That's life. One day absent from the forum and you lose all the fun.
And considering my title, which admittedly is ironic, I suppose I am honour bond to post a comment.
Everything I wanted to say about the OP is already put rather well by messieurs Gelion, Gothmog, Taliesin, Rambuchan, Carniflex and a few others. I see no need to elaborate on that.
However.
Since this obviously means that we are free to characterize forum members, even ascribe to them collective and not entirely flattering traits, I will be all to happy to give my rough impression of the people who typically will be combating the loathsome PC crowd.
My name for those are - The Bubble Boys.
As is evident from the name, we are dealing with a group of males, preferably but not necessary young ones, who lives in what can be described as a bubble. With this is meant that they reside in a form of almost impregnable shelter. What they are sheltering from will be mentioned below. I must also add to mention that there might be a few female candidates for this community, but there is a fact that this forum has a compact majority of boys and men.
What are so the Bubble Boys then? They are diverse, but they have something in common. First of all, they have the concept of the harmonious society, the next-to-perfect society in which they live. A few catch phrases is usually in work here, like the "liberal democracy", "freedom", "the marketplace of ideas" and so on. Especially two freedoms are important; the freedom to uphold hierarchical structures, and the fundamentalist approach to free speech within the Bubble regardless of the consequences. For those outside, slightly other rules apply, see below.
Another typical feature is the concept of the "West" and the "Western values". Any true Bubble Boy will upheld the opinion that "the West" is superior in practically every aspect, that "the West" does nothing wrong, and that everybody else just should become like "the West" and so every ill would be cured. Because of this, a typical worldwiev of any Bubble Boy will be The Clash of Civilizations and a contempt for people who think that dialogues can be possible.
And here is where the bubble comes in. The bubble is the protection from what can be described as the Forces of Chaos, those made up by the fearful and ruthless PC'ers.
Basically they consist of everybody or anything which conflicts with the values in the Bubble, to countless to mention them all. But typically they will in one way or another challenge status quo.
What especially is worth mentioning here, is another Bubble Boy catch phrase; bias. Bias used to be one of the 7 wise in Ancient Greece, but it is also a word any true Bubble Boy will use when confronted with information from any media outlet from the Forces of Chaos. In the true Bubble Boy's mind, if it is disapproved by the Establishment, it holds no real value.
Now, as I mentioned, the Bubble Boys are not an uniform group, even if they share some important tenets. I can't describe them all, but I have to mention what I would describe as the Usual Suspects.
The Usual Suspects are the hard core, one might say the shocktroops of the Bubble. In their arsenal there is a vast collection of other derogatory terms like stupid, idiot, moron, communist, Bolshevik and so on, a confrontational attitude towards any component of the Forces of Chaos, a solid back-up of corporate media material, and for most of them if not all, an admiration for the US administration which often goes over to cheerleading. They are also, as befits such a very persistent, not missing a thread, not an opportunity to hammer their message, to boldly defend the Bubble with any means available.
My reason for calling them the Usual Suspects, is that contrary to the Spanish Inquisition, everybody expects them...
I suppose or at least hope that a few can recognize certain posters in this description.
Now for some personal thoughts.
I don't know if it is an age thing, I might be too old for this forum, or that I have been especially lucky with debate forums on-line as well as in real life, but I must confess that recent development here has made me think that perhaps it is time for me to move on. The jury is still out regarding this.
And related to this, the silence. In my experience many a Bubble Boy has just quit discussions, even in this very thread that is the case, and I have no problems with that. It so happens that there is a world outside, and that most of us if not all, has obligations that are more important. Of course, it is always nice when somebody announces their withdrawal, but is a small matter anyway.
But there could also be other reasons to discontinue a debate, and the most important is: no common ground. Debating for the sake of debating can be fun the first year you study philosophy, but in general you tire of it after a while.
And just as a final comment; while tolerance can be repressive, I think it has a lot going for it anyway.
See, luceafarul, there you go being all politically correct again, pretending there's some kind of "other side" to the "story". :shakehead Honestly, why in the world should we trust a news source that doesn't have car ads in it?
)
Everybody knows what a Bubbly Boy is now, right? I guess then we can say that a PC person is the opposite, or mirror image of a Bubble Boy. Betazed, I think youre right
