You’ve heard politicians say, “Don’t Mess with Texas.”
They say such things to convey some sort of macho image. The phrase they quote, of course, came into being in the 1980s when the Texas General Land Office sought to call attention to littering.
Not very macho, right?
Politicians today are fond of debunking “political correctness.” Oh, they say, “That’s just so PC. Let’s cut that crap and speak the truth.”
Actually, what I find happening to political correctness is that it’s becoming a punching bag for politicians who think it’s OK to be crass, rude, uncaring or lacking in humanity.
Pay attention, Donald Trump. I’m talking about you.
I agree that political correctness at times can be taken too far. Politically correct speech at times does drive me a bit batty. Maybe the most maddening example of PC language appears under photos of hunters who’ve killed game. The caption might refer to the hunter posing with a beast he or he has just “harvested,” to which I say, “BS, man. You ‘harvest’ cotton or wheat.”
Trump uses the anti-PC dodge whenever the media question the intemperate language he uses to describe his Republican Party primary field opponents. Jeb Bush is a “loser”; Lindsey Graham is an “idiot.”
Yes, some of them have hurled personal insults at Trump, too, but Trump tends to employ the anti-PC dodge as his justification for saying outrageous things about other human beings.
Perhaps politicians ought to think more about the Golden Rule than about whether it’s OK to toss political correctness into the toilet.
