# Define "Politically Correct" + Give 2 examples in your life worth raging at

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-politically-correct-give-2-examples-in-your-life-worth-raging-at/822993
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [October 15, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-politically-correct-give-2-examples-in-your-life-worth-raging-at/822993 "2018-10-15T18:03:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 110

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### Author: ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2018, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-politically-correct-give-2-examples-in-your-life-worth-raging-at/822993/110 "2018-10-16T05:28:00Z")

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> [@septimus](#):
>
> There are two sides to every story, and I can certainly sympathize with minorities who feel exploited by “appropriation.” But, _ **Heavens!** _ Is this country a melting pot or not?
> 
> Investment bankers are sucking billions of dollars out of the economy through mischief and frauds. The health insurance companies are making billions of dollars in excess profit, literally by finding new ways to send Grandma to the death camps. The GOP has passed a plan to transfer Trillions (with a T) from the poor to the rich over the next decade. And what do liberals protest? \*\*\* Two women selling burritos from a food cart??\*\*\* 😕 :smack:
> 
> I don’t particularly denounce such a silly boycott. As I say, I can understand both sides in the issue. _ **But this is the hill liberals choose to die on?** _ 😕
> 
> Remember this sort of crap next time you ask yourself why so many Americans are willing to pull the R lever at election time.

So… two women offered a fairly tasteless interview about their product to a local newspaper. This blew up with another local newspaper, then national outlets ran with it _because it was fodder for the culture war_, not because there was actually a story there. “A handful of wackos on the internet get mad at something” is not really news (even if that leads to death threats, sadly enough). Or at least, it shouldn’t be. Not unless you _make_ it news. And it gets clicks, so people _do_ make it news. “Crazy SJWs are killing America” is a narrative the right _badly_ wants to push, so it gets pushed. As I detail elsewhere:

> [@Are accusations of raicsm/sexism/bigotry abused?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-accusations-of-raicsm-sexism-bigotry-abused/821332/33):
>
> Okay, so the question “has anyone ever used accusations of racism/sexism/bigotry to dodge/win a debate?” is fucking trivial. Of course they have. It’s a thing, just like saying “Well, you’re a woman, so obviously I win this debate” is a thing. My problem is that people blow it _way the fuck out of proportion_. There is an entire cottage industry on the right acting like political correctness is strangling public discourse. As if the biggest concern for anyone who is worried about free speech absolutely must be the people who use accusations of racism/sexism/bigotry to shut down speech they don’t like.
> 
> And it _works_. It’s the core of Trump’s message. The list of right-wing shitheads who have made a career on youtube by complaining these people - often [just one or two shitheads on twitter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l63nY0AYebI) - is staggering. Most of the republican message these days, to the degree that it’s effective, is either about guns, abortion, or “sticking it to the SJWs”.
> 
> (Seriously, this is a really instructive case - one or two people on Twitter said they were a bit uncomfortable about the jokes in the Doom Eternal trailer, and [there are _dozens_ of videos taking the piss out of those handful of tweets](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=doom+eternal+sjw). Some of them have hundreds of thousands of views. This sort of intentional exaggeration is, in my experience, _far_ more common than actual cases of people shutting down debate by shouting “bigot”.)
> 
> This shit _works_. It allows reactionary right-wing douchebags to effectively turn free speech into a wedge issue, acting as though anyone who supports social justice is anti-free-speech, or supports the actions of any given idiot who says something stupid on twitter. **And in doing so, they amplify the voices who _do_ inappropriately yell “sexist/racist/bigot” _far_ beyond their normal reach. They nutpick, which leads to people believing this is a common problem, rather than a very rare one**.
> 
> This is why I have a problem with the way this debate is framed.

Note the bolded part.

So no, this isn’t a “hill liberals want to die on”. This is a tempest in a teapot involving maybe a few thousand random people across a few social media sites that various mainstream news outlets decided to _turn into_ front page news because it was bound to get clicks in an era of anti-SJW outrage. And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Please stop falling for it.

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