Politically Correct

There is this snippet about Boy Scout Explorer training in New Mexico.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Yes, yes, God forbid we should offend foreign nationals; but don't let that take away from the full magnificence of the article.

IMPERIAL, Calif. — Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

So the Deputy who leads these kids is worried about being politically correct about simulating someone from the Middle East, but a disturbed veteran is okay. It's not even an issue. This is a training scenario that some guy came up with off the top of his head, and the first thing that occurs to him is a disturbed Iraq veteran; but the idea that someone thought up a scenario involving an Arab makes them wonder if maybe they're being insensitive?

The guy who thought up the "disturbed vet" scenario was a federal law enforcement agent, and he's teaching this to kids. We've already pitted our law enforcement professionals against veterans to the point that when you say, "Okay, come up with a training scenario where a guy has flat lost his mind and he's killing people," his first response is, "Got it. Disturbed Iraq veteran. Let's do this."

That wasn't the point of the article in the New York Times, it was background, but it's the part that leaped out at me like the DHS report demonizing veterans.

Then there's this. There is an unchallenged statement in this article by a gun control advocate who unequivocally states that veterans are more likely to kill people, when we've already seen in the past, when people have looked at the numbers, that it just isn't true. It's a myth, a meme, that some state as if it's actually knowledge. It's not. It's misinformation at best and disinformation at worst; a lie to support their stance. The more people that they can frighten, the better for their agenda.

In the meantime, the very people who have had enough love for their country and their fellow citizens to go and put up with the worst living conditions and the most dangerous situations that most of them are ever likely to face are sliding down that slippery slope into becoming the suspects of their society.