PC Lefties Eat One of Their Own

NPR has fired Juan Williams for comments made about Muslims on FoxNews. I'm not fan of Juan Williams, but this is ridiculous. This is what he said to Bill O'Reilly:

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

How dare Juan Williams breach the PC protocol and say what probably 90% of honest Americans think. I would love to see a poll on how many people agree with Mr. Williams.

The Other R-Word

Special Olympics and other groups are working to rid our language of "retarded," or as they call it, the "r-word." I generally oppose efforts to remove words from our language; I think the focus should be placed on removing the perjorative use of the word rather than the use of the word entirely. Despite my views on the PC movement, I am generally sympathetic to their position.

That said, there is another r-word that is overused to a much greater degreee - racism. Some people see it everywhere, because they simply are race-baiters. Some use the word to draw attention to themselves so they can feel like they are somehow more evolutionary advanced than the rest of us. Some use it whenever a white person disagrees with a person of color. I suspect it is misused more often than "retarded" and probably has more long-lasting effects on our culture. Here are a few recent examples of misuse of "racism" or "racist."

Rather than trying to stop the use of words, why don't we just call people out on it when they misuse them? These words serve a useful purpose in that regard. If someone misuses either r-word, we know so much more about what kind of person they are. That is a "tell" that is worth requiring some among us to grow a thicker skin.