Everyone is Offended

Easy Rider sent me the following thesis. I thought it deserved a wider audience, so with Easy Rider's permission, I bring the readers of Steakmatters:

A Unified Solution to Intolerance and Economic Recession in America: A Vision Statement

While watching the news today, I saw a story about the sluggish economic recovery segue into another story about the President’s Chief of Staff referring to members of his own party who failed to fall in line on healthcare reform as “fucking retards.” When this quote became public it engendered immediate outrage from parents of the mentally challenged, prompting Mr. Emanuel to call the president of the Special Olympics to ask forgiveness. Fortunately for Rham this forgiveness was granted, and all was again right with the world.
Fortunately for Mr. Emanuel there was a generally-accepted representative of the offended party to whom he could direct his apology. However, I couldn’t help but wonder, what if he had offended an even more underrepresented group? What if he had said that his fellow democrats were, “carrying on like a bunch of Gypsies?” Would he even know who to whom he should direct his apology? African-Americans have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, but is there anyone to whom general consensus has delegated the authority to accept apologies on behalf of the Gypsies? And, if not, how many other minority groups may be unequipped to formally accept an apology should the need arise? And what of the offender? How could his reputation ever be cleared with no confessor to issue appropriate absolution? To be honest, I find it amazing that this problem hasn’t arisen more frequently in modern America.
The pairing of these two stories – one regarding our Nation’s ongoing, economic woes and the other all but mandating a better system for offended minority groups to issue apologies – prompted an epiphany of sorts; a single solution to both problems that could drive America out of recession and to new heights of political correctness in one fell swoop. I therefore propose the creation of a council of minority group representatives tasked with entertaining apologies and, if appropriate, issuing forgiveness. It can be called something like, the American Minority Council for Apologies and Tolerance. AMCAT for short, because everyone knows an organization lacks legitimacy without an appropriate acronym.
Obviously this would be a quantum leap for political correctness, but how would it help the economy? Simple – imagine the financial expenditures and, subsequently, the job creation that would come from construction of this council. A careful plan must be followed to ensure that the council is constructed appropriately, a process that I will now review. Additionally, at each step, I will highlight the contribution to economic recovery.
First, there must be a logical design to the Council. The Council will be made of one representative for each minority group in America that may, at some point, be offended. Imagine the potential number of representatives. For starters, there are 187 countries in the world, each of which needs at least one representative. Some will need more, because certainly the same person cannot accept apologies on behalf of French- and non-French Canadians, or for both the Flemish and the Dutch. Allowing for an average of 2 representatives per country, the baseline number of representatives approaches 400. Then we must consider all of the religious groups, social groups, gender-based groups, geographic clusters and others that will require representation. The organization must also include representatives of certain medical issues, although this will need to be carefully considered and some aggregation will have to occur. For instance, while diabetics and the mentally challenged will each likely need an individual representative, it seems reasonable to aggregate those with genetic conditions, such as Pompe’s disease and Maple Syrup Urine Disease under one, “rare genetic diseases” representative. But how to decide? This is where the economic benefit enters. A council of sociologists, psychologists, and various other academics must be convened into a consensus committee to make such a decision. As there are likely to be a large number of un- or under-employed academics appropriate for this job, the committee represents instant job creation for this sector. Once their task is completed, AMCAT can begin to take form.
Having agreed upon the makeup of the Council, each minority group will need to decide on a representative. This will require untold logistical efforts, including identifying all members of these groups, forming organizations designed to promote the individual candidates to the minority group members, holding federally-mediated elections for each of the Council seats, etc. This effort alone may take several years, and just imagine the number of jobs in bureaucracy that will need to be created. These are not just “jobs” but “good, government jobs.” – the kind that every American wants. Again, economic stimulus.
With thousands of potentially offensive comments being uttered every day, one representative for each group may not be enough to process all of the requests for absolution for frequently-offended groups, such as African Americans and the Jewish people. For this reason each representative will need a staff. This, too, requires some thought, as the size of each staff will need to vary depending multiple factors. The overall size of the minority group is one consideration, but other factors must enter the equation. For instance, Mexicans represent a smaller percentage of the American population that women, but one could speculate that they are disproportionately offended and may therefore require more logistical support. Such factors will need to be investigated by fact-finding missions and then analyzed by mathematicians who will ultimately come up with an equation that will need to be approved by the Council before staff sizes can be allocated. Once again, just imagine the jobs that this process will create!
Once the personnel are in place, a physical venue must be constructed for the Council to conduct its business. The magnitude of this project will necessarily be impressive, possibly rivaling that of the Big Dig in its ability to create jobs for union contractors and employees. The meeting hall alone will need to house more than 1000 Council members, and the overall structure will need to supply office space for each of their staff. If each delegation gets, on average, only ¼ of a floor, the structure will still need to be 250 stories high, making it the largest building in the world. Stimulus construction dollars, anyone?
Each delegation will function on its own, but a central, logistical core will also need to be created to handle things like facilities, mail, plant operations, etc for the Committee building. This, too, creates jobs – mostly jobs in mid-level administration, to which Americans are particularly attracted and, arguably, better than anyone in the world. And as all of these people and resources converge, the real estate market and service sectors in the adjacent communities will also prosper. Again, more jobs and more economic stimulation.
Finally, we must decide on a locale for this structure. The obvious choice is Washington, DC, as nowhere in America is more political or more politically-correct. This also seems appropriate as taxpayer dollars will, naturally, be funding the entire project. How could anyone suggest otherwise, for such an important and politically-correct endeavor? And with most of the $787B stimulus remaining unspent, we have a good start. This is not likely to fund the entire project, but with Congress just down the street additional funding can be appropriated as necessary. Fortunately, there are 230 million Americans, some of whom are “rich” and represent an underutilized taxation base, who will gladly keep funding the mandate. It is impossible to imagine otherwise, as nobody could even consider speaking out against funding being allocated to build the Council on tolerance.

Having decided on Washington, DC, the final question is the precise location for the structure. I propose that it be placed in the exact middle of the famous cluster of national monuments. Where better than amid the physical testaments to all that has made America great – to Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, the founders of our society; and to the veterans of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam who fought and died so that America can be what it is today. Of course, this sheer size of this council chamber means that it will overshadow these structures (as it will, in fact, overshadow all structures, governmental or otherwise in our Nation’s capitol). This, too, is only fitting, as this new monument to political correctness and government-driven economics stands as a shining example of what a nation, once grounded in such humble roots, can ultimately become. God Bless America!


-Spin Doctor on the go