We live in an era where political correctness is the newest addition to America’s subconscious laws. In recent years, there has been much controversy over what people say and do regarding certain topics, and it has been growing immensely over the last year or so. People have become more sensitive to others’ opinions, and our society has gone from a bunch of ‘rough and tough’ Americans to over reactive cry babies.

Political correctness is currently ruining our society. Almost every major problem in the United States is directly linked to political correctness, whether you believe it or not. Our society has become very stubborn and ignorant, and many people are more close-minded today than, say, 15 years ago. Take for example the recent issues that were brought up by Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock. Seinfeld said in an interview with ESPN radio that he refuses to perform on college campuses because college kids nowadays are “so PC,” and “just want to use these phrases: ’That’s racist;’ ‘That’s sexist;’ ‘That’s prejudiced.’ They don’t know what…they’re talking about.” Our generation today uses these terms way too loosely, and what most people would think was harmless to say 20 to 30 years ago isn’t today. According to Seinfeld, kids today are ruining comedy, and I couldn’t agree more with him. What some people understand as a joke, others believe is targeting a specific race, gender, etc. and take much offense at the joke. This is ridiculous, since comedy is meant for people to laugh, not get mad at a person for saying a harmless joke.

An extreme use of political correctness happened in a California school in 2010. Five Live Oak High School students wore American Flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo, and got sent home for not taking off the shirts, since it was apparently “offensive” to Mexican students celebrating the holiday at school. Are you serious? We’re not even letting kids wear our own country’s flag because we believe it will offend Mexican people? It’s sad how Americans are getting progressively worse and worse at identifying things that are offensive and non-offensive, thereby making it harder to try not to offend people.

Political correctness has also been highly enforced in schools recently. You can’t talk about God in any way because it might offend people that don’t believe in God. Nowadays, teachers have to be extra careful in how they talk to students because anything they say or do can be held over their heads and they could potentially lose their job over it. It’s very sad that as a society, we can’t actually do the right thing since it will offend people, and have to find alternatives, which aren’t as effective. Kids are becoming very soft because of this, and are getting away with far too many inexcusable actions because we can’t enforce anything.

It’s also almost impossible now to express your opinion without being called a racist, homophobe, sexist, or anything in-between. For example, if you so much as use the word “ghetto” or “thug,” you are immediately called a racist. Many Americans can’t even express their opinions on the whole ISIS situation, or illegal immigrants crossing the border due to fear of being called names. It’s gotten so bad that people have gotten fired for expressing their opinions either in person or on social media. Recently, Curt Schilling, former MLB pitcher and ESPN analyst got fired for writing on a post on Facebook referring to the current national debate over transgender bathroom use that said, “A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic.” He received so many comments on this and was repeatedly referred to as transphobic. Whether you agree with his comments or not, it is completely absurd that he got fired from his job just for stating his opinion. I understand that since he works for a very public and well-known network, they don’t want any bad publicity, but as a society, we should be able to express our opinions and feelings towards topics without the fear of others lashing out and risking putting our jobs in jeopardy. I’m obviously not saying “Hey, go be blatantly racist, sexist, etc.,” but we should be able to exercise our freedom of speech to some extent without having to watch every little thing we say. Sadly, I guess this is what America is coming to: more worried about political correctness than people’s opinions.

What’s happening today can be compared to George Orwell’s 1984. Our idea of political correctness can be related to Newspeak, which were the legal words that they were allowed to say, which were dictated by the government. This didn’t go over well with non-conformists in their society, who ended up conforming due to the force of the government. We can also take the UK for example, who is about 10 years ahead of us in the political correctness sense, according to Nick Adams, author of Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness. The UK, and every other failed Western society, failed due to trying to be politically correct, which made their society intellectually tyrant.

We don’t need that as Americans. It would kill the ‘American Dream’ and we’d be the last failed society in the world. Immigrants look to us as an escape for freedom, and we need to stray away from political correctness and be the tough Americans we used to be instead of the crybabies we are becoming if we still want our society to prosper and strive under the concept of freedom. We still obviously have to take others’ feelings into consideration, no matter if we’re in a political correct society or not, but let’s go back to 15-20 years ago where we could voice our views without people getting offended so easily. We millennials can make a difference, and we should start now. Let’s maintain the slogan ‘land of the free and home of the brave.’