Illusion said:
You may think that political correctness provides fairness for everybody but in actuality it only provides protection for those who hold liberal values, conservatives get stomped on. It's not politically incorrect to call somebody a racist who isn't actually a racist, because nobody actually looks into it to find out what the true intentions of the person are. Furthermore, you hear words like sexist, homophobe and racist hundreds of times a day but how many times do you hear words like: anti-Christian bigot, manhater, or somebody who is racist against white people? There is no politically correct vocabulary to protect these people because the political establishment is against all things traditional and these people mean nothing to them. You have no right to insist that political correctness is fair unless you have spent time on our side of the fence. You may think that things are good right now, but from our point of view things are horrible because you can't even talk about the problems without getting blasted with some politically correct label like "racist" that doesn't even describe your true intentions. This is why so many people turned to Donald Trump, when he gets called a racist without actually making any racist remarks we can all relate to the abuse that he is sbujected to because we have been subjected to it as well. Donald Trump is our way of letting you know how bad things are, those in power don't get to ignore half the population and insist that we are being treated fairly when things are so unjust. |
The reason you don't hear words like "anti-Christian bigot" very often is objectively there really aren't that many, not in a sense that's truly equivalent to racism. I see (and personally know) a lot of people decrying the Christian establishment as sexist, but I don't see a lot of people arguing to create laws against going to church. There's a significant difference here, which is that words like sexist, homophobic, racist are all terms which describe systemic oppression that has been ongoing for hundreds of years.
Let's say that you sincerely believe that life begins at conception. That's great, I think you are more than welcome to that belief; no one should ever force you to violate that belief and get (or perform) an abortion, and I believe no one has to right to call you sexist for holding that belief. But do you have the right to deprive other people from having an abortion? How many gays do you see lobbying Congress to pass laws against Christians going to church? In other words, does your right to hold beliefs extend so far as to grant you the power to deprive other people of their own rights?
It's at that point where it seems fair to have a discussion about institutionalized sexism/racism and oppression of women's reproductive rights. Existing laws originate from the institutions that have held historical power, and if the nature of conservatism (by your words "all things traditional") is to protect existing laws, then I think it's fair to make the claim that some of those laws are rooted in sexism/racism/homophobia (because very few people can resist the temptation to use power in self-serving ways) and that preserving them can serve to institutionalize that prejudice. It is harder to believe that there are a similar number of existing laws that are rooted in anti-Christian movements, simply because of the comparative lack of historical power (quick: name two presidents who aren't white Christian males).
This is the thing a lot of people don't see about racism and sexism: it's not about whether you personally believe (consciously or unconsciously) that blacks are inferior to whites, but whether you support a power structure that (often indirectly, but at times overtly) disadvantages the former. I agree it's wrong to automatically call someone sexist just cause they believe life begins at birth: when that same person wants to force women to do things as a result of that belief (a force that they only possess due to an unfair distribution of power), then maybe I can call that sexist. I'm not judging that person's character, but his actions by that label.
I'm sorry that you feel oppressed — I don't think anyone in society should feel that way, but there's a quote that's been going around a lot recently that I've enjoyed: "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels a lot like oppression". Please reflect upon that and decide for yourself whether you truly feel this is the same form of oppression that the "other side" feels. I'm hoping you can see that there are some reasonable structural differences between the intolerance that stems from racism and the intolerance (you're right, it exists) that stems from political correctness. Can we at least agree on that as a place to start from for an honest discussion?
