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that last argument is why i always say: “rights are like muscles, if you don’t exercise them they will atrophy”
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“Good thing nobody talks like THAT anymore!”
My God, first as tragedy, then as farce.
I take issue with your use of “politically incorrect” here. Not because I’m some SJW or PC-elitist or anything. But because I don’t think the term fits.
Politically correct refers to the concept of a politician who is telling people what they want to hear. It contrasts with “factually correct.” It does mean “disagreeing with those in power.”
I also think it’s a rather politically loaded term, with some people thinking being “politically incorrect” describes something admirable, while others think it describes someone who wants to hurt others.
It seems better to me not to throw that political bias in there, since your political party is not relevant to understanding the Constitution. Just say “Their targets: anyone who disagrees with them.”
That… that’s not what “politically correct” means. It really and truly does not mean “disagreeing with those in power.” It has never ever meant that.
Political correctness is about ideological orthodoxy. Being politically correct means not simply disagreeing with contrary views, but refusing to countenance them. Different views are seen as objectively bad or even harmful, to the point that expressing them becomes taboo, and topics are ruled off-limits. Thus the gag line above, “thou shalt not dissent.”
Although the term is almost always used to refer to left/progressive orthodoxies (the original users of the phrase), the same behavior can be seen with conservatives, libertarians, gun nuts, Bible thumpers, and so on.
It’s a natural result when an idea becomes so much a part of one’s identity, or a group’s identity, that challenges to the idea are felt as threatening. When the politically correct silence, shame, or vilify other views, it is an act of self defense against an existential threat. (Some groups like the NRA nurture this sense of threat, bonding their members closer in shared struggle, cementing loyalty and drumming up support.) The defensive acts, seen by outsiders as overreactions or themselves threatening, are seen from within as good deeds. They’re just enforcing good manners, or protecting the rest of us from vile falsehoods. And god help a group member who suddenly questions the orthodoxy. It’s all the same kind of thing that goes on within a society based on religion. Blasphemy must be punished, and the worst punishment is reserved for apostasy.
Also, you could significantly reduce loading times by scaling each dimension in half (thus 1400×1700) and reducing to 256 colors–and it would still look good even on HiDPI screen, while having at most 1/6 the file size.
I need to find a happy medium. Originally, all the images for the online version were scaled to 25%, requiring a tiny fraction of the file size. But then there was a WordPress update that did something wonky, and all those images started blurring as they were sized up to fit screens. So I spent a terrific amount of time replacing all those images with the originals, and fiddling with my CSS, to fix the problem.
That worked absolutely perfectly, with no lag in page loading times, until… you guessed it… the latest WordPress update. I don’t know what the hell they did this time, but from that day forward every image has been loading slow.
I’m sure they’re trying to make things better, but I wish they’d just leave stuff alone.
“The news that they have nothing to fear is guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of innocents everywhere.”
-Terry Pratchett