The sad future of the democratic party

[SteelCurtain]

It strikes me that you aren't even sure what 'PC' is. Your only method of showing that it is a problem is to say it's a problem. 

Actually, I know exactly what PC is and contrary to your assertion I’ve pointed it out. I’m just surprised that anyone would actually try to defend it!
Political Correctness is the censoring of ideas. Plain and simple. As Voltaire said:
“To find out who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize”
 
As to showing it’s a problem, someone on this board just accused those who disagree with him about PC as being racist homophobes. That bigoteering is exactly the problem.  Religion gets a free pass because of this. Try to argue that religions are not all equally bad in the same way at the same time… you’re a racist and there is no need to hear what a racist says. End of discussion!

No, not end of discussion. You are free to continue. So your answer at all times is that a person must stay and listen to you if they disagree. I don't agree that staying in your own personal echo chamber is a good thing, but if people don't want to hear your argument, they haven't censored you. They have introduced into your life what unpopular opinions have forever encountered: pushback. You don't get to say that anyone who says they don't want to hear you is censoring you.

No one on social media or any other media platform gets to say they are being censored if they receive a negative response to their opinions. Anyone can get on social media and say what they want so long as they aren't violating a private company's rules and user agreements. By the very same token, anyone else can have any response they want.

You seem to think this equation stops at the first clause.

The reality is that 'PC' is just the current name for something that has been happening forever. Every generation used to be able to say shit that they feel they should still be able to say without someone saying it's fucked up. We used to call it 'a different time.' As society evolves, there will always be things that are no longer socially acceptable, and there will always be people who think that's wrong. 

You’re right about PC being something that has always existed but you have missed what it actually is. It’s censorship. It has nothing to do with what is socially acceptable. It has everything to do with silencing those with a different opinion.
McCarthyism was conservative political correctness. Perhaps you think that liberals are pure and kind and that when they engage in censorship of ideas it’s for a “good” cause. But you would be wrong in thinking that. To me it sounds like hypocrisy. A whole generation of students is being denied the intellectual challenge of debating conflicting views because PC crowds refuse to allow “bad” speakers on campus. Even Obama stated that PC culture on campus leads to coddled students. And he’s such a conservative.

It seems to me that because conservatives are mostly the ones pointing out the problem (with notable liberal exceptions) there is a knee jerk reaction by those who lean left. To pretend that PC is just good manners instead of what it really is, censorship.  I don’t have that problem so I’m going to oppose censorship no matter whose side is engaging in it.

The problem, again, is that you have expanded the definition of the word censorship. You don't get to claim censorship if someone is merely telling you your ideas or beliefs are shitty. If you have an idea that is hurtful to some people, what you want is to 'censor' (using it the way you are) the reaction to these words.

If I say something on Twitter and it goes viral, I, knowing how Twitter works, have to prepare for that. Making stupid jokes about AIDS or rape, even if meant as a joke, reflect on me and my job and my family. I go into posting on Twitter with that knowledge. It is the reality of market forces and the world we live in. I have no one to blame if I make an innocuous post that takes off. Knowing this, I conduct myself within the theater of Twitter with that in mind. We have just entered this world of social media, and people who are responsible grown ups should be aware that every tweet or status update that they push out into the world can be read and responded to by anyone. If you are prepared to have that happen, then go forth. If you think that you should somehow be protected from certain responses to your posts/tweets/photos, then might be in for a rude awakening at some point.

Along with redefining the term censorship, you seem to have ignored the point that reacting and mob mentalities are part of human nature, not "PC Culture". It is no surprise that viral reactions happen. In the same way that a room of fully functioning, ostensibly intelligent people can be cajoled into a mad frenzy of shouting "lock her up" with bloodlust in their eyes at the RNC, a crowd of people on the internet do the same thing. It isn't new, it isn't indicative of "PC Culture." It just is. And the only new part is how it manifests itself in the age of the internet. Apart from hoping for some genius social engineering experiment undoing the portion of our brains that makes us susceptible to that, you are tilting at windmills.