffered some brain damage and was never quite the same again. Despite explanations and a long-term relationship, I never saw that mother or any of her children again. I believe the emotional trauma was understandably more than she could handle. Sometimes you just have to realize that you cannot heal all wounds no matter how hard you try.

  In today’s political scene, some people are so traumatized by perceived past injustices that they cannot conceive of any good thing that a group member who they believe has been unfair to them can do. They tend to demonize these individuals for past wrongs perpetrated by others and there is no changing their minds. It is important for the demonized group to understand this mentality and patiently attempt to undo the damage that has resulted in such attitudes. Both Republicans and Democrats can benefit from this advice.

  Our Heritage of Free Speech

  Whether by creating hypersensitivity or drawing angry reactions, Alinsky’s organizers’ goal is to make the societal majority feel that their opinion is the minority opinion and that the organizers’ opinion is the majority opinion. The ability to co-opt the mainstream media in this endeavor is a gigantic coup. If the majority of people who are rational, reasonable, and full of common sense feel that their opinions are out of sync with everyone else, it is easy to shut them up and beat them into submission. This is what has occurred in America today. Hopefully by bringing this to light, more people will see the necessity of seizing the banner of bravery just like Nathan Hale, Patrick Henry, and many others in the past who stood up to tyranny.

  Why was freedom of speech so important to our nation’s founders? Many had come from countries like England where verbally opposing the king frequently resulted in a jail sentence or even death. The founders also felt that the free exchange of ideas would result in better government and would prevent government from becoming too big and self-important. These are the very reasons we must once again insist on freedom of speech and expression, and we should be repulsed by the very idea of political correctness that muzzles the populace. Our government does not directly jail dissenters, but it can do so indirectly by expecting the IRS to harass those who oppose its policies. This should be something that completely outrages every American who understands the hard-fought freedoms of our nation, but many have been lulled to sleep by the gradual increase of political correctness and have yet to notice that our fundamental freedoms are in jeopardy.

  It is tempting to simply acknowledge the corrosive effects of political correctness on freedom of speech and say that we will deal with this at some point in the future. The problem with that line of thinking is that the future may not arrive before catastrophic events intervene.

  If we are to survive as a united nation, we must learn how to engage in civil discussion of our differences without becoming bitter enemies. We cannot fall for the Saul Alinsky trick of not having a conversation while trying to demonize each other. Let’s talk about the tough issues without scrutinizing every word and castigating anyone who dares to violate the PC rules. There is nothing wrong with disagreement—in fact, if two people agree about everything, one of them isn’t necessary. I believe we are all nece
ssary so let’s toss out the hypersensitivity and roll up our sleeves and start working together to solve our problems. If each of us is willing to extend the benefit of the doubt or overlook verbal missteps, political correctness will become impotent.

  Action Steps

  Try to identify one instance of artificial outrage. Explain to one other person why this is a contrived issue and outline the way it agitates people and cultivates political support for the agitators.

  Readily apologize to a person who is offended by something you said. Explain what you had hoped to convey.

  Attempt to politely disagree with someone who makes a political statement with which you disagree. (Be sure that you choose an appropriate setting.) Engage in a civil discussion of the matter.

  Read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals to get an idea of how the political correctness police work.

  ELITISM

  Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.

  PROVERBS 16:18

  Coming from inner-city Detroit and going to Yale University represented an astronomical change in my surroundings and life. One of my freshman roommates had a twin brother matriculating at Princeton and a father who was a prominent physician. The other roommate was from a business family. They all seemed very rich to me, being the son of a divorced mother with less education than the maids who cleaned their houses. But my roommates’ wealth and status was minor compared with some of the really rich kids on campus. Many were from very well-known families and traveled around with an entourage of sycophants and admirers. It was not unusual to see parents visiting campus in Rolls-Royces and limousines when I was a freshman and a sophomore. I was surrounded by elites.

  But the way the elites presented themselves was changing. By the end of my sophomore year, the campus was already starting to become radicalized. The Black Panthers were idolized, and the most admired people on campus dressed like hippies and flower children. Marijuana and acid rock had become fashionable, and outward shows of affluence were frowned upon. Elitism on campus, which had previously been defined by wealth, was now defined by identification with the downtrodden people in society and a determination to use one’s superior education and compassion to help them. As this generation of elites grew up, they began to occupy positions of importance in society, becoming college professors and administrators, national television producers, business managers, and politicians. Even though many still enjoyed the fruits of economic prosperity, they continued to identify with those people they considered to be oppressed by the system.

  The makeup of today’s elite class is psychologically and sociologically more complex than what I have just presented, but its development in the Ivy Leagues of the 1960s can explain the dichotomy between what the wealthy members of this class say and what they do. For the most part, they are incapable of seeing any hypocrisy in their own lives while examining with a microscope every facet of their perceived opponents’ lives. They are very happy to give away other people’s money, but guard their own purse strings possessively. The sad thing is that they have become so wise in their own eyes that they have lost objectivity, thus frequently rendering themselves quite useless when it comes to truly improving the lot of the downtrodden in our society.

  Do the Elite Really Know Better Than the Rest of Us?

  This arrogance is the chief characteristic of the elites I am concerned about. Wealth, education, and influence are all well and good, but when they lull those who hold them into a state of self-satisfaction where they are convinced of their own perfect wisdom and virtue and shield them from life’s realities, we have a problem. Today’s elites constantly talk about hubris in their opponents but seem unaware of their own lack of humility. They are thoroughly convinced that they are intellectually superior to those people who believe in God, creation, and the Bible, and many use positions of authority at colleges and universities to strictly enforce “open-mindedness” by pillorying any student or colleague who dares question their ideological rantings. The elite class also exists in the mainstream media where elite journalists try to be objective but simply cannot escape the influence of so many years of social propaganda. I believe that in their heart of hearts elites see themselves as society’s savior, but they are blinded by pride to the results of their actions.

  Not all elites are blinded by what they are doing. Very recently I was speaking to a major producer of a major left-wing television network who admitted that the electronic media today is a major propaganda tool used to manipulate society. We have never had this kind of access to the minds of the people and no one really knows the extent to which public opinion can be controlled. Most frightening, these secular progressive elites, as well as some right-leaning elites in the media, are willing to push the limits in order to see just how effective they can be with the imposition of their will upon the people.

  Not all media personalities fit this characterization. Perhaps the greatest television journalist of all time, Walter Cronkite, was decidedly left wing in his political outlook, but was so professional in his reporting that most people were unaware of this. Unless the other elites can ever see the possibility of a flaw in their belief systems or are willing to be objective in their reporting, they are largely unreachable and have little intersection with common sense.

  Politically, elitism knows no single party. Establishing policies that create dependency, like easy food stamps and subsidized health care for families making in excess of $80,000 per year, seems to stroke the egos of both Republican and Democrat elites who believe they are God’s gift to mankind. However, if they examine the long-term consequences of what they are doing, some may begin to understand that true compassion warrants the investment of intellectual capital into finding ways that people can be elevated and imbued with the can-do attitude.

  The Elite Oppression of Minority Communities

  In order for elitism to flourish, there has to be another class of people who are willing to acknowledge the superiority of the chosen ones. Elites cultivate this obeisance by providing goodies to the less fortunate ones. In our society today, those goodies consist of multiple kinds of entitlement programs. As the dependency on these programs grows, the position of the elite class is solidified because they will always be seen as the providers who need to be protected from any threats of power redistribution. The elitists constantly find ways to proclaim their goodness and their necessity for the well-being of the “oppressed,” while at the same time declaring how evil their opponents are, and how those evil people would utterly destroy any hope of a reasonable life for the oppressed if they were to gain power.

  The truth is, the liberal policies of the elite class have done little to improve the lot of those who depend so much on them. In America’s black communities, where the goodies have been flowing for decades, rather than seeing improvements in terms of upward mobility, we are seeing deteriorating family structure, increases in violent crimes, growing poverty, and growing dependence. Even with such a blatant record of failure, there is slavish devotion to the elite class who continue to promise more goodies in exchange for votes.

  Black leaders like Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, were great proponents of self-reliance and self-help. I believe they would have been horrified to see the condition of the black community in America today despite their efforts to bring true economic liberation to this important group of Americans. Many of the elites from both parties embrace these men as heroes but propose social policies that do not encourage self-reliance; policies these men would never have approved. Based on their policies, I believe that they subconsciously think that some people are not capable of helping themselves.

  Most of the elite are not humble enough to accept these kinds of criticisms and make changes. I guess that is why they are considered elite. Since we can’t expect them to change, it’s up to the rest of us to do all that we can to help those dependent on the elites to get on their feet. The elite class
can’t last long without the votes of these communities.

  Escaping Subservience

  One of the most important ways the African American community in particular can end its dependence on the elites is to lower the number of out-of wedlock births. As a result of the number of black babies born out of wedlock in recent years, there is a gigantic economic hole from which many in the community will have to climb out of to achieve the American Dream. That ascension needs to start immediately by teaching young women the importance of self-respect and the consequences of single motherhood—usually the end of the mother’s educational endeavors, limiting her economic success and often condemning her child to poverty. (A 2013 article in US News and World Report by Steven Nelson titled “Census Bureau Links Poverty with Out-of-Wedlock Births” examines this phenomenon, which has been corroborated by many other journalistic sources.) At the same time, we need to provide affordable child care to enable single mothers to further their schooling and prepare for an increasingly technologically sophisticated world. We also have to demonstrate to these mothers that men are not going to disappear or be afraid of them after they obtain advanced education. This is a total myth and if anything, advanced education increases the opportunity to meet someone with similar accomplishments and goals. We must do everything we can to convince these young ladies that they are priceless and can make great contributions to all of mankind. When these valuable citizens gain appropriate self-esteem, they will avoid many careless mistakes and think more independently, weakening the hold the elites have on them.