Fred Thompson Also Cites Orwell

George Orwell is getting a work out today. Fred Thompson also cites Orwell while dicussing the watering down and rewriting of history in Great Britain. Of course, one could say that we are not British, but the point Thompson is making nonetheless holds true in the United States, we cannot ignore historical fact in order to avoid offending people.

The British are, in the main, a particularly polite people, but there is a point when the desire not to offend the easily offended becomes an even bigger problem. We’ve already seen an English organization ban images of Piglet, the harmless character from the classic Winnie the Pooh books, because of protests by those who imagine that simply seeing a cartoon pig is a violation of their civil rights. We’ve even seen the banning of pins bearing St. George’s cross, because it reminds some of the Crusades — accompanied by demands that Great Britain get rid of the venerable Union Jack for the same reason.

These views, common in the Middle East, are not just an academic or intellectual challenge. We have seen homegrown British terrorists act on the same lies and conspiracy theories that are now being used to silence teachers. Ideas do have consequences and we all need to understand that the war on terror is taking place as much in the realm of ideas as it is on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

America is a free country and we do not tell people what they can believe or say. We should realize, however, that there are people in America who are also telling their children that the Holocaust is a lie and that those who say otherwise are their enemies. We cannot prevent them from doing so, but we also cannot let them promote their agenda by claiming they are victimized by historical facts.

This would be a good place to quote an important British writer, George Orwell, who wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Even in America, our children are often taught a watered down, inoffensive, and culturally sensitive version of events ranging from the Crusades to the battle at the Alamo.

It’s time for people who believe that they have a stake in Western civilization and its traditions to get a little backbone — even if it offends somebody.

We Americans seem to be on a path that whatever we say, we have to make sure that we don't offend people. So we use terms that are politically correct rather than accurate. There is of course a need to be civil in civil society, but that is not a license to speak in falsehoods and euphemisms. Nor is it a license to ignore history and the present.