Nice try, Rodriguez

Gregory Rodriguez is one of those people who believe everything is racial, even the Fort Hood Jihad. In a strange opinion piece at the LA Times, Rodriguez mixes together several liberal touchstones, including political correctness and hypertolerance.

For good or ill, political correctness was a response to the rapid diversification of the U.S. population and the perceived need to induce the majority population -- whites, or often more precisely white males -- to take into account the sensitivities and self-definitions of minorities of all kinds. That means the Americans who are considered to be victims of political correctness are members of the white majority. And the revolt against everything PC is driven by a sense that whites have bent over backward for -- and even sold out mainstream culture to -- minorities.

Since we're being good liberals here (hypersensitive to a delusional level), I'd like to point out that we're no longer calling it "political correctness". We now call it what it really is: liberalism.

Rodriguez claims: "political correctness was a response to the rapid diversification of the U.S. population and the perceived need to induce the majority population to take into account the sensitivities and self-definitions of minorities of all kinds."

No, it's wasn't, Rodriguez. The NAACP proves that there was a time, not long ago, when African Americans didn't mind being called "colored", and the United Negro College Fund proves the same for "negro". These terms weren't changed because blacks wanted to "induce the majority population to take into account the sensitives..." etc, etc. They were changed because blacks didn't like the negative tone racist whites were using with these words, and they also wanted to flex newfound power. "We'll be called something new, even though we were happy with the old, and woe unto anybody who doesn't change when we tell them to change." A similar mentality is used by pedestrians when they walk slowly in front of cars, knowing they have power over drivers.

As a sidebar, I'm okay with that in theory, although the pedestrian analogy is imperfect because walking out in front of a 3500 lb. chunk of steel is stupid, fighting for equal rights is not. Few people have freedom handed to them (except Germany, Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan -- you're welcome), most have to fight for it, and if changes in nomenclature are part of the black struggle for true freedom and equality, then so be it. I'll call them whatever they wish, as a sign of respect.

That's about it, Rodriguez. There's nothing deep and meaningful going on here. The future should be interesting, though, because as soon as those whites who are racist begin using "black" with derision, we'll have to learn a new name, or else.

This next bit, from our friend Rodriguez, is a window into liberal thinking:

To be sure, the hazards of political correctness are not merely a figment of the right's imagination. In the case of Hasan, it may be that his problems and proclivities were ignored because his superiors feared they'd be accused of discrimination against a Muslim. And it's possible that his dangerous actions and behaviors were shrugged off as a matter of cultural sensitivity, or to provide the military with more strategic diversity.

If you followed the liberal coverage of the Fort Hood Jihad, you know that liberals were doing everything they could to avoid the T-word. Just an ordinary guy snapped, it happens all the time, they told us. Then, when this absurdity was rejected by the American public, they grudgingly admitted it may have been terrorism. The third step in the liberal journey was to actually use the words "terrorism" and "jihad", but only when followed by some lecturing on how it's still our fault because of American foreign policy in the Middle East. And few liberals could resist the temptation to raise the "intolerance" flag.

Our buddy Rodriguez, in the paragraph above, made it all the way to step three, the grudging acknowledgement of reality, but with a healthy dose of self-loathing. Maybe someday he'll have the guts to skip all the nonsense and just write the truth, even if it seems "intolerant."

"A Muslim committed mass murder in the name of Islam, on American soil. He is a terrorist. The person who committed this act of terrorism is at fault, and I am not." It's not that hard, Rodriguez. Type it out once, then you can click Delete on your keyboard if you need to. At least do it once, man, just to say you did.