Go Seahawks, in the Sense of Motion

Since I started reeling off my pet peeves last time, I've discovered it's addictive. Soon I'll be the old man in the communal room at the rest home cursing everyone. The cursing will release endorphins. These will allow me to get by on less debilitating pain medication than my sweetness-and-light fellow residents. Therefore I will outlive their sorry asses.

Why isn't football over? Didn't the last game of every season used to be played on New Years Day? Or am I being confused by the slowing of the Earth's revolution and the introduction of the Gregorian calendar? Doesn't anybody else remember how, when the last game was played, the players on the winning team all had their hearts cut out and offered to the gods and the rest of us got to enjoy a little closure?

Which reminds me of this huge peeve category: People who feel that if I don't share their sentiments then I'm somehow invalidating them. OK, I don't support the Seahawks in any sense of the word "support." But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with other people supporting them. In fact I make it easier for the rest of you to get tickets to the games, because I'm not there taking up a seat.

Other sentiments that I have been at one time or another perceived as "invalidating": somebody's love of Jesus, someone's feeling that all sex is ultimately rape, a love of textile technology and fabric science, a love of scattering matrices, appreciation for long hair, short hair, ancient Sparta, and the Rolling Stones.

It's only a short step from "If you don't like the Rolling Stones I'm going punch you in the nose" to the position of political correctness that says "If you aren't sensitive to my feelings of victimization I'm going to use my political clout to silence you."

I hate all varieties of political correctness, including all the favorite forms of left-wing PCness. You know how, for example, it's considered so foul to use the N-word by some people that Mark Twain, a dead white writer, is believed to have no right to use it even in a book attacking slavery, and that such books should be banned from libraries. For other examples of left-wing PCness that I hate, all of them, see countless columns by John Leo.

But here's a pet peeve: There's right-wing political correctness too! And Leo and friends like it! And it's on the rise!

There's the Israeli ambassador who vandalized a work of art in Sweden because he perceived it as offensive to victims of a Palestinian suicide-bomber. He called the piece an "abomination." Ariel Sharon backed the ambassador's action and praised him. It recalled another famous time a nation's leader was praising the destruction of artistic abominations, back in the 1930s.

Oops! Look at the bad I just did! I made a comparison between Sharon and Hitler! Oh no, now I may have trivialized the Holocaust! I am now as bad as MoveOn.org for posting ads comparing Bush to Hitler! I must be chastised by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Republican National Committee for my own good, then I must apologize profusely, withdraw my comments, and then… well there is no then because I'm sure none of that would satisfy them.

Here's the deal: Hitler didn't leap into power in 1933 and instantly kill 6 million Jews. First he had to get laws passed that weakened legal protections. Then he had to exploit the backlash against that move so he could win support for more drastic measures. Then he had to develop a secret apparatus to carry out those measures with as little resistance as possible. The Holocaust took time and preparation.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but notice that Bush HAS taken Hitler's baby steps. That's just how a lot of people see the matter. It doesn't trivialize the Holocaust to harbor fears that we have smoothed the way for another one. It also doesn't help political discussions any to try to silence people when they express their fears openly. It's PC-mongering at its worst.