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John Cleese Warns Campus Political Correctness Leading Towards 1984 (washingtonexaminer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ashe Schow writes at the Washington Examiner that, "The Monty Python co-founder, in a video for Internet forum Big Think, railed against the current wave of hypersensitivity on college campuses, saying he has been warned against performing on campuses. "[Psychiatrist Robin Skynner] said: 'If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior,'" Cleese said. "And when you're around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next." Cleese said that it's one thing to be "mean" to "people who are not able to look after themselves very well," but it was another to take it to "the point where any kind of criticism of any individual or group could be labeled cruel." Cleese added that "comedy is critical," and if society starts telling people "we mustn't criticize or offend them," then humor goes out the window. "With humor goes a sense of proportion," Cleese said. "And then, as far as I'm concerned, you're living in 1984." Cleese is just the latest comedian to lecture college students about being so sensitive.
It is not the PC crowd being pissed off about something you say or do that worries me. It is their ability to influence an organization or person who has direct control over whether or not you stay employed at a certain company or otherwise fuck with your life or livelihood. That is what pisses me off.
If someone got a person fired for something said that otherwise wouldn't bother anyone, that person had better start looking over their shoulder for retribution (preferably physical retribution such as teeth knocked out by a hard right hook).
There's truly no tough guy like an Internet Tough Guy.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it