“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running around with lit matches.” — Ray Bradbury
(It’s amazing that Ray Bradbury was able to foretell the coming of “political correctness” and “cancel culture”! I’d like to see a return to common sense, and thicker skins. But . . . I won’t hold my breath. Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
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Happy birthday to Kim Deal of The Breeders, and formerly the Pixies! (Today you get a two-fer!)
Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
Unc says, “I’d like to see a return to common sense…”
Exactly when was that ? We’ve had Joseph McCarthy, Donald Trump, Huey Long, Adolph Hitler, too many personalities in Congress to list…
Gee… I don’t see that list getting any shorter !
Apples and oranges, lwc. Demagoguery and common sense are completely different issues, my friend. And, three of the fascist jerks that you cited were – thankfully – before my time, but are well known to me.
My complaint with “political correctness” and “cancel culture” is that they are detrimental to productive dialogue. When one party starts dictating which words cannot be used, because now someone – who has appointed themselves THE authority – has deemed them “offensive”, they both insult the English language, and they put the other party in a perpetual defensive/resentful position. The Trump supporters have more than demonstrated my point. There are plenty who don’t/didn’t meet the classic definition of “racist”, but because of today’s “cancel culture” feel stigmatized as such . . . and they resent that. And, they’re not the only ones. Even though Trump – and his ilk – may complain about “cancel culture”, they secretly LOVE it, because it reinforces the reactionary mindset of his supporters.
You ask when was there common sense. Well, in my opinion, things were generally progressing from the latter 1960s through the 1990s. After 9/11 we became a country consumed by the myth of “security”, and policies of “zero tolerance” for far too many things. Those things, I believe, were the catalysts for today’s ever increasing intolerance and polarization.
— YUR