“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."

- Pastor Dave Barnhart at Saint Junia United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama

Definition of sanctimonious
1: hypocritically pious or devout

other considerations;
https://www.vasectomy.com/article/vasectomy/procedure/no-needle-vasectomy or even https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/vasalgel/

https://youtu.be/25JyC5Whhvc

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ben-franklin-american-instructor-textbook-abortion-recipe.html

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-americans-really-think-about-abortion/

remember the cute "my body my choice" covid 19 zinger?

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7047e1.htm#:~:text=Pregnant%20women%20are%20at%20increased,1%E2%80%933)

folks like yourself weren't against late, late term abortions. i.e. grandma/pa

also a DYK https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2016/07/28/ancient-birth-control-silphium-and-the-origin-of-the-heart-shape/

Please don’t spread the rebranding, intentional bastardization of a 40 year old well known legal analysis class to create a scapegoat, a faux boogeyman for the right to be outraged over.
CRT is not what the Right has falsely branded it, and it’s blatantly obvious they needed to create a racist scapegoat because their old buzzwords like Political Correctness weren’t being taken seriously or sparking outrage anymore.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory

It’s just more bullshit, don’t step in it

I don't believe "political correctness" is really a thing. Just a 90s buzzword made up by people who couldn't handle being called out as some form of bigot and/or asshole. It means the same damn thing as "cancel culture" for most of the usage either term sees these days, and generally just amounts to "I don't like consequences for my actions."

Jokes can still be dirty and offensive as hell, no problem. Just don't punch down / belittle people for no good reason, that shit's just mean-spirited.

Is it politically correct to claim national pride for this?
#CzechFTW

Sounds word smithing, bending the original meaning of gender to give legitimacy to ones lifestyle.

Its like taking the definition of dog and morphing its original definition to include any 4 legged animal.

But hey the left control the education system ( and media) and hence control the language of the day.

Next time you seem me walking my elephant just be politically correct and say thats a nice dog you have.

I take all that to heart.

In my native language and for me any woman under my age is a girl AND any man or woman taking part in sports and games is a boy or girl. They would be greeted and befriended in a much less formal manner than, for example during an opera performance intermission in the theatre hallway or in a workplace setting. For me girls running around on skis with guns are girls, I dont think of them as world class athletes but as ordinary people doing something enjoyable and rewarding.

I have trouble being entirely serene in the face of political correctness, so do feel free to correct my errors if I am found wanting in this area, even if I sometimes may appear to not take things seriously. Just a disclaimer.

"Edit this video" is now hidden in a menu that appears when you hover over your name above your video (Eric told me). Thanks.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Stewart Lee - Political Correctness Gone Mad. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

Sometimes I feel like people have to expend a lot of effort to miss the point so well...

OH&S - We had a MSDS for Spray and Wipe in the office which required us to use gloves and a facemask. Ordinary surface cleaner. And it was enforced... This is what he is talking about. Taking what started as a good idea and going way too fucking far with it.

PC - You kinda prove the point right off the bat with "straight white dude". You're discriminating. You feel justified in doing so because white males are so fucking awful to everyone on the planet (it's true, I heard a feminist say so..), but it doesn't change the fact that it's discrimination. You're either politically correct all the time or you're a hypocrite. I happen to support your right to discriminate, but take issue with hypocrisy.

Smoking - Missing the point, the government makes it socially unacceptable, removes the places where you can do it, but leaves it as legal and runs up the cost to astronomical levels to keep the revenue rolling in. It's an innately contradictory position.

The bit on Ireland was more a commentary on the Irish than smoking...

And of course smokers are one of the few groups within society that almost no one will stand up to defend. Very easy to be non-PC and discriminate against (gotta let all those uptight PC dickheads vent their spleen somewhere I guess... =)

"Politically correct language is allegedly designed to solve this bullying problem and its etymological by-product. The practitioners of political correctness adopt the strategy of periodically replacing the words used as insults with new terms in an effort to avoid negative connotations imbued—or allegedly imbued—in existing terms."

I disagree with that. I don't think PC (god, I hate that term) is designed to "solve the bullying problem". It's simply to stop the normalisation of terms like "retarded".

this video nails it in my opinion,and i respect those who have chimed in but i notice there is a glaring omission in the discussion,and i think it should be the primary focus:

intent.

words are just symbols.
scratchings on a wall meant to convey meaning.
a meaning that can easily be misconstrued because we all inject our own subjectivity within the abstract nature of words.

it is the INTENT that drives the true meaning of the words we use.
the engine that moves that vehicle forward,with our emotions and thoughts as the fuel.

now there are some words that should never be used,as chaos mentioned,simply due to their vile nature and the history of oppression,suffering and vileness.there are some words where you simply cannot wash the stain of bloodied,vile corruption off of due to their inherent nature.

but do we avoid those words due to political correctness?
or basic,simple human decency and politeness?

this video points to very root of the problem,and that is our very nature.
political correctness seeks to demand we change our vocabulary,our very lexicon,all in the lofty goals of being more sensitive and compassionate,but it ultimately fails because it does not recognize the very nature of who we are.

a polite person has no issue discarding words from his/her lexicon in the name of politeness,but there are those who ARE vile,racist,misogynistic and grotesque...and they simply adhere to this new social norm to avoid detection,and then create NEW scratchings on the wall to convey their loathing and beligerent ignorance,now done in secret.

because it is the INTENT that is the driving force,which then lends itself to situational context to help us all understand the why's and the what-for's.

political correctness does not take this into account because it views the WORDS as being the culprit to societies woes,whereas politeness addresses this problem head-on.

basically it is this:
political correctness=you are being an asshole.
politeness=don't be an asshole.
enoch=already an asshole

too late fuckers!

intent is everything.
because you can call someone a motherfucker!
a MOTHER-FUCKER!
or a hey mothafucker!

intent my friends..intent.

@Diogenes

Thank you for your detailed answer. I do agree with you that context matters and that words are neither inherently good or bad by themselves. However, I think you’re looking at the situation from a more microscopic point of view as a simple joke between two people. I prefer to take a more macroscopic view of the situation. Allow me to explain.

Going back to my hypothetical example, it’s true that I didn't mean any harm when I used the term "retard" towards my brother. I think all people like to think of themselves as "good" people. For example, I would never in my life point at person with Down Syndrome and scream "Retard!" at the top of my lungs or attempt to belittle someone with an actual mental disability. The problem, however, is that by using the word in the way I did in the example I am tacitly--and quite publicly (remember this is happening in a parking lot)--endorsing the equating of people with mental disabilities to stupidity. I may be making a joke towards my brother but it isn’t just my brother that winds up being the butt of the joke.

Now maybe from your perspective, it’s just one person saying a joke. Look at the context, you might say. It’s a distasteful joke but no big deal, right? And I could agree with that if it was just some off-color joke limited to a single individual. Unfortunately, and I think we can both agree on this, the use of “retard” to mean “stupid” is a relatively common occurrence in American vernacular. You couple that with the stigma against mental illness and mental disability and I think it becomes fairly plain to see that on the macroscopic level (i.e. society) we have a problem: a group that is socially disadvantaged and historically discriminated against is even further marginalized by the language people use in their everyday lives. Now, if you don’t agree this is a problem, I’m afraid the conversation has to end here since the logical conclusion of such a stance is that people should be free to say whatever they want and be immune to criticism, damn the consequences.

But if you do agree it is a problem, how are we going to solve it? My take on the situation is that doing absolutely nothing when witnessing a situation like the one I've described is unlikely to improve society in any way. The status quo will be maintained if people are not confronted about their language use.

That being said, people often say things without fully comprehending the implications of what they are saying. They often talk the way they were raised and never once questioned whether what they were saying was actually harmful or not. I don’t think people should be pilloried for that, but in the event that they are unaware of how they are contributing to the discrimination and oppression of others they certainly need to be educated.

This necessarily entails confrontation, although that confrontation might be very low key. Continuing the example above, I think a good way for the woman in the example to “enlighten” me about my misguided use of the word “retard” would be something along the lines of this:

“Excuse me. I really wish you wouldn’t equate having a mental handicap with stupidity. My nephew has Down Syndrome and even though, yes, he can’t do everything that a person without an intellectual handicap can do he is most certainly not stupid.”

Now, all of that said, I see nothing wrong with publicly shaming those who clearly understand the implications of what they are saying and out of either stubbornness, a need for attention, or actual spite willfully continue to use language that is degrading or oppressive. A white person frequently using the N-word in public to describe black people, for instance, is a situation where I’d be completely fine with them getting verbally eviscerated. We don't always have to be polite, even when being politically correct.

As a final note, I want to make it clear that I believe in free speech in the sense that everyone should be free to say whatever they wish. However, as a caveat to that I also believe that free speech comes with the responsibility that people must own everything they say. If someone wishes to use offensive, degrading, or oppressive language that is their choice. Free speech in no way gives them a free pass from criticism of that choice, however.

I appreciate reading everyone's responses here. It's a very big part of what makes Videosift such a special place.

Here's a link to, imho, a thoughtful and nuanced look at this issue...at least from one side.

A Critique of Politically Correct Language
By Ben O'Neill

http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_16_02_8_oneill.pdf

The term "political correctness" originally came about as a disparaging way for assholes to describe not being an asshole.

“Political correctness is what right-wing bigots call what everybody else calls being polite”
-Iain M. Banks

Basically, while there are undoubtedly some idiots who take it too far, in general, I'm ok with it no longer being socially acceptable to call people niggers, queers and bitches.

The whole intellectually/vertically/gravitationally/whateverly challenged nonsense was invented as a parody of political correctness and in general, no-one actually uses those terms to describe anyone.

The problem is that people see the worst excesses of political correctness and assume that that's the whole point. It's like seeing one police shooting and deciding that law enforcement itself is a bad idea.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever met anyone who genuinely used the phrase "that's not politically correct" when talking to another human.

Oh, and even "politeness" isn't immune to politicisation. When I was younger, it was drilled into me that it was polite for a man to hold a door for a woman, or to pay for dinner on a date. It was considered polite for children to be seen and not heard. Good luck having an "apolitical" discussion about those topics.