Isn't it interesting that the politically correct are more intolerant of dissent than traditional liberals or even conservatives? I'm Dr. Fred, you're listening to Study, Grow, Know. Welcome to Study, Grow, Know, where we discuss theology, prophecy, and current political issues from a conservative biblical perspective. Here's your host, Dr. Fred DeRuvo. Thank you for joining me. This is Dr. Fred, and you're listening to another episode of Study Grown Now. And if you've been following along, you know that we've been dealing with an issue called political correctness or cultural Marxism or multiculturalism, call it whatever you will, but it all involves the same type of thing. And as I mentioned at the tease at the top of the program here, the politically correct are more intolerant of dissent than traditional liberals or even conservatives. Liberals of earlier generations accepted unorthodoxy as normal and the right to differ was a datum of classical liberalism. The politically correct, though, do not give that a high priority. It distresses their programmed minds. Those who do not conform, as far as they're concerned, should be ignored, silenced, or vilified. There is a kind of soft totalitarianism. about politically correct thinking or political correctness. And you know what? I think it's becoming more than a soft totalitarianism. I think it's becoming a hard one. A hard and fast rule. I think the gauntlet has been thrown down in society. We talked last time of a gentleman by the name of Anthony Brown who wrote a book called Retreat of Reason which he published in 2006. And as I mentioned last time, also the subtitle of the book is Political Correctness and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain. He lives in England. He has seen what's happened to that culture, to that nation, and he's traced its roots really directly back to cultural Marxism, which began, he said, as a study in Germany in the 1920s. And it was finally adopted in the 1960s in the countercultural movement. And it's fascinating that from the 20s to the 60s, it kind of remained underground, bubbling on the back burner. And then when the 60s hit, that's when things broke loose. So we talked about that last time and the reality is that when you have situations that exist today created by political correctness it does nothing except create havoc in society. These people that are proponents of political correctness or use political correctness for their own gain do so in a way that attempts to make people who disagree with them, and that's normally conservatives, appear to be the enemy, appear to be the hater. And that's exactly why people like Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell, Al Sharpton, too many others to count. fly off the handle at a second's notice. It's funny because when I was growing up, I'm 56, not ashamed to say it, when I was growing up as a kid, I would watch the news and people were very congenial, even if they disagreed. During the talk shows, there was a conservatism about the way they approached subjects. Not that they themselves necessarily were conservative, but they were polite. They wanted to engender discussion and dialogue. That's not the case today. Too many people cannot emotionally handle the fact that people are saying something that to them is politically incorrect. It doesn't matter whether what they're saying is true or not. It flies in the face of the way they feel about something. And because of that, they believe their political correctness gives them the right to castigate, denigrate, vilify, blame, and attempt to silence those who are not politically correct. Now I was reading the other day online that a police officer was fired because he had the audacity to refer to Trayvon Martin as a thug on his Facebook page. So he was fired. Had he referred to George Zimmerman as a thug, I doubt that he would have been fired. That's my belief, I could be wrong. But if that's the case, and I am correct, that is an example of politically correct thought police, politically correct movement against free speech. And that's really what political correctness tends to do. It tends to change the rules in society. It tends to shut people up through sheer force of will, peer pressure, antagonism, outshouting, whatever you want to call it, that's what politically correct thinking does. And it's because a person is deemed not to be politically correct that they quote-unquote deserve the response they receive and it's not only allowed but encouraged under the unwritten terms of political correctness and by the way it's probably a good time to insert Saul Alinsky and his rules for radicals. If you haven't read his book I would suggest doing so. Saul Alinsky rules for radicals and in the very beginning of his book he really gives a high five to Satan, Lucifer, because he was the first rebel. And what did he get for it? His own kingdom, said Saul Alinsky. Yeah, well, that's not what he's going to end up with. But these are the rules that these people play by. And in essence, then, political correctness and attempting to do something that was good, as I mentioned that last time, has created a situation in society where it is perfectly fine to shut someone down with whom a person does not agree. if that person is outside of the politically correct arena. This is what has dumbed down and inflamed segments of society. It has removed civility and it has shut down true discussion. It's hyperbole, it's instigation, it's insult after insult after insult. It is trying to bring everything against someone in order to embarrass them into silence. In Saul Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals, he presents 13 rules that he believes radicals should live by. Number five is the one that the left seems to use most often and that is simply ridicule. You ridicule your opponent and Alinsky says that there is no defense. There is no defense. Once you start ridiculing your opponent, Discussion stops. Insults have taken over. There is no defense. And he's right. If we recall the Joseph Biden-Ryan debate, the vice president debate, what did Biden spend most of his time doing? He ridiculed Paul Ryan. He ridiculed him. And Paul was trying to have a discussion. But instead of being able to have a discussion, he was on the receiving end of one insult after another insult via hyperbole and ridicule and insult from Biden. That's what the left does. And what it has accomplished, it has created a society which politeness has really gone the way of the dinosaur. If we went back through the New Testament, we would find that just as Jesus was not what we consider to be, I guess, politically correct, and he was not then, and was ultimately crucified because of his in-politically correct or un-politically correct, excuse me, views, he will evidence the same type of anti-political correctness when he returns to this earth. He will actually deign to point out the sins of people that he met today if he was physically here wandering the streets of the city of any large nation or any city in America. He would tell people that they should avoid sinning and to go and sin no more. And that's not politically correct to talk that way of sin today. Who are you? Who am I to quote unquote judge anyone? You'll hear all these politically correct people. The first thing they say is, you know, Jesus said, judge not lest ye be judged. Right. But they will rip that out of context. And because they do that, they drastically change the meaning of what Christ meant. We're not supposed to talk about sin today. or hell, or to discuss homosexuality in what some might consider to be a negative light. Political correctness tosses out the ability to simply discuss and even disagree over issues. Instead, the arena of debate has become a war zone. How many times have we seen this on television or heard it on the radio? Someone will have some guest on their show with an opposing opinion and it's not long before a person begins to attack the other person solely for having an opposing opinion. The goal is to shut them down, to silence them. best way to do that is through ridicule. How often have we listened while guest and host talk over each other and do their level best to drown the other person out? Even on those shows where no guest is included the host has a field day calling people names or labeling them as racist or sexist or bigoted and they do it with a vehemence that is intended to curdle milk. This is what political correctness has created for society. We see this so easily with Mr. Obama. As just one example, as a person of color, the politically correct individual cannot wait They can't wait to label a person who disagrees with Obama's policies as racist. It doesn't matter that many of his policies were the same ones Clinton tried to enact. Clinton was white, so those who disagreed with him and were also white could not be accurately called racist then. Now, we can be. Whether it's true or not, it doesn't even matter. It is done to shut down conversation and that's exactly what political correctness aims to do. It censors the aggressor or the oppressor so that the perceived victim is given freedom, equity, and equality. It is what has become of society these days because political correctness as a form of cultural Marxism is working its way through society to topple what was. Replacing it with an unwritten code, unless you want to view Saul Alinsky's book as that written code, of acceptable speech, or what is commonly known as speech codes. Anthony Brown in his book defers to William Lind and I've mentioned him before. He has his own views about political correctness. He says, quote, the culture of Marxism, the cultural Marxism, excuse me, of political correctness like economic Marxism has a single factor explanation of history. Economic Marxism says that all of history is determined by ownership of means of production. Cultural Marxism or Political correctness says that all history is determined by power, by what other groups have, by which groups defined in terms of race, sex, etc. have the power over which other groups. Nothing else matters. That's what cultural Marxism is. All history is determined by power and which group has it. Anthony Brown also quotes Richard Bernstein, New York Times culture correspondent from his book, The Dictatorship of Virtue. And in 1990, he stated, quote, central to PC-ness, which has its roots in 1960s radicalism is the view that Western society has for centuries been dominated by what is often called the white male power structure or patriarchal hegemony. A related belief is that everybody but white heterosexual males has suffered some form of repression and been denied a cultural voice." That was Richard Bernstein, the dictatorship of virtue. Brown goes on to point out that it used to be that those who favored liberalism's values including the freedom to attack Western culture and values were free to do so. Those who disagreed were free to challenge those notions. This has changed because over time political correctness has worked to silence the dissenting viewpoint that is seen as punishing victims and we've got a lot more to say about this folks so I want to thank you for joining me today as always and I hope you'll be with me next time and until we meet again I pray that God will open your eyes to show you how blessed you are in him You've been listening to Study, Grow, Know with Dr. Fred DeRuvo. Please join us each week for new broadcasts that deal with theology, prophecy, and political issues from a biblical, conservative perspective.