Free Speech At Home — Aaron Miller

 

Political correctness has stifled more speech than laws ever could. 

The worst part might be that it can strike anywhere at any time. Friends and family can become its enforcers. Even children get in on the act sometimes. Nowhere is safe.

How free is your speech at home and in casual conversations? How often does political correctness intrude where you would most like to speak without reservation?

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  1. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    In my neighborhood, growing up, we were all either Irish or Italian. We were second or third generation, and our grandparents/parents had moved out to the suburbs from the ghetto neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Since the GI Bill enabled a lot of families to move out into suburbia, I’m sure the same pattern happened in a lot of cities all over the country. 

    The funny thing is that we were anything but politically correct to each other, for all the years growing up, and yet we were (and remain) the closest friends we could be.

    Now you could say that, sure, those “demographically unsafe” jokes were explained by the fact that we were only kids … but that would imply that as adults, we should somehow lose our ability to take a joke, and to become ultra-serious and ultra-sensitive about our demographic identity. In other words, why did growing up make us so fragile? Who said maturity was about becoming psychologically brittle?

    That’s why I have a hard time adjusting to the ultra-correct speech codes. If you tell me that my jokes might insult a friend, my instinctive reply would be – yeah, that was the point.

    • #1
  2. user_1938 Inactive
    user_1938
    @AaronMiller

    Friends are brutally honest about their differences. In a strange way, pretending we’re all basically the same distances us from each other.

    • #2
  3. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    About a year ago I responded to something political my young adult niece said.   I didn’t even disagree with her.  I simply pointed out a different perspective.  I thought (and still do) by response was fair and sensitive.  The result was immediate and severe.  It was an explosion.  The damage appears to be permanent and beyond repair.

    • #3
  4. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    Well, I’m on another cousin’s list. I sent her Dave Carter’s latest post, and got back a tirade. This woman has a PhD in Psychology and hasn’t a brain to think logically with nor to connect dots.

    • #4
  5. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Aaron Miller: How often does political correctness intrude where you would most like to speak without reservation?

    Home has always been the last place I felt like I could speak without reservation.

    Family is the group with whom one’s gotta go along to get along the most.

    Christmas lasts a long time.

    • #5
  6. Sister Inactive
    Sister
    @Sister

    I guess I’ve enjoyed being contrary all my life, and now to the extreme. My motto: Never let an opportunity to be politically incorrect pass you by.

    • #6
  7. user_517406 Inactive
    user_517406
    @MerinaSmith

    I’m proud to say that 4 of my 5 kids are conservative, so home is safe.  My one non-conservative is still a work in progress.  He LOVES to argue politics, which can be wearing, but I frequently indulge him.  Don’t tell him, but I can see him moving the direction of the rest of the family.  He’s too smart to remain a lefty.  

    Church is mostly safe, though I don’t bring politics into church discussions per se, but most church friends are conservative.  We lament in private and sometimes argue a bit.

     To those of you who have friends and family who are so sensitive as to never forgive your conservatism, I’m so sorry.  I hate to have bad feelings and relationships with anybody, especially friends and family.  I refuse to let politics ruin my relationships from my end.  I can’t help what other people do, but I make a point of letting people know after disagreements that our friendship is intact.  It usually works.

    • #7
  8. user_348375 Member
    user_348375
    @

    Excellent topic Aaron!  Political change begins in the kitchen with family and friends.

    I have a brother-in-law who also used to be my best friend for decades, since high school.  We would discuss any and all topics, which I enjoyed immensely as he is well-educated and intelligent. That all changed when I gave him a copy of Jonah’s Liberal Fascism shortly after it was published.  Now he is merely polite at family gatherings and never contacts us otherwise.  He has mentioned that he never wants to discuss any political topic at all.  It is as if he is now intellectually fragile.  He is a life-long federal government employee with a single agency forever, but I don’t really know if that pertains to this rift.  I, on the other hand, have always been employed at-will as a member of industry that supplies high technology to major corporations and governments.  Again, I don’t know if that pertains, although I suspect he viewed me at times as an international arms merchant.

    I still have a circle of friends with whom I can freely speak my mind, but it has gotten smaller.

    • #8
  9. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Free speech at home?

    You’re not married, are you Aaron?

    • #9
  10. tabula rasa Inactive
    tabula rasa
    @tabularasa

    Casey:

    Free speech at home?

    You’re not married, are you Aaron?

    Aside from “marital correctness” (which is usually a prudent limitation on free speech), my home is free of political correctness, in that Mrs. T, all my children, and their spouses are cultural and political conservatives.

    That does not mean we tell crude ethnic jokes.  But it does mean we can freely criticize the left without fear of inciting a family fight.

    • #10
  11. Eric Hines Inactive
    Eric Hines
    @EricHines

    Politically correct?  Dew whut?

    I never worry about it.  A necessary ingredient to an exchange of ideas is getting the other person actually to listen.  I try to adjust my phrasing to my audience, which means I’m sometimes more circumspect than at other times.  That can look like I’m moving toward PC-ness sometimes, but that’s just a perception. 

    I’m as blunt as I need to be.  PC never enters into it.  That includes at home.  And yes, Casey, I’m married.  Since 1974, and they’ve been the best 98 years of my life.

    Eric Hines

    • #11
  12. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    Coincidentally, I just explained what “PC” meant to my nine-year-old over the weekend.

    • #12
  13. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Fricosis Guy:

    Coincidentally, I just explained what “PC” meant to my nine-year-old over the weekend.

    The history of the phrase is kinda interesting.

    • #13
  14. Nick Stuart Inactive
    Nick Stuart
    @NickStuart

    Pony Convertible:

    About a year ago I responded to something political my young adult niece said. I didn’t even disagree with her. I simply pointed out a different perspective. I thought (and still do) by response was fair and sensitive. The result was immediate and severe. It was an explosion. The damage appears to be permanent and beyond repair.

     Let me venture a prediction she’s a leftist?

    I’ve learned that beyond a few trusted friends it’s much better to just keep quiet.

    • #14
  15. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    Misthiocracy:

    Fricosis Guy:

    Coincidentally, I just explained what “PC” meant to my nine-year-old over the weekend.

    The history of the phrase is kinda interesting.

    I’m raising him to be the Mikhail Suslov of the Conservative Movement…not.

    • #15
  16. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    When private speech is made public to hang someone, that is not unlike the Stasi.

    • #16
  17. EThompson Member
    EThompson
    @

    It’s a geographic dilemma for me:
    1. The Midwest– never good for any sensible political discussion due to the federal bailout of one of Detroit’s biggest businesses- GM.
    2. The UK– never fun for me as one of my closest friends reads The Guardian and The Economist and while serving on the Board of Directors of a major U.S. business school, believes the GOP is chock full of religious fanatics. This is a particularly interesting perspective as his youngest just graduated Columbia PBK and has taken a job with a PLO affiliate in Beirut. (FYI, this is an American Jewish family.)
    3. My stalwart supporters actually reside in CA (ok- admittedly Orange County) and NYC. They’ve all seen the destruction “up close and personal” wrought by liberal policies and are in no mood for PC points of view. In fact, my “city” friend is moving to Connecticut only to avoid bearing the brunt of de Blasio’s future policies.

    • #17
  18. user_517406 Inactive
    user_517406
    @MerinaSmith

    Let me just say, though, that we should let people know that we are conservative and explain why when we can.  I’ve started doing that in a gentle way because many on the left live in a lefty bubble. They need to know that some of their friends are conservative and are nice people.  My lefty friends really want many of the same conservative things I want, though they are less likely to get them. They want good job prospects for their children and then they want them to get married and give them some grandchildren.  These hopes are not exactly wholly conservative, but conservatism makes them more likely to happen.  So speak out in a tactful way.  We don’t want to be an endangered species.

    • #18
  19. user_1938 Inactive
    user_1938
    @AaronMiller

    That’s interesting, E, because Delingpole said on a recent podcast that he thinks it’s generally more socially acceptable to bring up politics in the UK than in the US. As I recall, James said that’s probably because the differences between the Left and Right are less pronounced in England than in America.

    • #19
  20. EThompson Member
    EThompson
    @

    Merina Smith:

    Let me just say, though, that we should let people know that we are conservative and explain why when we can. I’ve started doing that in a gentle way because many on the left live in a lefty bubble. They need to know that some of their friends are conservative and are nice people. My lefty friends really want many of the same conservative things I want, though they are less likely to get them.

    The Left has done a magnificent job with indoctrination and thought control over the past 30 years and they are working hard to protect the bubble in which your lefty friends live and work. Unfortunately, I don’t predict their bubble will burst. Those of who do pay taxes and provide jobs will continue to be punished until this country elects politicians who understand the dynamics of a prospering, capitalist society. Malheureusement, I think with the defeat of Romney, that opportunity has passed us by.

    • #20
  21. Frederick Key Inactive
    Frederick Key
    @FrederickKey

    Lost a job because I thought the people there could take a little anodyne political sparring. Lefties will do anything to shut ypu up, and that is a fact.

    • #21
  22. EThompson Member
    EThompson
    @

    Aaron Miller:

    That’s interesting, E, because Delingpole said on a recent podcast that he thinks it’s generally more socially acceptable to bring up politics in the UK than in the US. As I recall, James said that’s probably because the differences between the Left and Right are less pronounced in England than in America.

    JD is right because the UK is a more socialist country and there are far fewer differences between the political parties. My friend is an ex-pat for 30 years and married to the daughter of Canada’s “version” of William Kunstler. He has become unused to entertaining political views from the Right.

    • #22
  23. doc molloy Inactive
    doc molloy
    @docmolloy

    Let’s not forget the Frankfurt school and political correctness it goes back to the thirties and was exported to the US post WW2 and has expanded and taken advantage of the ‘everything goes’ sixties and seventies flower/university power generation.. It’s now entrenched.

    • #23
  24. user_645357 Coolidge
    user_645357
    @Acook

    We got our daughter into adulthood reasonably conservative. She voted for Romney in 2012. Now she’s married to a guy who is more liberal than she is and I think he’s turning her. Recently in a discussion of SSM, in voicing our support for traditional marriage, she informed us that we weren’t allowed to think like that anymore. I think we are going to have to avoid political discussions in the interest of family harmony in the future.  Sigh.

    • #24
  25. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    My children are all conservative, but we differ on SSM  I had a Yes on 8 sign on my lawn and my daughter voiced displeasure. I reminded her whose house it was. 

    I have a lefty brother and a lefty mom. While we do occasionally discuss politics with them, it always ends badly. if we voice anything now – higher insurance premiums, IRS, we are accused of picking a fight. This from the two people who toasted each other the night Obamacare was voted on. In front of the entire family. 

    I ordered a double.

    • #25
  26. doc molloy Inactive
    doc molloy
    @docmolloy

    Everyone is in favor of free speech,” Winston Churchill once wrote. “Hardly a day passes without its being extolled.” And yet, he added dryly, “some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.”

    • #26
  27. Covert Conservative Member
    Covert Conservative
    @

    It’s difficult when you feel that you have to hide your conservatism to maintain friendships. Yet at the same time, just feeling they would ostracize you if they knew you were a conservative can end up driving a wedge between you and those friends anyway. It’s a hard line to walk.

    • #27
  28. TKC1101 Member
    TKC1101
    @

    For two decades I have seen old friends start falling on one of two sides, left/right, individual/statist, progressive/conservative, GOP/Democrat , Wall Street/ Main Street  , Religious/Secular. Middle Class/ Elitist, Gaia/Sane Humanist,  amplified by social media.
    Progressives seem to flaunt views , conservatives are more guarded.  Those of us on the right seem to have lost the patience to deal with the emotional outbursts of the left, like parents who try not to trigger a tantrum in a child. We retreat, bemused and exasperated.
    We are losing our common core as Americans, common beliefs. Such times have occurred before, in 1776 and 1860. They can happen again. The decision we need to make what we will do about it.

    • #28
  29. JVC1207 Member
    JVC1207
    @JVC1207

    I don’t know about this…do Labour and UKIP really have that much in common? After living in the UK for over a year now, I agree that things are much less PC here (not just with politics). Generally people’s worldviews are a little left of the average Americans, but I’ve been surprised to find a number of conservatives/independents here as well. It’s much more common to voice opposing political views, and still go home as friends. The most intolerant folks I’ve run into here are the lefty American ex-pats in the office:-)

    • #29
  30. Mario the Gator Inactive
    Mario the Gator
    @Pelayo

    We discuss the over-reach of Political Correctness from time to time as family.  My wife works in a school and she is constantly surrounded by people who are trying to be PC about everything.  She has to be careful about everything she says because if just one parent is “offended” it becomes a problem for her.  As a result she has become very PC.  When she tries to correct me in a conversation, I make it a point to stop her.  I refuse to completely give in to PC.  When I am surrounded by friends and family I do not feel the need to filter my comments.  My wife agrees with me that PC has gone way too far, but she feels trapped by it and warns me to be careful.  I tell my two teenage kids that when I was growing up it was ok to tell ethnic jokes and people would go back and forth.  It was not malicious.  People are much more sensitive now.  As long as the conversation is among family members I tell them not to hold back. 

    • #30
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