AFP Hosts Political Correctness Seminar in Rapid City

Stephanie Maier

Celebrating the recent  opening  of their Rapid City office, Americans for Prosperity South Dakota (AFP SD) hosted a dinner and a special presentation this evening in at the Ramkota in Rapid City.  The presentation was entitled “The Sordid History of Political Correctness” by the Grassroots Leadership Academy’s Stephanie Maier.

AFP South Dakota  Field  Director Chad Krier was on hand to welcome the 50 or so guests and let them know about the new office near Kohl’s in Rapid City, to complement the office they opened in Sioux Falls in 2014.

Maier began by defining political correctness and  the threat it poses to freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas.

The free enterprise explosion began in America in 1884 with industrialization and limited government. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic,  the Fabian Society was busy promoting socialism and big government in Europe.  They believed “happiness” was the standard of measurement for what’s right, rather than the rule of law or Natural Law. Even as evolution was gaining  traction as a viable idea around this time,  the socialists also saw “change over time” as the best avenue for their “progress.”

The Marxists and socialists soon realized that the masses weren’t embracing their “utopia” like they had hoped, so they decided to “rebrand” Marxism.  They integrated it with Freudian psychology for an emphasis not so much on economic revolution, but cultural  and social revolution.

One  of their key phases was to tear down Western values such as God, family and country.  Meanwhile, they wanted to replace them with divisive ideas that tore apart the cohesive values common to Western civilization. They believed their “slow change over time” approach would be most  effective  in bringing about this fundamental change,  because unlike revolution, it would  not  shock  the system and thus people would not realize what was happening until it was too late.

One of the Left’s key inroads was in the promotion of  victim-groups, e.g. minorities, women, etc. The sexual revolution of the 1960s wasn’t as spontaneous as many people think; rather, it was a carefully planned societal change movement.

A key figure from the 1960s who was behind this move was Saul Alinsky, and as we know from the headlines of the last seven years, Alinsky’s teachings are having a powerful effect decades later  today.

As the effort moved into the 1980s, we see figures like Frank Marshall Davis (Barack Obama’s mentor) working behind the scenes in the Chicago community organizer movement.

By the 1990s, political correctness (PC) has become accepted in American culture. Average citizens are starting to parrot Leftist ideas on their own without having to be fed them by the social architects of the Left. During these years, “going green,” “recycling”  and globalization are becoming viewed as not just good ideas but obligations by many people.  Individual rights are beginning to  be expected to take a backseat  to the collective; after all, the culture is starting to buy into the propaganda that we must abandon Western values to “save  the earth.”  Compliance is expected.

As the “tolerance” movement of the Left becomes fully visible, we see that liberal “tolerance” really means acceptance of Leftist ideas and complete intolerance for traditional Western values that are conservative. Those who continue being loyal to traditional American values are berated and criticized by the Left using the various bully pulpits they control (the “mainstream” media, cultural icons, political offices, etc.).

Who among us has not been made painfully and unpleasantly aware in the past year or so about the “trigger warnings, “free speech zones” and “safe zones” that are now accepted as the norm on America’s campuses?  America’s young adults in the education system are now being fully radicalized, and are eager to go on to fully radicalize American society.

The presentation closed with a clip from Bono who talked about the fact that America isn’t just a country, but an idea.  Unlike every other country in the world, America is an idea, and that idea has to do with the self-evident truths first articulated by our nation’s founders over  200 years ago.

That idea that is America is in danger of being replaced by a dark idea of repression that could pull the United States–and the rest of the world–down into the regressive ideas of the past where it was expected that the betters of a society would lord it over the masses.

Most of the people in attendance at tonight’s gathering are dedicated to preventing that from happening.

ADVERTISEMENT

This article is printed with the permission of the author(s). Opinions expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the article’s author(s), or of the person(s) or organization(s) quoted therein, and do not necessarily represent those of American Clarion or Dakota Voice LLC.

Comment Rules: Please confine comments to salient ones that add to the topic; Profanity is not allowed and will be deleted; Spam, copied statements and other material not comprised of the reader’s own opinion will be deleted.

Similar Posts:

• The West on Suicide Watch
• More Liberal Property Destruction, Disrespect for Law and Order
• The Plot to Destroy Amerigo Vespucci
• Pastors must take back civil rights movement
• Words Matter

Bob Ellis has been the owner of media company Dakota Voice, LLC since 2005. He is a 10-year U.S. Air Force veteran, a political reporter and commentator for the past decade, and has been involved in numerous election and public policy campaigns for over 20 years. He was a founding member and board member of the Tea Party groups Citizens for Liberty and the South Dakota Tea Party Alliance. He lives in Rapid City, South Dakota with his wife and two children.

Bob Ellis

View all articles by Bob Ellis