Prager: 'Put Left-Wing Speech in the Crosshairs'

Remember when America used to be the land of the free?

Dennis Prager writes:

The most common left-wing objection to the Right is that it wants to control others’ lives. But in America and elsewhere, the threat to personal liberty has emanated far more often from the left.

Through the use of public opprobrium, laws, and lawsuits, Americans today are less free than at any time since the abolition of slavery (with the obvious exception of blacks under Jim Crow).

Public opprobrium is known as political correctness and it has suppressed saying anything — no matter how true and no matter how innocent — that offends left-wing sensibilities.

...The list of forbidden words and behaviors due to leftist activism is quite extensive.

The latest example is the Left’s war on any words or images that come from the worlds of war or of guns.

Already, “crusade” has been removed from Americans’ vocabulary — lest it offend Muslims. Overnight, the Left effectively banned the use of a perfectly legitimate word that usually described an admirable preoccupation with doing good: “that newspaper is on an anti-corruption crusade.”

Now, the Left has announced that words such as “target” and “crosshairs” are offensive — on the idiotic pretense that such imagery causes people to murder. If I were the CEO of Target stores, I would be concerned. Will my company be sued because of its name and logo?

Will the word “war” be next? Perhaps “war on poverty” caused murder. And how about “war on cancer” — only God knows how much killing that caused. Perhaps we should now say “project to eliminate cancer.” But, then again, doesn’t “eliminate” have genocidal overtones?

It was understandable but mistaken for Sarah Palin to take down her map of congressional districts in crosshairs. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that map. Only the totalitarian Left argues that it caused the murders in Tucson or anywhere else.

So what’s the answer?

If you love liberty, you must target the Left and put its totalitarian tendencies in your crosshairs. We must shoot down political correctness and wage a crusade for truth and liberty. All those ladies and gentlemen who cherish personal and societal freedom must fight like great Indian chiefs, braving secondhand smoke if need be, in affirming a masculinity that has been under relentless attack. And yes, we must even endure the taunts of our foes and, at the appropriate time of the year, wish fellow Americans a “Merry Christmas.”

Then, and only then, will we be able to vanquish lies, defeat the foes of liberty, and once again proudly sing a national anthem that affirms that “the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

Great column.