I’m not buying it. I think Tío Chano secretly loves the movies, even when he despises them. Last weekend he saw “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and even though he says it was terrible, he’s started reading our collection of “Harry Potter” books. He insists they’re ridiculous but he’s already halfway through the second book.

He’s also been muttering a lot lately about Judge Sonia Sotomayor and the United States Supreme Court. I hope you enjoy his take on these issues.

“I’m looking through you, where did you go? I thought I knew you, what did I know? You don’t look different, but you have changed. I’m looking through you, you’re not the same.” — Lennon/McCartney: “Rubber Soul,” 1965

When Sonia Sotomayor was nominated in May, I wrote a satirical essay for Big Hollywood called The ‘Magic Latina’. The title was a send up of the “Magic Negro,” or “Magical Negro,” a fictional stereotype common in film and literature. The “Magic Negro” has been criticized by white and black commentators alike. Blacks, most famously Spike Lee, but many others, view the role as ultimately degrading. As Rita Kempley, writing for DVRepublic, said about the “Magic Negro,” “What’s the deal with all the holy roles?” The core of the critique is that the characters are given special powers and/or underlying mysticism. It is not that the characters per se are so bad.  The perception is that this kind of character, the selfless and powerful, insightful, and sometimes magical being, is always black, has no “interior life”, and is always serving white people. To name a few at random, they include such famous stars as Hattie McDaniel (“Gone with the Wind”), Sidney Poitier (“The Defiant Ones”), Morgan Freeman (“Shawshank Redemption,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Bruce Almighty”), and Laurence Fishburne (“The Matrix”).

For those fixated on this kind of thing, once you get this thought in your head, it is difficult to get it out. As I stated in my last essay, the critics have a point, but it also seems strained. They really go too far and can appear paranoid. There are many characters in cinema and television of this type who are white (Simon Baker as “The Mentalist” comes to mind, having just seen the show last night). If Morgan Freeman is a “Magical Negro” in “Bruce Almighty” (according to Rita Kempley), then surely Christian Bale is the “Magical Caucasian” in Batman. One would have thought it difficult to see the role of God played by a talented black actor as racist.

There are also countless black actors playing roles with no “magical” powers. It is almost silly to name them. Forest Whitaker, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Cuba Gooding and Halle Berry are just a few. The concept, while having some validity, is over done by those who promote its persistence. As true ethnic and racial equality (legally, politically, and sociologically) has become a virtual reality in America, there seems to be a simultaneous political movement to keep identity politics alive and well. In fact, it is a growth business.

What does all of this have to do with Sotomayor? And why is it a “tragi-comedy”? We now know Sotomayor spent years promoting an odd racial concept, which I parodied in the “Magic Latina.” She has said:

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging”. Also, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who has not lived that life.”

Sotomayor, ironically, embraced this “Magic Negro” concept by fixating on race, gender and ethnicity as “a”, or even “the” key ingredient in attaining “wisdom,” in this case, judicial wisdom. Clever people might say, “…of course those factors affect judgment.” But so might the fact that we studied math or history; or that we are tall or short; or that we are from Michigan and not Ohio; or that we were born in 1950 instead of 1960; or that our IQs are 120 and not 110; or that we are obsessed with advancement to the exclusion of all else.  There are an infinite number of things which go into who and what we are.

The goal of law is to establish an objective standard, however difficult that may be and however difficult that is to put into practice. The “means” by which a Judiciary seeks objectivity, is through the use of Reason. Not intuition, faith, emotion, symbolic thinking, or, as the president so foolishly said, “empathy.” It does not matter that there can be different interpretations. The idea is one must use the faculties of reason to try and achieve a “blind result.” Further, why single out “gender and national origins” as the special differentiating factors? Watching and reading some of Sotomayor’s speeches on this topic over the years is cringe inducing. Of course, during her questioning last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee, she denied any knowledge of such views. These were all just bad word choices and mangled speeches that just somehow got tangled up in blue.  She claims not to have ever believed such nonsense. “Her voice was soothing, but the words weren’t clear.”

THE COMIC

History is partially a story of subjugation and conflict. It still persists today in obvious places around the world. Racial, religious, and ethnic conflict also existed in the United States. But Hispanics take a big league back seat to Native Americans and African Americans on that score. Frankly, I cannot see much of a difference between what Italians experienced up until the 1960s and what Hispanics experienced up until the 1980s. In fact, once you hold “the generation” constant-i.e., how many years ago your ancestors immigrated here, there is no ethnic bias to speak of against Italians or Hispanics. My four grandparents came from Italy around 1910 and I know their stories. The experience of Italians obviously does not compare to slavery or Jim Crow. And neither does the experience of Hispanics. The “ethnic conflict” issue today with Hispanics is really an illegal immigration Mexican problem, not a racial or ethnic problem.  If Sweden were south of the US and we had such unfettered illegal immigration of Swedes, Chuck Shumer might today be crying about some woman nominee named Helga. (Yes, I realize Sotomayor is Puerto Rican, not Mexican).

But in the game of racial politics, a teary eyed Senator Shumer can see a modern day  Rosa Parks when he looks at Sonia Sotomayor;  while Dick Durbin sees only a “white man” when looking at Sam Alito. The whole issue, in one sense, is comical. I think I can speak expertly on this topic. I am related to several Hispanic immigrants and am even a father to half Hispanic/half Italian children. I am uncle and/or godfather to a few “all Hispanic” children of immigrants, as well.  This trick was accomplished by marrying my wife, a “Hispanic” who emmigrated from Cuba (and who grew up in far worse circumstances in this country than Ms. Sotomayor).  I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty that there are few groups who adapt faster to being “instant Americans” than children of Hispanic immigrants. Just add water and stir. Yet my children, nephews and nieces can “check the Hispanic box” on their college applications and presumably get beneficial treatment.  It is a joke.

Affirmative action policies were designed in the 1960s to address real racism against Black Americans. Somehow, these policies, originally designed to correct past discrimination of Black people, have been allowed to be glommed onto by every ethnic group under the sun, except those whose ancestors are from Europe (unless you are a female of European ancestry). If one cannot see the humor in this, then comedy is not your bag. This is what happens when neo-Marxist doctrine gets hold of your educational and legal system; all hell breaks loose. It is hip to be a victim of the “dead white male” culture.

THE TRAGIC

When Obama starts apologizing about, and for, America, it makes me ill. However, this is what the left has wrought. What has made the United States exceptional, is its explicit stated foundational principle, written in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” How did we get here from there?

It is difficult to say how. America has always taken its core principles seriously. When reality did not comport to principle, change was promoted until it did. Slavery was abolished and second class citizenry of women was abolished. Change happened legally first, then more gradually relative to true cultural acceptance. An Anti-American philosophy developed in the 1960s and 1970s, to challenge the traditional unifying concept which is the core principle of this country. The concept of Identity Politics has arisen as one of the main “alternatives” to the Founders’ principles.  Sonia Sotomayor obviously was an “early adaptor” of this philosophy. She grew up in lower middle class circumstances and graduated valedictorian from the Catholic High School, Cardinal Spellman High . As one can see from the link, it is a pretty good school. My high school was in the same sports league as Spellman. It always seemed like a good school to me.

Yet, her entire identity as an individual almost seems invested in disadvantage, even inferiority, which government action and identity politics saved her from. She has said she is an “affirmative action baby” who scored worse than her classmates on the SATs at Princeton, due to cultural biases in the tests. Assuming there are so called cultural biases in the test, it seems absurd to think a Cardinal Spellman valedictorian would be a victim of such bias. Further, almost as a coping mechanism, she has made herself believe there is some kind of secret or magical wisdom from primarily identifying herself, not as an American, but as a “wise Latina”. But she did not need and certainly did not deserve special treatment. She was quite accomplished on her own. The American system did not prevent her from being successful. Like millions of other Americans through out our history, she worked hard to achieve success. Yet, for reasons of insecurity or bad faith, or worse, bad reasoning skills, she has needed to trumpet a key part of her success to overcoming institutional and cultural obstacles with the help of government mandated affirmative action policies. It is both sad and tragic that she cannot believe that her achievements were hers, and hers alone; neither impeded by cultural or political bias, nor enhanced by government policy. Wouldn’t a better message by her over the years to have been “work hard and in America you can achieve your goals and aspirations”?  It is exasperating to see such convoluted reasoning as she has expressed over the years.

The Senate had an opportunity to really get at these issues, but chose basically not to. At least they forced Sotomayor to recant these opinions. This implies that Americans still believe in one nation, not a nation of separate identities. But what does she really believe? Is she the person who believes, as was implied in her 3 judge panel ruling in the Ricci case, that outcomes alone can be evidence of racial bias in an exam (rejected by the Supreme Court in a 9-0 vote)? Or can she finally be a person who no longer needs to kow tow to racial and ethnic politics, now that she will be on the Supreme Court? I don’t know. And the Republican Senators were too afraid to find out.

THE CLOSER

I stated earlier in the essay that true ethnic and racial equality is now a virtual reality in America. The hypersensitivity of people like Spike Lee to certain characters in cinema; and of people like Sotomayor, who trumpet ethnic differences as critical components in the culture (and therefore the judicial process), are out of step with much of American experience. At the very least, the emphasis is misplaced and destructive.

I enjoy watching crime based television shows. I hope to write an essay on one or two in the near future. For once, the entertainment industry, whether purposely or not, seems to implicitly refute these tales of ethnic separation and identity politics. At the very least, their message is a normative one of unity among different ethnic groups. Nothing speaks equality, and better, lack of ethnic hypersensitivity, than a crime fighting unit in a modern television series.  These shows mix people of clear and obvious different backgrounds. The implied message, however, is not their differences, but their unity of purpose. The characters are primarily defined by what they have in common, rather than how they are different. A classic example is the series “The Closer.”

Based in Los Angeles, the key characters are a White Texan female (Kyra Sedgwick), a Black sergeant who is her “go-to guy” (Corey Reynolds), a Mexican-American detective (Raymond Cruz), an Asian Lieutenant (Michael Chan), and two white detectives (G.W Bailey and Tony Denison). The show is both comic and a traditional “who done it” mystery. The characters work together to solve crimes. No presumption of ethnic based wisdom is pushed. No victim status is accorded any of the characters.

Watching the Sotomayor hearings was like being in a time warp participating in a 70’s seminar on Marxist politics. They were not in tune with current popular culture. Identity politics is now a money and power scam.  Sotomayor was questioned on her ethnic statements, but she was permitted to pretend it was clumsy language. The core of her stated philosophy was never really addressed. One of the “elephants in the room” was the large ghost of Miguel Estrada, who might have made the Supreme Court under Bush, had not the Democratic Senate, for the first time in history, through a filibuster, prevented a vote on his nomination to the DC circuit court. Somehow, Chuck Shumer failed to get teary eyed over that failed vote. Estrada made the mistake of not trumpeting his victim status.

Is the Hartford Fire department really that much of a different place than the fictionalized “Priority Homicide” unit in The Closer? But in a Sotomayor world, if the black guy happens to not pass the test, and the white guy does, that may be prima facie evidence of systematic racial discrimination. In our fictionalized world, the Corey Reynolds character was studying for his Lieutenant’s test at some point in the show. I don’t recall him complaining about its “cultural bias”. If he had, I think the rest of the “Priority Homicide” department would laugh out loud. But in the Senate, we get a 60 year old man crying over Cardinal Spellman valedictorians overcoming cultural bias, discrimination, and adversity, against all odds.

Forget the “tragedy” part. It’s all a joke.

Whether it is Barack Obama promising to cut 95% of Americans’ taxes, instead of admitting that he wants be expand the government’s role in redistributing wealth, or the Democrats’ support of the misnomer Employee Free Choice Act, which removes an employee’s right to a secret ballot in union elections, liberals always disguise their leftist agendas with conservative talking points.  I will happily support the Democrats the day they actually advocate meaningful tax reform, and support workers’ rights over the monopoly of overgrown unions.

Most recently, Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings have displayed this pattern of liberals hiding their true political leanings from the American public.  Much has been said about Sotomayor’s disingenuous attempt to sweep her “wise latina” comments under the rug.  All of this is in an effort by Sotomayor, and her Democratic supporters to relabel her as mainstream rather than an individual who relishes in identity politics.  

Sotomayor has also been attempting to claim that her judicial philosophy is more in line with strict constructionists than is actually so.  During testimony, Sotomayor was quick to say that “[judges] apply law to facts.  We do not apply feelings to facts.” Her statements seem to be at odds with the man who appointed her, as President Obama explicitly stated that he believed that the “quality of empathy…[is] an essential ingredient” for a Supreme Court Justice. Of course, now that she is selling her qualifications to the American public, judicial empathy is shoved right out the door.  As Senator Graham said in reflection of her testimony, “I think I’m listening to Judge Roberts.”  

While much of the breakdown of political discourse in our nation has been accurately blamed on the back-biting between both parties, the left’s continual misrepresentation of their own values is also a culprit, as it makes it impossible for conservatives to engage them on a meaningful level.  In this case, instead of having a legitimate and important discussion about whether originalism or legal realism is a better judicial philosophy, Republicans are left to try and play gotcha, while the Democrats snicker about Perry Mason.  

The silver lining in this is that Americans don’t seem to be buying the liberal line on Sotomayor completely (although polls have begun to turn in her favor).  They also seem to be very wary of the so-called public “choice” being created to compete with private health insurance.  While Democrats continue to label their agenda as conservative or mainstream, Americans are waking up and realizing that their reforms are anything but.  Hopefully, Americans will spot the wolves among us before any more of our freedoms are picked off.

–

In my defense however, I will say that Maddow came way out of left field with the double-teaming.  I personally found it to be distasteful… But well played on Maddow’s part.

Is there any clear thinking conservative out there who thought that President Obama might actually try to fill this job opening that has the best benefits package in history with someone who might be, in some small way, acceptable to the right? This is the one appointment that cannot have any concession to conservatives. You can dislike Judge Sotomayor for her racial comments, that’s fair. You can look at her troubling record and the number of times she has been overturned on appeal and question her legal acumen. However, no intellectually honest conservative or liberal can deny that judges make policy and law in this country. Starting with the guy who takes your donations to local government for speeding right up to the First Street Nine, judges have the final word. In the game we like to call America, judges have all the marbles. Justice may be blind but she has a big mouth and when she speaks you must listen.

Conservatives who are realists know that unless there is a sex tape about to turn up on YouTube or a Mafia Don trying to make a plea bargain about to go before the grand jury, Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed. Let’s have our fun slinging a little mud at the hypocrisy of the left but try not to lose any sleep over this. It amazes me that all my right-wing friends are so shocked that President Obama should nominate a judicial activist to the Supreme Court. Modern liberalism believes that what is unavailable through the voting booth can be gotten from the bench. One need only look at the state and federal courts in the most liberal of states, California, to know this is true.

It further amazes me that we on the right are surprised that the President’s nominee would believe a member of a minority group can better judge cases than a white man. This is exactly what Judge Sotomayor has been taught at Princeton and at Yale. She may have been taught this at the Catholic High School she attended as well if the Jesuits were teaching there.

Finally, is it possible that we might stop talking about what a “compelling story” Judge Sotomayor’s life has been as if that is a qualification for the Supreme Court? There are millions of stories just like hers in this country. That is why people risk their lives and their liberty to come here both legally and illegally. As much as the left likes to demean this country as an unfair and racist place they are quick to point out that it is still possible to go from the projects to the penthouse in a single generation. 

My father went from a very poor neighborhood in Pittsburgh to being an executive at a Fortune 500 company but that does not qualify him for the Court. Even though he was a Goldwater Republican, President Obama might have liked my dad, at our house he was an activist judge who made policy and law and was never overturned on appeal.

With Barack Obama, many Americans had hoped to get a post-racial president. With Mr. Obama’s pick of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace David H. Souter on the Supreme Court, it looks less and less like they got one.

President Obama – a man we still hardly know – clearly subscribes to the notion that we should judge each other not just on the content of our character, but also by the color of our skin.

We’ve had warning signs before. Remember the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.?

As for the outrage du jour, the call for Sotomayor to apologize for making a racist comment in a 2001 speech is silly. She said what she meant, and she meant what she said: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

No white nominee could get away with that statement’s corollary in which a wise white man comes to better conclusions that a Latina. Nor should he.

A non-apology apology – which seems to be all the price she is going to pay – is pointless.

The White House simply says Judge Sotomayor used “poor” word choice. But that excuse applies to any number of public figures who have had their careers derailed for similar language blunders. This double standard needs to go on public trial.

In today’s left-of-center culture, the “white male” – “the victim,” as it were – understands that what Judge Sotomayor said is the accepted liberal way of thinking. Identity politics (also known as political correctness, multiculturalism and cultural Marxism) is the foundation of the political left. It is the first, middle and last lesson taught today in Academia. It is the mainstream media’s rulebook.

It is why Sotomayor and Obama are praiseworthy, and why Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Alberto Gonzalez and Miguel Estrada are unacceptable members of their respective tribes. It is the onerous double standard that ensures that the left wins every argument over race. And that is far too useful a weapon for the president and his Democratic Party to give up.

You can read the column in full here.

Today, I’ll talk truth to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, potential justice of the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor, Pope Benedict XVI and President Barack Obama.  That’s a more powerful lineup than the 1927 New York Yankees, if I do say so myself.

I have almost begun to feel sorry for Nancy Pelosi.  After all, when you get past the facelifts and the Botox injections, the designer suits and the large private jet, you have an aging grandmother who, in a perfect world, would be home playing with the grandkids and letting the wrinkles show.  Instead, she’s constantly on TV, telling lies and looking like a small animal staring at oncoming headlights.  I think that instead of babbling about what she didn’t know and when she didn’t know it, she should claim the Twinkie defense just like that other two-bit San Francisco politician, Dan White.  In case you don’t recall, when he went on trial for killing Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, White’s lawyers, in making their case for diminished capacity, claimed he had been suffering from depression, and that his depression had been made more severe by a junk food diet that included a lot of Twinkies.  I can see Rep. Pelosi taking that defense out of moth balls, dusting it off and blaming all of her recent insanity on cheap confections.  Heck, forget the pastries; she’d only need to mention having to sit through meetings with the likes of Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel or Arlen Specter, and even I would lessen her sentence.

Secretary Gates insists that Guantanamo has to be shut down because its very name is a source of embarrassment for America throughout the world.  Well, I happen to think the world is an embarrassment and is therefore in no position to judge us.  But the solution in any case is not to shut down Gitmo, especially when it will cost $80 million to do so and when nobody has the slightest idea where to move the terrorists, but to simply change the name of the facility.  We could call it any number of things, ranging from Paradise to Fantasy Island.  Or we could take our lead from the pop singer, Prince, and simply change it to the Prison Formerly Known as Guantanamo.

I don’t know Sonia Sotomayor personally and, so, I don’t dislike her any more than I do any of the other liberal judges on Barack Obama’s short list of Supreme Court nominees.  The difference is that I saw a video of Judge Sotomayor addressing what I assume was a group of law students.  After telling them that the courts are where policy is made, she gave a little laugh and acknowledged that she probably shouldn’t have said that when she knew she was being taped.  But she did say it, and in doing so, she spoke for every left-wing judge in America.  The fact that she also believes that her experience as a Latina will cause her to rule differently from other people isn’t a cause for celebration.  It’s the Constitution that matters, not whether her parents were Puerto Rican, Chinese or Hungarian.  Here in California, judges have over-ruled the vote of the people on capital punishment, illegal immigrants and, before this May 26th, same-sex marriage.  In Washington, the Supremes expanded eminent domain in a way that would have impressed even the likes of Stalin, Hitler and Castro, and decided that when the Founding Fathers included “the pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, what they had in mind were millions and millions of abortions.

The bone I have to pick with the Pope involves his cockeyed sense of priorities.  Recently, I read a gruesome account of Catholic schools in Ireland.  Even Charles Dickens could not have dreamed up such a nightmare.  Apparently, for decades, the priests and nuns running these schools based their teaching philosophy on the precepts laid down by the Nazis who ran the concentration camps.  With disgusting regularity, they beat and sexually molested the children, and suffered no consequences.  At least not here on earth.

Now, I have nothing against the Catholic Church and, unlike some Jews, I don’t condemn it for ancient sins.  However, a while back, when Pope John II was visiting America, he decided to use his influence to save the life of a person who had killed three people and was about to be executed in Missouri.  Being the Pope, he got Governor Carnahan to commute Darrell Mease’s sentence to life without parole.  At the time, I found myself thinking that if the Pope was going to go to bat for a cold-blooded killer, the taxpayers in Missouri shouldn’t be left holding the bag; instead, Pope John should have taken him back to the Vatican and let the Church put him up for the next 40 or 50 years.

Now we have Pope Benedict XVI traveling to the Middle East, spewing out his predictable platitudes, while managing to suggest a moral equivalency between Israel and those dedicated to Israel’s destruction.  As usual, his words fell on deaf ears.  But, then, why should Jews or Muslims really care what he has to say, especially when he refuses to speak out in the one area where his authority is unquestioned?  After all, a couple of thousand years ago, Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”  Jesus used “suffer” in the sense of “permit” or “allow,” but in modern times, far too many priests have perverted it to mean actual suffering.  It shouldn’t be asking too much of the Pope that he excoriate and ex-communicate those priests here in America and in Ireland who have brutalized countless Catholic children for their own base pleasure and amusement. 

As for President Obama, I would like to see him quit chastising George Bush while at the same time carrying forth his policies.  Understand, I approve of those policies, which have helped safeguard America for nearly eight years.  But, saying one thing while doing another may fool some of the people some of the time, and fool Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann all of the time, but it doesn’t make Obama look superior to the ex-president; it merely makes him look petty and deceitful.

Furthermore, I would suggest that Barack Obama quit telling us that everything he says and does garners us great respect in the world community.  The majority of that community is made up of lunatics and gangsters, and most Americans don’t want to gain the love and admiration of North Korea, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Yemen or Indonesia.  It would be nice, though, if they were at least a little bit afraid of us.

If I had the president’s ear, I would beg him not to be a sucker, and not to think for a second that international villains will succumb to his much-publicized charm.  They will applaud his speeches and return his smiles, and they’ll happily stab him in the back.  I would try to make him realize that the world’s political leaders are just like Chicago’s, except that some of them have nuclear bombs at their disposal.

It’s easy, I would tell the president, to mouth all the usual cliches and be lauded by the various hand puppets and hand maidens at MSNBC and the New York Times, but being politically correct is, unfortunately, not the same thing as being correct politically.

When you favor someone because of their race over others who are equally or more qualified, that’s racism. Except in America where an old policy that was supposed to help people in an age of real separatism is still on the books and enforced.

The appointment of judge Sonia Sotomayor by President Obama to the Supreme Court is a classic example of how absurd affirmative action has become. And she unwittingly said it all in the following statement:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

First of all, that is a foolish statement. Wise people don’t call themselves wise. And anyone who thinks their ethnicity (Latinos aren’t a race) or race makes them somehow more wise is not very smart. There are clueless people of every race. Life experience only imbues wisdom if you actually learn something from it. A lot of people don’t.

But in the Obama administration appointing someone based on their “story” and identity politics trumps qualifications. Martin Luther King must be rolling in his grave, because this goes against everything he preached.

Besides, when you have a black president appointing a Latina judge for politically correct reasons so that white politicians will be afraid to dissent, affirmative action has gone way past being dated.

It was a good idea when it started, as a temporary measure. But that was over 40 years ago. And times have changed. It’s not really needed anymore, but it’s widely abused. Those who use political correctness as a bludgeon for their agenda will try to keep it going forever.

Identity politics is racist, sexist, tribalist, classist nonsense. If our society is to ever truly grow up, we need to kill it off with extreme prejudice.

It should end. Bureaucrats never like to give up power to abuse the public for bogus ends. So it won’t go without a fight. But it must.

When you favor one race, religion or ethnic group over another it’s not only un-American, it’s bigotry. We can’t have an equal society until we get rid of political correctness and affirmative action.

People should be judged on their merits and not on their “story.” Stories are for fiction and con games.