I didn't know which thread to shoehorn this into, but it's a great definition of political correctness, sent by a definitely conservative pal from CA...

"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

Nice!

Could probably end up in the humor thread, but it's very true, so....

Guess we just enjoy!

Political correctness makes the assumption that the average person is not sophisticated enough to understand the nuances that occur between an intention and a result.

I Have always remembered a bumper sticker I saw about 10 years ago it read:

POLITICALLY CORRECT.....ISN'T

I have always found it amusing, that the liberals claim to support free speech, but their the same ones pushing for political correctness in everyone else.

Nwokie, sir, if you can accept — like the courts — that it is not free speech to scream fire in a crowded theater, it is also not free speech to denigrate by race, sex or creed.

Actually, No! Screaming fire in a crowded theatre can cause immediate, physical harm
Comments about someones race, creed etc does not cause physical harm.

But Nwokie, sometimes mental harm can be as bad as physical harm. Too many of our guys came home from Vietnam physically undamaged but mentally hurt for the rest of their lives. Sticks and stones will not break my bones, but then again, I am a white male.

"but their the same ones pushing for political correctness in everyone else."

Its called civilized society, C-I-V-I-L-I-Z-E-D.

are we, or are we not barbarians? It has nothing to do with free speech or liberals.

"Screaming fire in a crowded theatre can cause immediate, physical harm
Comments about someones race, creed etc does not cause physical harm."

It may not cause harm to THEM, but it could cause harm to YOU after they got done beating you to a bloody pulp.

I personally think that anyone who lobs a N-bomb at an African American deserves any beating they get. Same with Hispanics and Asians and, yes, gay folks ... You have the right to say what you want but I reserve the right to kick your ass to Mars for being so blatently stupid.

"Comments about someones race, creed etc does not cause physical harm."

Actually Okie, it CAN lead to physical harm if whomever you say it to beats the crap out of you or pulls a gun on you.

(wishing)

Ha! Brian and I are on the exact same wavelength at the exact same time! Love it! Cosmic, Baby!

Political correctness is a term invented by those who don't want to be civilized.

How 'bout dat?

Dammit Mrs. M - get out of my head! Yer knocking my two marbles around up there!

Uh, those aren't marbles...

Smooches!

Political correctness, is racist in itself, at least the way its practiced.

I remember seeing a black comedian , making a joke about another black that had done something incredibly stupid, refer to him as "one dumb Nword".

He also refered to whites as honkies.

If a white comedian used the Nword, hes politically incorrect, but the black using honkey isn't.

I'd say the oppressed get a little more leeway these days than the oppressor.

The fact you're even concerned about this shows we've a ways to go. Do you WANT to be able to call a black man the N-word? If not, why would YOU be concerned about this?

What some of you aren't getting here is, there really is no such thing as "political correctness". That is a deragatory term.

Skeptical hit it on the nose. It's called civility. Courtesy. Respect. The Golden Rule.

Now we're being politically correct, about "politically correct".

The political correctness question is really a question about where the lines of civility lie and regarding what is considered taboo. I think that there are instances of "political correctness" where people try to shut down a discussion or dismiss a viewpoint by acting as if they have been personally offended or by declaring that the subject matter being discussed itself is taboo. I once encountered this in a college class where we were discussing the Amish religion. To make a long story short, I was chastized by the professor and a few students for asking a question about the logical consistency of Amish beliefs and practices.

The example of crude comedians and rappers using racial slurs is a poor one. Yes, we all know that there is a double standard, but the people who pay to listen to these comedians and rappers are the ones who I think should be blamed for helping to perpetuate the double standard. Not much is going to be gained simply by whining and shaking fingers at these comedians and rappers.

I think that a better example of political correctness in word choice taboos is a phenomenon called the "euphemism treadmill." What this means is that a term used to refer to a group of people can go from being neutral to being offensive, and then it is replaced by another term. I believe that what this really shows is our immaturity as a society in dealing with the underlying issues. Examples:

1) "Oriental" used to be a commonly used term that described the geographical origin of people, cultures, fashions, foods, etc. from the part of the world encompassing Asia and surroundin islands, such as Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, The Philippines, etc. I was once taken to task for using this word instead of "Asian," which is supposedly the preferred term today.

2) Jap used to be an abbreviation commonly used to refer to people and things from Japan. It was not offensive until after WWII, when people started to associate it with anti-Japanese prejudice of the WWII era.

3) At one time, Negro was a neutral term that described the race of people descended from Africa. White supremacists started using the term in a derogatory fashion, and it went through several steps on the treadmill: Colored, Black, African-American. Note that the last term is actually a poor substitute for the earlier ones because it is different in concept (i.e., people with root in Africa who live anywhere outside the United States cannot be African-Americans).

4) Homosexual was once a clinical term that described a person who has a proclivity to desire sexual relations with members of the same sex. Partly because critics of homosexuals (i.e. Pat Robertson) have been using the term in a derogatory context, many people of this sexual orientation now prefer to be called "gay."

There once was a little boy who had a bad
temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails
and told him that every time he lost his
temper, he must hammer a nail into the back
of the fence.

The first day the boy had
driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next
few weeks, as he learned to control his
anger, the number of nails hammered daily
gradually dwindled down. He discovered
it was easier to hold his temper than to
drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't
lose his temper at all. He told his father
about it and the father suggested that the
boy now pull out one nail for each day that
he was able to hold his temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally
able to tell his father that all the nails
were gone. The father took his son by the
hand and led him to the fence.

He said, "You
have done well, my son, but look at the
holes in the fence. The fence will never be
the same. When you say things in anger,
they l eave a scar just like this one. You
can put a knife in a man and draw it out.
It won't matter how many times you say I'm
sorry, the wound is still there. " A verbal
wound is as bad as a physical one.

How about Hillbully, redneck, white trash etc. Now we have a sense of humor.

And actually, I think most of the other's do to, its just a small group, that cant tell when someone is making a joke.

"He also refered to whites as honkies."

As far as I know, "Honky" is a bastardized version of "Bohunk" which was an old slur against people from Bohemia. Yes, like many epithets, it has origins in America. Still, if you do not hail from that part of Germany, or Poland, or are not Slavic, you really have no reason to be upset.

My ancestry includes "Micks" and "Wops." Naturally, I am not thrilled with those terms. However, I am much more forgiving if those words are used to amuse folks rather than abuse folks. Considering how many stereotypes this culture has spawned, one would think we would embrace this as a part of being American, laugh about it, and put it to rest.

20/20 ran several interesting pieces last night on societal taboos:
1) Taboos/double standards about things that are unacceptable for persons of a certain race to say
2) Taboos against relationships between a person who is attractive and a person who is unattractive
3) Taboos against openly gay actors in movies and television
4) Taboos against mothers speaking negatively of their motherhood experience
5) Taboos against families where the wife works and the father takes care of the children full time

The first segment was largely devoted to the word "nigger" and to the criticism that Sen. Joe Biden received for attempting to praise Barak Obama with the remark, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American presidential candidate who is articulate and bright and clean-cut and a nice-looking guy...."

What was interesting about the portrayal of the controversy with "nigger" is that if a White person uttered the word, ABC's editors bleeped it, but the word was allowed to go over the air several times when spoken by Black people. [For the record I have no desire to use this word and would rather not have to hear it, except when the subject of discussion is the word itself or when it is presented in a historical context where it is somehow germane.]

The Biden issue was interesting. The name of the expert consulted on this issue escapes me at the moment (I think he was a university professor). However, this person tried to make the case that it would be OK for "a proud Black man" to compliment another Black person on being articulate (as shown in a video clip), but if a White person says that a Black person is articulate, that is patronizing because it carries with it the implication that most Black people are not well spoken or charismatic. This made me cringe. It says to me that we have a long way to go in race relations in this country if one can't just make a compliment regarding someone else's talents without the compliment being taken sarcastically simply because the complimentee is of the wrong skin color.

I don't get that one and neither does my black son.

Nigger has been bastardized into some kind of black only club word, yet it still carries the same connotation. It's kind of like two cons calling each other cons, they are both recognizing their lower class.

IMHO, this hurts black people and it's their own doing.

Watch "Boys in the Hood" sometime for a great look at that dynamic in play.

In the same vein, could a black person do "You must be a redneck if..." jokes? Are there any "white only" or "asian only" words out there?

Cracker, Honkey are a couple.

Crap! I use Cracker to differentiate bad hackers with intent to make trouble, from good hackers who are simply seeking understanding in order to better leverage their tech.

I only try to hack my own company. I probe it from home as a hacker would looking for open ports and things to take advantage of. If I find one I plug it. Try to do this once in a while and is completely legal. I just never venture outside of that box for any reason! I recently bought a router off of Ebay for our company and when I received it I was locked out of it so I had to perform a Cisco password recovery procedure. After getting into the router I found a full configuration file for a Schwab investment branch out of Texas. Blew my mind that this router was not wiped before it was sold. They even used the standard encrypted passwords which are crackable instead of the "Secret" ones which are not. So I had ip addresses, admin password, and routing information to other locations. If I were a hacker I would have tried to use that or sell that info for profit. Instead I deleted it and re-programmed for what I needed it to do. WOW...$200.00.....what a bragain....!!!! Hmmmmm....lets see....let's shift these funds here, delete this account, funnel money here!!!!!

Doesnt matter if you have the passwords or not, you have to be able to physically access the router to manage it. And even with internal routing, they would have a firewall, and each computer in the internal network would be password protected. Additionally, their internal system probably only allows ssh type connections.

There are probably major safegaurds in place as you mentioned but I ain't gonna try it! It was an edge router with external and internal IP addresses so I could have for sure dusrupted their communications by erasing the config and rebooting!

BTW....it had remote management setup on it so remote telnet login to that router was completely possible!

I once diid some contract work for a bank in Kansas, and the info they sent me, wasnt enough so I could complete the project, so their IT guy, sent me an entire dump of their system, which contained account numbers, balances and pin numbers.

It was really hard to resist the idea of moving to the caymen islands.

That kind of stuff is logged.....even through an anonymizer they will find you! When they do "Fat Tony" may break more than just your kneecaps!