Political Correctness:

For a president who has boasted about the power of his pen and who has not hesitated to use it to legislate from the oval office through executive orders to advance his agenda and sidestep Congress, President Obama has resisted using it to save American lives by imposing a travel ban from West Africa to the U.S. Instead, his Acting Surgeon General has contradicted the centers for Disease Control and assured Americans that the Ebola virus is difficult to transmit--something that might come as somewhat of a shock to the nurses in Spain and the U.S. who contracted the disease while treating infected patients and following established protocols. 

If medical professional in protective suits can become infected, what hope is there for the luckless traveler unfortunate enough to sit next to a sneezing/coughing/sweating Ebola-infected traveler on an airplane, bus, subway, restaurant, school or workplace? If the virus can live for many hours on hard surfaces touched by an infected patient's sweat, mucus, blood or other bodily fluids, (to say nothing of penetrating protective clothing designed to be impenetrable) the deflection from the Obama administration's various spokespersons during press conferences and talk show visits has as much credibility as the statement from the President about there being "not a shred of evidence" about misconduct by the IRS in its targeting of Conservative organizations and denying of tax-free status applications for Conservative groups in violation of federal law during a post Superbowl interview with Bill O'Reilly.

One has to wonder whether there is a shred of credibility left for the current administration--for the man behind the curtain telling us not to trust our eyes, ears, noses or brains but rather the pretty, reassuring messages on the screen that all is well.

As dangerous as Ebola may be, it is not the worst pandemic affecting us today. That dubious honor belongs to a far more wide-spread illness with which we are all being intentionally infected by both government, the media and the entertainment industry: political correctness. This is by no means a new disease; its roots date back to the 1960s and grow from the well fertilized soil of relativistic ethics and left of center political theories that planted it with careful tending by a sympathetic media and academics. Public safety must take a back seat to possibly giving offense to West Africans/African Americans/liberals/open border advocates/Ebola victims or making any of these groups feel bad about themselves.

Preventing harm to the economies of West African countries trumps the health and safety of the American public. These are the actual reasons that President Obama will not impose a travel ban on travel from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. The rest is just a smokescreen--a mendacious narrative that distorts facts in order to justify doing what the administration wants to do--nothing. 

Temporarily banning travel to the U.S. by anyone with a passport from these three countries or from any other country that shows travel to these affected countries in the past three months is a first step in stemming the flow of additional infected individuals into the U.S. It is a logical, rational, and effective solution demanded by an overwhelming majority of Americans in recent polls.

Yes we should allow humanitarian relief and travel to these countries by special permission aboard military aircraft or chartered flights, but NOT on regular airline flights. Constructing a patently absurd rationale for doing nothing is unconscionable.

I predict President Obama will eventually give in to the demand for a travel ban, but not until there are additional deaths in the U.S. from Ebola-infected victims. Perhaps when a child dies of the disease transmitted by an infected teacher or classmate school or in daycare, or by an infected passenger on a flight the administration will see the wisdom of imposing a travel ban. Why must more people die before the political machinery acts? On whose heads will those deaths be? 

Doubtless some will reject what I write off hand as a partisan attack on the President. I've voted for Republicans and Democrats since I first voted at the age of 18. Yes, I've voted mostly for Republicans, but Robert Kennedy and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan were also heroes of mine, alongside President Ronald Reagan, and William F. Buckley, Jr. And my best friend was a former delegate for the People's Party when we were both in college.

This is not about politics, but rather about a secular religion of political correctness being forced on the American public. It was incubated in college campuses in the '60s and '70s and moved well beyond the Petri dishes of academia into the general populace nurtured by the media and the Hollywood elites to a point where we have become a nation paralized by this disease. Civil discourse is discouraged on topics found to be "offensive" to the social/political/lifestyle predilections of the few. Those who challenge political correctness and the preferred narrative of the left are subjected to ad hominem attacks and labelled as bullies / racists / mysogynysts / homophobes / reactionaries (and sometimes all of the above) in a vile attempt to silence voices of dissent by any means necessary. These are the tactics of the extremists from time immemorial and call to mind such paragons of utopian bliss as Nazi Germany, Maoist China, and the Stalinist Soviet Union, to name but the tip of a very cold, dirty and dangerous political iceberg.

So what is the current Administration doing about the Ebola issue? judge for yourself based not only on the record but on today's news report in The Daily Mail of President Obama's naming of an "Ebola Csar":

"Obama names Ebola czar with NO healthcare experience to take over bungled response to crisis"

"Ron Klain will coordinate the Obama administration's Ebola response efforts

• He is a longtime Democratic Party political operative and generous political donor with no background in medicine or public health
• Klain was chief of staff to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden
• Managed Gore's legal team during the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida and ran debate prep for John Kerry in 2004
• Kevin Spacey portrayed him in the movie 'Recount' – and his character in the movie 'Outbreak' died of Ebola
• Klain boasted that he was responsible for hiring Obama's second White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney"

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2797340/obama-taps-political-operative-no-health-care-background-ebola-czar-job-new-cases-emerge-lawmakers-demand-action.html#ixzz3GQkJ7mje

Were this not tragic, it would be very funny. You simply cannot make this stuff up. If President Obama simply created an "Disinformation Csar" or a "Ministry of Propaganda" there would at least be a refreshing ring of truth from an administration that promised transparency but has thus far delivered all the transparency of a lead-lined bunker.

Worshipping on the Altar of Political Correctness

Pressure has always been applied to authors to "conform" to the conventions of their time. And there have always been those who want to BAN anything that OFFENDS them. Ironically, (and hypocritically) the very same people who ridicule those who would ban (or burn) books they find offensive/subversive/dangerous are the first to point indignant fingers at those who use language (or, worse, espouse ideas) that offend them. No society that yields to such forces from either the right or left of the political spectrum will long remain a democracy.

Political correctness has reached an absurd climax in the U.S. today. Outright racist language is attacked, and rightfully so, though only if it is used by the "wrong" people. (Read: whites can't use the N word in any context, but blacks can--and they can also call whites "crackers, "whitey," and other equally derogatory words with impunity.) A black man or woman calling another black man or woman an Oreo as a derogatory term is perfectly acceptable (meaning they are "black on the outside but white on the inside") in writing, on television or in casual speech. A black person referring to any lawyer as a "Jew" is also perfectly fine and does not raise a problem with the thought police on network television (as in "I'm going to call my Jew", meaning my lawyer, who could be white, Christian or Korean for that matter as the term is just a synonym for "lawyer" in some quarters) But the use of "niggardly" which as we all know refers only to ones unwillingness to part with cash, being stingy, miserly or ungenerous and has absolutely nothing to do with a racist term, is loudly called into question as a "racist" term because, you know, it sounds too much like the "N" word and heavens forfend anyone actually have to know the meaning of a word prior to raising the alarm and getting their grievance aired on national television.

Likewise this week the term "white is the new black" referring as anyone with the IQ above that of a potato knows to be a fashion statement--that the color white is replacing the color black as the "in" color in fashion circles.  No matter; it offends the sensibilities of the senseless and must be called into question, quashed and banned from the language lest anyone suffer the slings and arrows of a perceived slur. Never mind that absolutely no one complained when the highly popular cable show "Orange is the New Black," which obviously also refers to the same fashion cliche, first aired or at any time during its highly successful run. If prison jumpsuits were red rather than orange and the show was titled "Red is the New Black" then perhaps there would also be some outrage at the possibility of some Native American taking offense since the term could conceivably be construed as a racial slur as well. On the other hand, "Yellow is the New Black" would likely not raise many hackles as no one seems to have any sensibility whatever against real or perceived slurs against Orientals these days and blacks would likely not see any problem with that comparison as only comparisons to "whites" are banned. And if any Oriental complained, they'd be dismissed as nut jobs, told to grow the hell up, or perhaps labeled as "racist" for even suggesting that a racial slur was intended by such an obviously racial-neutral term.

Race baiting and the marketing of hatred is big business. Just ask any self-proclaimed "Civil Rights Leader" flocking to the scene of any area of civil unrest chanting "NO JUSTICE NO PEACE." For my part, I will always speak my mind and write exactly as I please, and I will support the rights of others to do exactly the same as is their Constitutionally protected right. Anyone who does not like it is free to not read what I write and/or criticize me as she/he sees fit. That is the hallmark of a free and healthy society. Those who take offense are free to whine and pout at will; what they cannot do is impose their will on anyone other than those who lack the courage to oppose them.

_________________
Victor D. López

Recent Books:

Business Law: An Introduction, 2nd Edition
Business Law and the Legal Environment of Business, 2nd. Edition
Intellectual Property Law: A Practical Guide to Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks and Trade Secrets
Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories

The Imperial Presidency

King Obama I? For "progressives" the Constitution is a living document (read: one is free to change, reinterpret or ignore it when it stands in the way of "progress"). President Obama, however, has gone one step further: just ignore it altogether.

Rule by fiat has its advantages--by the time Congress gets angry enough to take action in the courts (or the House gets outraged enough to draft articles of impeachment) his term will likely be over. But the damage done to the balance of power and the Constitution will remain as Obama's legacy.

Those who applaud the selective enforcement of federal law, the undermining of the federal legislature and the marginalizing of the Constitution will rue the day when the pendulum swings as it invariably does from left to right and right to left (Carter-Reagan, Bush-Clinton, Clinton-Bush,Bush-Obama,Obama-????). When a conservative recaptures the White House and Senate and inherits a supercharged Executive Pen with which to legislate from the Oval Office (and can appoint like-minded nominees without worrying about Senate filibusters thanks to Harry Reid's trampling on the time-honored veto power of the senate to oppose presidential appointments for partisan gain), the cheerleaders from the left and relative silence from the traditional media will be replaced by squeals of righteous outrage and hoards of Chicken Littles (read: reporters) who now placidly snore through the most imperial presidency in memory will awaken to regale us with a cacophonous chorus with which to announce the impending end of civilization as we know it.

Here is a memo to gleeful and furious partisans alike who applaud or decry blatant abuse of executive powers for partisan purposes: When a train is traveling at 300 miles per hour towards a solid wall, the ultimate effect is the same--and predictable with 100 percent certainty--whether a conservative or liberal are at the controls.