Express truth ‘as we find it'

To the editor: Lisa Perry says she is not sure how political correctness got started. Here’s how: Political correctness arose with the liberal civil rights movement and the liberal women’s movement (all liberating movements are liberal). By 1970 the idea began circulating that ethical people ought to make their words and actions consistent with their beliefs of justice and other ethical issues. This is not a new idea. In the secular world Kant argued that instead of behaving in narrow self-interest, we should behave as we think everyone should behave. In the Christian world, religious people express the values of their religion by the way they conduct their lives, and especially in their generous treatment of the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and the foreigner, and in leaving judgment and vengeance to God. So political correctness works like this: If you believe that people should respect the environment, you will not throw garbage out your car window and, in fact, may buy an environmentally friendly vehicle to begin with. If you believe that all careers should be open to people regardless of sex, then you will you use language reflecting that belief: letter carrier instead of mailman, for example, or fire fighter instead of fireman. Who could object to that? Where political correctness is disturbing is when an agenda is forced upon people. We want the right to tell the truth as we see it and not as others would like us to see it. It seems to us like propaganda and brain washing. So while good people will naturally want to make their words and actions consistent with their beliefs, at the same time everyone has the right to resist conforming to someone else’s social agenda. We insist on the right to chose. We will not be forced to display the ribbon. We have the right to be wrong. We have the right to follow our own route to the truth and to express that truth as we find it. Merry Christmas. K.J. Walters Monroe