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Friday, July 25, 2008

Chuck Norris on the 'N' word

I never thought I'd use the word "profound" and Chuck Norris in the same sentence, but you have to read a column by the Hollywood tough-guy posted at Human Events.com

It's about the use of the "N" word and the recent debate after Jesse Jackson shot off his mouth about Barack Obama, which lead to the intellectual giants on "The View" to chime in.

Norris makes some excellent points about the deterioration of civility in modern American society.

Norris writes:
This is more than a race issue and far more than a debate over freedom of speech. When will we learn that just because we can say something doesn't mean that we should? Once again, we're confusing liberty for licentiousness. It is a classic example of what happens when a society leaves its moral absolutes: Everything becomes culturally relative, with each deciding what's right in his own eyes. Language is one more infected arena in America's societal degradation.

Think about it. What word is nasty or unwholesome anymore? There are no "bad words." Words once considered evil are now terms of endearment. There's the B-word, the D-word, the A-word, the F-word, etc. Even bleeps are mere blips on America's moral radar screens. When ministers use G-- d--- in their sermons and moral activists threaten to cut off a presidential candidate's genitals and call him the N-word, can't we see the signs that we're heading in the wrong direction? We have become desensitized to everything, from profanity to pornography.

Today's America is certainly not the one in which I grew up during the '40s and '50s. Profanity of any sort was wrong back then and frowned upon by most in private or public use. Today profanity has become a positive form of expression, with studies even showing that it releases stress and boosts morale at the workplace!

I genuinely believe we can do better. I believe we must do better. We need to leave a better legacy of decency, civility and respect for future generations. I believe we need to give them our best, and our best must be more than justifying the use of derogatory language based upon cultural or racial relativity or even freedom of speech. If we're going to reverse negative trends among our youth, it's going to begin with us establishing a better model for them of how we treat and speak about others.
Read the full column, "What the Bleep?!" at Human Events.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic article--thanks for posting. I didn't realize Chuck was writing a weekly column--will have to read others.