PC Kills

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minster of the U. K., he is legally blind from an accident I believe. He has come a long way. Recently he misspelled a young soldier's name who sadly died in the line of duty for the country while writing a letter to the young man's mother.

My God, Gordon. I feel your pain. I know you would give your right arm to fix that. I hope it does not cost you much.

I didn't know Gordon Brown was blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other until a couple months ago. I'm sure the press thinks of it as a no-go area until something like this happens. Now, this issue has caused a problem. The problem may not have been an issue at all if Gordon Brown had 20/20 vision.

So, where must the line be drawn? Will lack of physical vision by the leader of the U. K. cause death or injury to people that would not have happened if he had 20/20 vision? Surely, no one would want a mentally disabled person running a country. So there are physical limitations that matter to the abilities of leadership.

I bet Gordon Brown has missed body language and facial expressions of people. He may not be able to catch a wink, smarmy smirk, or a downright go to hell glare from someone where that sort of thing matters.

I'm legally blind. I know these things matter and I know I miss them. It sounds like I have better vision than Gordon Brown to be honest. It doesn't matter. We are worse off than the totally blind when it comes to expectations. We try and try to make it all work, but we fail because we just cannot keep up with blind people, or the sighted. No one will higher me or Gordon Brown as a taxi driver, and for good reason. When we are dropped in to a situation where simple visual queues tell a sighted person what to do, we fail indiscriminately because some times we can see it and some times we cannot. A totally blind person would never be expected to catch the queue.

The guy who shot all those people in Fort Hood recently was a Muslim. He spoke of cutting people's heads off and puring oil down people's necks if they did things that did not agree with his version of Islam. He proselytized to his patients. People asked if he was going to be one of those people who would go on a shooting spree. He was assigned to Fort Hood because some of his superiors wanted to get rid of him because he was trouble.

No one felt like they could fire him. No one felt like they could cull him out away from every one else because he was dangerous. This would be seen by outsiders as singling out a Muslim. This idea of singling people out has received a bad name. Taking people on a case by case basis makes it easier to be prejudice based on someone's opinion. However, telling every one they are the same is just plane not right. Everyone is not the same. No one should get a pass to make violent threats regardless of their religion or any other attribute.

Political Correctness is getting people killed. It needs to stop. It has been a great couple of decades of every one feeling like they belong and feeling like they are empowered and capable, but now that we agree that PC kills, we need to stop it.