'Fear of prejudice' let gay carers abuse boys

Link: 'Fear of prejudice' let gay carers abuse boys - Telegraph.

Those of us who complain about it have misunderstood the significance of political correctness. It is not a fad, but a fundamental change in our society. Social conventions have always been much more important than laws in controlling behaviours. Many a man would break the law with pride, but not willingly do anything that would make his peers laugh at or look down on him. He cares more about his social circle than he does about "society" in the abstract.

Before their political and economic projects failed, by means of their iron grip on our educational institutions, the Left in Britain managed to socialise two or three generations to defer to certain allegedly oppressed groups. Just as our ancestors would have instinctively have tugged their forelocks at the aristocrats of old, so now do we at these new ones.

I do not give a damn what people do to each other sexually, provided that it is consensual. I am libertarian enough to defend the right of weird Germans to eat each other (and consent to be eaten) for sexual gratification. I simply don't care and I don't think I have ever cared. I even feel sorry for paedophiles, who have no more control over their sexual preferences than other sexual minorities, but who cannot be tolerated because their desires - by definition- can never be acted on consensually. I think that VR and computer graphics may help them find a way to act out without harming children and condemn the attempts of others to deny them that outlet.

But in accepting others, I demand acceptance in return. I ask no favours; none must be asked of me.

Today's linked story in the Telegraph highlights the same issue that I blogged about here. My story dates back 25 years.  This has not happened overnight and it will not be solved in a hurry. Terrible social damage has been done and resentments engengered even where none existed before. The members of the new aristocracies are - in effect- above criticism. Even the most hopeless cretins have been indoctrinated. It is dangerous to cross the new aristos. One word from one of them and you are a social outcast.

I suspect many decent citizens now avoid members of minority groups for fear of being falsely denounced if they fall out with them. The rest of us, if we are honest, choose our words more carefully around them. Such is the power this gives the new aristocrats that there is a stampede to acquire such status. This is encouraged by politicians who - having alienated their former mass memberships by political triangulation- must now build political support minority by minority, sectional interest by sectional interest. Every man and his dog now wants to be part  of an "oppressed" minority, even if only for part of their lives.

Perhaps that is the way forward? If we can all become members of a favoured minority, our privileges will cancel each other out. Political and social equality will finally have been achieved. Sadly, it is not that easy. Based on experience to date, we are more likely to end up with a game of trumps in which one "oppressed minority" outranks another; rather - to continue my analogy- as a Duke outranked a mere Earl. In any event, what are the prospects of success for a society in which being an officially-recognised victim is the best way to win?

You do not right the wrongs of ages with countervailing wrongs. If you object to a wrong; do right. It is time that these communities rejected their privileges and insisted on no more than equal treatment. And it is time that we showed the courage to stand up to would-be "aristocrats" who refuse to do so.