A Breath of Hope

A great article in American Cowboy called “Wolves at the Door” (December/January 2010) delivered a breath of hope for the fate of the North American gray wolf. The article provides a sampling of confrontations between the “family ranch culture” and environmental groups. Unfortunately, efforts to reintroduce the Mexican gray wolf in southwestern New Mexico and western Arizona has reached an impasse between The Center for Biological Diversity (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/) and Americans for preservation of Western Environment (http://www.amprowest.org/news.htm). These two groups could learn something about cooperation by reading Lauren M. Whaley’s article.

History and Political Correctness

Political correctness has no place in the process of recording history. If one assumes that the purpose of studying of history is to learn from the past then the premise that we can learn from and gain wisdom from the actions and events that occurred in the past hinges on the fact that the information is recorded correctly and is the truth.

If we concern ourselves with Political Correctness then it is necessary to modify words and take emphasis away form certain true events which may be offensive to certain groups of people.

Simply stated, we can not learn from history unless it is true. It is a total waste of time to teach lies or modified truths. The only purpose served by teaching distorted truths is to indoctrinate our youth and consequently mold generations into pawns of a predetermined agenda or ideology. Political Correctness is nothing more than Marxism translated from economic to cultural terms and teaches, among other fallacies, that all people are entitled to respect without having to earn it.

It would do each history student well to read some text books or other accounts of the past that were published before the 1960’s. Those books were written when Americans enjoyed freedom of speech and before terms like gay rights, sexist, homophobic or racist began to be used to describe anyone who dared not subscribe to rewritten history or use the language of the times.

I recently had a conversation with a gentleman from Australia. I listened to his opinions and comments on several current events. There were a few other Americans that overheard what was said and were shocked at some of the things he said. I, on the other hand, was saddened by the possibility that as long as I live in the United States, I’ll may never enjoy freedom of speech again.