OPINION: Today Paris, tomorrow the world, extreme political correctness is lethal
Despite the obvious nature of last week’s terror attacks in Paris, it took quite some time before the media even felt comfortable calling the attackers terrorists. And if things keep going in the direction they’ve been heading, the term will likely disappear from U.S. reporting as well. The word terrorist will be politically incorrect. To the extreme. We’ll call domestic attackers Disgruntled Americans. Or perhaps just Vexed.
Can extreme political correctness reach that level of absurdity? A better question might be, hasn’t that happened already?
People are frightened now. That’s a healthy reaction to violence and malevolence and murder. People want to know that we are doing everything we can to stem the tide of global terrorism, which is not only a problem in the Middle East, not only a problem in Europe, but has already been brought to our shores in incidents that were isolated but equally deadly. While September 11 may seem like ancient history to some, the specter of the catastrophic bombing of the Boston Marathon is still recent enough to remind us that those who would kill us are more than prepared to do so. We need not look to recent events in Paris to understand that this threat is an epidemic of global—and national—consequence.