Ron Scarbro
The State Department has an employee with a position known as “Chief Diversity Officer?” Who knew? His name is John Robinson. His job is apparently to identify violations of political correctness rules which would at some level offend someone. He then publishes these offenses to make certain they come to an end. We the taxpayers are paying for this nonsense. I wonder how much that job pays.
Personally I am thrilled to know we, as a country, are in such good shape we can afford to pay somebody to make certain we watch what we say.
If you haven’t heard, Robinson just issued a list of common sayings which are potentially offensive to someone somewhere. I will call it the “no-no” list and it includes such harmful and dangerous sayings as, “Hold down the fort.” That could be offensive, he opined, to Indians, oops, I meant Native Americans. Next on the list, “Going Dutch.” Obviously Dutch people could be offended by being identified as frugal. Number three on the list was “rule of thumb.” You’re not going to believe this but apparently in days of old, men could beat their wives but couldn’t use a switch with a diameter larger than the thickness of one’s thumb, hence “rule of thumb.” I’m not making this up. Then comes “handicap.” When one considers a golf handicap, I can see how that might be offensive to really bad golfers, like me for example, but wait, I thought a golf handicap was supposed to allow golfers of differing abilities to play together as even competitors. Maybe he was talking about persons with physical challenges, like disabled vets or others who may suffer from various disabilities. I can’t be sure. Maybe I will need to do more research.
I have come to conclude there are some people who are just habitually offended. We seem to have lost any sense of humor we may have once had. Major colleges and universities have had to change their names and mascots so as to be less offensive to some group somewhere. It just gets sillier and sillier.
Well let me say this. I too am offended. I am offended by all this nonsense. I am offended taxpayers are expected to pay the salary of someone whose only job appears to be a PC judge. If you are Dutch, it’s OK to be frugal. Don’t I wish our government would take your example. To the Indians among you, leave our forts alone and we will leave your forts alone. To the victims of switch abuse, since this apparently ended several generations ago, get over it. If someone does come after you with a switch and it is thicker than a thumb, just shoot him. End of problem. And so to handicap. Many among us suffer handicaps of some nature and at some level. It isn’t the end of the world. It creates some challenges, but we deal with it and life goes on. Refusing to say the word handicap doesn’t change the handicap.
I continue to be amazed and even somewhat confounded by what passes as correctness today. How much do you suppose this no, no list cost to compile? Does Robinson have a staff of researchers? What do you imagine his budget to be?
Sooner or later we are going to have to get a handle on the runaway spending of our government. I can think of no better way to start than by finding real work for State Department employees like John Robinson.