Mark Steyn writing in MacLean’s magazine. Apparently, the practice of informing the government about speech that is not in conformity with political correctness is widespread in the UK.
Excerpt:
A couple of years back, 14-year-old Codie Stott asked her teacher at Harrop Fold High School if she could sit with another group to do her science project as in hers the other five girls all spoke Urdu and she didn’t understand what they were saying. The teacher called the police, who took her to the station, photographed her, fingerprinted her, took DNA samples, removed her jewellery and shoelaces, put her in a cell for 3½ hours, and questioned her on suspicion of committing a Section Five “racial public order offence.” “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark,” declared the headmaster Antony Edkins. The school would “not stand for racism in any form.” In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said they took “hate crime” very seriously, and their treatment of Miss Stott was in line with “normal procedure.”
And:
Six weeks ago, Roy Amor, a medical technician who made prosthetics for a company called Opcare, glanced out of the window at their offices at Withington Community Hospital, and saw some British immigration officials outside. “You better hide,” he said to his black colleague, a close friend of both Mr. Amor and his wife. Not the greatest joke in the world, but the pal wasn’t offended, laughed it off as a bit of office banter, and they both got on with their work. It was another colleague who overheard the jest and filed a formal complaint reporting Mr. Amor for “racism.” He was suspended from his job. Five days later, he received an email from the company notifying him of the disciplinary investigation and inviting him to expand on the initial statement he had made about the incident. Mr. Amor had worked in the prosthetics unit at Withington for 30 years until he made his career-detonating joke. That afternoon he stepped outside his house and shot himself in the head. The black “victim” of his “racism” attended the funeral, as did other friends.
The part that scares me about this is the confidence that the other side has in pushing their viewpoint using coercion.
Were did this nanny-like opposition to feeling offended, feeling excluded and feeling judged come from? Who puts elevates feelings and compassion over the risky, confrontational exchange of ideas? Who minimizes truth and debate and maximizes self-esteem and happiness? Who emphasizes victimhood?
You know what? Life is tough. Sometimes people say things that make you feel bad. And if you are a grown-up, you let it go. You don’t empower government to coerce people so that you can have happy feelings. Freedom and prosperity are more important than happy feelings. Life isn’t fair.
For the record, I am a very visible minority, and consider the secular left PC thought police to be the worst racists on the planet.
WINTERY KNIGHT 