A Conservative Viewpoint - Is Being Judeo-Christian Politically Correct

Article by Bob Steinburg
- Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony

My wife and I love to entertain and we recently invited an eclectic group to dinner. There was no assigned seating and after pulling up a chair at the head of the table, I observed something interesting: Seated to my right were conservatives, to my left, liberals. What happened next surprised me even more – a calm, intelligent, thought-provoking discussion on various politically hot topics.

To never talk about religion or politics socially is nonsense. There is nothing inappropriate in discussing these subjects. But only if we first are as willing to listen as well as to speak, and second, if we can all refrain from displaying a self-righteous arrogance in our opinions.

To be politically correct or “PC,” places people in a position where many feel they have to be so cautious about what they say, they end up saying nothing. Political correctness is defined as avoiding any language or idea that may cause offense. Society, thankfully, adheres to a certain degree of PC. Avoiding hate speech and racial epithets are two examples. But placing a social prohibition on discussing values, religion, or core beliefs is dangerous. The reluctance to speak up only emboldens the small, vocal, and media-savvy liberals in advancing their agenda.

Karl Marx spent much of his adult life in Paris. He was a 19th century philosopher, political economist and revolutionary. He supported displacing capitalism for communism. Marx was an advocate of a state free of religion. Economic analysis was less important than cultural analysis. Marx saw the need to control the media, arts, theatre, and film to achieve his ultimate “classless society.”

Marx’s model for his “utopia” failed. The U.S.S.R. crumbled, and the economies and societies of Cuba and North Korea have been rendered impotent. Yet the American left, like Marxism, continues its assault on Judeo-Christians by eroding their freedom of speech under the pretence that they’re not PC, thus narrowing the range of acceptable opinions to theirs. By injecting intense emotion and moral indignation into the discourse, they often grab the headlines. Judeo-Christians can also be guilty. But in spite of their oft misguided tactics, at least they’re seeking to preserve the historical values of western society, while the left is feverishly at work trying to destroy them.

Western civilization’s core is its Judeo-Christian’s beliefs. In America, the 92 percent of Americans polled believe in God, according to a recent Fox Opinion Poll. Other polls reveal similar numbers. God appears on our currency, our public buildings and historical documents, and His name is referenced at the beginning of every session of Congress. A 2005 American Defamation League Poll found 64 percent of Americans believe the Ten Commandments should be posted in the public square, and 51 percent believe the Bible over Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

Judeo-Christians have always believed in the sanctity of life. Yet each year life’s value is diminished. The left claims that most of the country is pro-choice. But today, 43 percent of Americans identify themselves as pro-life, up from 33 percent in 1995. The trend appears to be moving steadily toward a pro-life majority. In a recent Gallup Poll, 72 percent of Americans said they support a ban on partial-birth abortion.

There are those who have bought into the lie that faith is personal and thus should be left out of political discussion. Everyone needs to understand that there are those from Judeo-Christian backgrounds who believe faith is relevant and must be part of the public conversation.

In another example of the left using PC to intimidate, many Judeo-Christians, as well as others, oppose illegal aliens gaining access to our jobs, schools and other government benefits and are being told by the left that they’re mean-spirited or racist and reminded it was immigration’s diversity that made America great. Immigration did make this country great through legal, documented and controlled immigration, not the current chaos of open, uncontrolled borders. Protecting the homeland from the current invasion of illegal aliens is relevant, and Judeo-Christian’s see their views as essential in helping to find a solution.

Today in this country there are 26 percent of Americans who identify themselves as liberals, imposing their views of societal norms on the 74 percent of those who aren’t? Many Judeo-Christians believe the nation is being hijacked by the left and yet they’re letting it happen by adhering to the liberal’s standards of political correctness. It doesn’t have to be that way. At our dinner party, the evening’s dialogue among our conservative and liberal friends, Christians, Jews and agnostics, was one of mutual respect, absent of ridicule, argument and attack. Why can’t all of our hot-button discussions be the same?

Bob is making an idealistic point. Political correctness has itself been a major part of the confrontation between conservatives and liberals for a few years. One Conservative Writer, Ann Coulter, has actually become famous for using a reverse PC standard. She simply attacks liberals with the same ferocity that liberals attack others and with the same goal they have; intimidation. What annoys liberals is that Ann is smart enough she usually can get them outraged and win the argument. That is not what they consider to be a fair fight, losing. They immediately equate losing to fighting dirty and intimidation.

After all, that is really all that PC is about. Intimidating the other side into walking away from the discussion and conceding the point by default.

A part of their tactic is to insist that any label of them is an ad hominem attack. If you call someone a liberal they denounce that as an ad hominem attack. Claim they are advocating socialism and they insist you are using ad hominem attacks. Any label is denounced as an ad hominem attack no matter how accurate.

However they have a great number of labels that they hurl with no attempt to defend them. Racist. Mean spirited. Intolerant. Christian.

This double standard allows liberals-progressives-socialists to win any argument.

It is interesting that we even have one part of the social conservative element within the Republican Party that is adopting their tactic even as they adopt socialism as a part of the new agenda of social conservatives. Here is a link to an article by a socialist writer who is a social conservative Republican. He is mad at what he calls the leadership of the Republican Party for rejecting socialism as a part of our agenda. He threatens to leave the party unless we concede to his views.

As you can see from my comments on his article my reaction is to ask such people to leave our party. Good riddance. I have no plans to become a socialist or allow them in the Republican Party. Part of the intensity of my reaction may well be a lot of practice in what has come to be called “flame wars” on the Internet. No matter what you say, there is an element on the Internet that will immediately attack you and try to get you angry. The game becomes one in which you keep chatting about the issues while dropping insults along the way until the other person becomes so angry they stop thinking clearly. The person who becomes the angriest always loses. I think it is fun and have gotten a lot of practice at it. Part of the problem with conservatives is that most don’t like the game.

I found the coincidence of Bob addressing this issue the day after I found myself in a "flame war" with a social conservative to be interesting. It appears that we not only can’t have a non confrontational discussion between liberals and conservatives, we are starting to have a problem having a non confrontational discussion between different flavors of conservative.

It would be interesting to live in the polite world that Bob admires. However the double standard of the left, where attacks on conservatives are okay but anything Ann Coulter says is considered horrible and intolerant, does not give me much hope we will return to such a reasonable standard of discourse. Bob’s polite friends are rare in today’s world. Those of us practiced in the "flame wars" of the Internet joyfully engage in verbal warfare even with some of our friends.

The answer to Bob’s title is an unequivocal “not a chance”.