Political Correctness or Gender Equality, Neither or Both
By
Bob Orrick
Over the past few years, two related things have appeared on our radar screens and have caused normally intelligent people to shuck their common sense and grab on to silliness in the extreme. In the course of their shucking and grabbing, this country, and several others, have become minefields filled with danger lurking just beneath the surface. Residents fear to tread and therefore walk a tight line between offending self-appointed 'experts' and those espousing rational thinking.
[In Canada, for the most part, the finger of blame can be pointed directly at the Charter of Rights and Wrongs that was foisted upon an unsuspecting populace by a socialist prime minister who had his sights set on bringing down Canada. In many respects, he succeeded. Today, his crony perpetuates the myth that the Charter has brought a 'kinder, gentler' country to the fore. In actuality, the opposite is true; Canada has not become kinder nor gentler; just wimpier.]
In the first instance, the world has been turned upside down and twisted into knots trying to appease those 'experts' who claim that there must be political correctness in every thing written, uttered or thought. Recently, American Andy Rooney, an octogenarian whose comments end the USA programme Sixty Minutes, spoke his mind on the idiocy of political correctness. Following are a few selected points - each valid and worthy of consideration - that brought the 82-year-old Rooney to speak his common-sense mind publicly.
I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not to some government stooge with a bad comb-over who wants to give it away to crack addicts for squirting out babies.
Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.
I believe they called the Boy Scouts for a reason that is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts. [Girl Guides in Canada]
I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.
I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America and see what happens. Jessie Jackson will be knocking down your door.
I have the right NOT to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird, or tick me off.
When seventy per cent of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where seventy per cent of the population is black, that is not racial profiling, it is the Law of Probability.
I believe that if you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper, or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen, you should have to speak English!
My father and grandfather didn't die in vain so you can leave the countries where you were born in to come over and disrespect ours. I think the police should have every right to shoot your sorry self if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word 'freeze' or 'stop' in English, see the above lines.
I believe a self-righteous liberal or conservative with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell's Angel with an attitude.
I think that Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continues to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that's better, and put your name on the building. Ask your buddy that invented the Internet to help you.
It doesn't take a whole village to raise a child right but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say 'NO.'
I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe. I am proud to be from America and nowhere else.
And finally, this gem.
I am sick of 'Political Correctness.' I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa; so how can they be 'African-Americans?' Besides, Africa is a continent.
Whether or not one agrees with Andy Rooney's comments, one must applaud his courage to speak them publicly on a popular television show. Incidentally, he ended his comments with, And if you don't like my point of view, tough. Bravo to Andy Rooney!
The second issue under review today is the idea that boys and girls are equal; that is, as long as the girls are the ones making that claim.
Writing in the Calgary Herald, Catherine Ford took issue with the PGA with her claim that it "deadens men's brains." She was referring to a comment by Vijay Singh that if Swedish Annika Sorenstam plays in the Colonial Invitation in Fort Worth, Texas, [Thursday through Sunday] he will drop out. His comment was superimposed on the assumption that both he and Sorenstam will make the cut.
Ford and others of her ilk see nothing wrong in a female golfer playing in what has heretofore been a male tournament. Ms. Ford says that it is always "men who find an excuse for their own shortcomings - someone to blame for not getting the promotion or failing to get a coveted university admission." She goes on with, "That someone is usually a woman or a minority who, if you listen to the whining, have taken all the good jobs."
I do not know what that has to do with golf; clearly there is no understanding a 'libber' scribe on the warpath.
Catherine Ford uses a rather flimsy argument to back up her claims. She writes, "A favourite trick is the turnaround: if girls can play on the boys' teams, then true equality means men should be allowed on the women's teams. Or in the women's locker room, or whatever other specious argument the singed male ego can invent." She goes on to add that it's "specious for the simple reason that it isn't equality." To back up her claim, she writes, "Consider how 'manly' it would be for an adult male to insist playing on his 10-year-old son's team. Or how proud a man would be to be the best disabled athlete without having to bother actually losing a leg or an arm."
I am not sure how she justified girls on boys' teams being okay but not boys on girls' teams. Her reference to a father playing on his son's team as an example of manliness is a bit far-fetched in the first instance and is a red herring in the second. Or, more correctly, she created a strawman. Setting up a strawman is a favourite ruse of people whose argument is weak and who want to divert the glare of the Klieg lights from their weak argument onto something else.
I suppose that if all sports were open to all players, then we might be able to say, 'Let the game commence and let the chips fall where they may." In golf, more men would win tournaments that would women for the simple reason that most men are longer ball hitters than women and usually play on a longer course than do women. Were that to happen, sit back and listen to the screams of discrimination that would come from libbers such as Catherine Ford.
In hockey - apropos with the Stanley Cup finals on our doorstep - why not have the best of the Olympic Gold Winning Canadian Women's hockey team take the place of any number of men players on the Ottawa Senators or the Anaheim Mighty Ducks? Why bother to segregate the locker rooms? Why not have both male and female players shower together [save water, perhaps?] as all-male teams or all-female teams do? I can hear the howls of protest. How dare males and females play on the same team, shower together in the locker room, or heaven forbid, touch each other in a bonding gesture after a goal is scored. If Ford wants equality then she should accept equality, not her 'libbers' version. [Equality: the state of being equal.]
If it is okay for Swedish Annitka Sorenstam, the best female golfer in the world, with 43 tournament wins [19 in the last two seasons] tucked in her golf bag, to play in the Colonial then surely it is okay for Canadian Mike Weir, this year's winner of the Masters or American Tiger Woods, arguably the best male golfer today, to play in the LPGA Corning Classic. I have no doubt that either or both Weir and Woods would do rather well on the LPGA's shorter course. How will Sorenstam do on the longer PGA course?
Perhaps we will see a golf version of the famous [or, infamous if you prefer] 1973 tennis match between female Billie Jean King and male Bobby Riggs, in reverse. King won handily. The difference then was that King was a top-ranked, 29-year-old Wimbledon champion whereas 55-year-old Riggs was an over-the-hill 1939 world champion. [He won the worlds at age 16 years.]
How would it be, one wonders, if Weir or Woods went head to head with a well known female amateur golfer on a 7080 yard, par 70 course such as the Colonial Country Club's course. I have little doubt as to the outcome as I have little doubt about the screams that would emanate from those - both male and female - who use political correctness and gender equality as the basis for their one-sided, self-interest arguments.
Why can't we just let girls be girls and boys be boys and let each enjoy the games of their choice. Why do we always have to attach strings to things that are best left untouched? The answer, I suppose, is that someone, somewhere, always thinks they know better and will force their opinions on you whether or not you want them, or need them.
Damn Charter, it has and continues to screw and twist common sense into unattainable, pie-in-the-sky socialist ideals. Common sense is the victim of Charter Silliness.
As Andy Rooney said, "If you don't like my point of view, tough!"
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