If Only We Could Somehow Get Everyone To Wear Old Navy Chinos and Polo Shirts, Our Problems Would Be Over!

Via John Cole, some unintentional comedy from Tom Maguire as he wonders why liberals just can’t see the profoundly important political message behind racist fulminations about people’s deeply disturbing choices of music and dress:

As an example of the PC police in action we need look no further than my previous post. “Old Punk” of the InstaPunk crowd posted his thoughts on why specific behaviors of a specific subset of the black community annoys him. Frankly, there is very little in his post I would be inclined to defend, but I would be very curious to learn how widely held his viewpoints might be. As an example, I would guess his aversion to the hip-hop gangsta sub-culture is widely shared.

Well. Rather than trying to look for the message in his message, the Usual Suspects, led by Glenn Greenwald, seized on the offensive sections as an opportunity to brand Glenn Reynolds and the entire conservative movement as racists.

Well, on some level I concede the point; this is a big country which contains its share of morons, busybody conformists, etc. So I’m sure there’s some quantity of people who get intensely angry because not everyone wears the same clothes and listens to the same music as middle-aged suburban white men. What “message” here is worth engaging with, however, I can’t tell you, and when such crankiness manifests itself in crude stereotypes and racial slurs it’s just straightforward ugly racism. There’s no deeper meaning there.

I also enjoyed Maguire’s whining about the “PC police,” which provides yet another illustration of the fact that complaining about “PC” has come to mean (if it ever meant anything else) nothing more than “bigotry that is indefensible on the merits shouldn’t be subject to any critical scrutiny.” Yes, only the “PC police” could possibly object to calling people black people “niggers” because they get more tattoos than you consider appropriate! An intelligent conservative, on the other hand, would get beyond such trivia and focus on the Profound Political Implications of people who wear low-hanging pants.

…Athenae has similar thoughts.