I’m Australian by birth, Texan by appointment (thanks, Gov. Perry) and American by heart.
I came to America for the American Dream—and to escape political correctness.
But the two are not mutually exclusive.
They’re one and the same.
While political correctness has gripped America’s universities, schools, media, and large corporations, it has not yet reached most everyday Americans. This is why the American Dream remains alive—and why the United States is still the world’s leading destination for immigrants.
One of the central themes of my new book released this week, "Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness," is that political correctness weakens the health and threatens the existence of the American Dream.
This is not simply because you can find yourself in hot water over something you may say, but because of the broader consequences it has on the cultural mindset.
Politically-correct ideology requires that success is resented. Ambition becomes suspicious. Mediocrity is preferred to excellence. The collective is elevated over the individual.
Just about every problem in America today is linked to political correctness. Declining educational standards, increasing secularism, the police not being allowed to do their job, an inability to secure her borders, a diminished America in the world theatre and reluctance to smash the evil of currently rampaging Islamism – all of it is rooted in politically-correct ideology. Nothing is more antithetical to America’s foundational principles.
Unfortunately, even in countries similar to America where a version of the dream was once offered, it no longer exists. It is hidden by the symbols of political correctness: big government, gatekeepers, envy, an aversion to risk, and collectivism. When the focus is on the collective, individual dreams can never fully materialize.
America is much more than a country. It’s an ideal, a value system. Put simply, it’s the best idea the world has ever had. That’s why American greatness and leadership is indispensable to civilization, as we know it. It’s why I have dedicated my life to ensuring America remains the different place it has always been. It’s why I have sought to restore American confidence.
I want to protect Americans from political correctness—an ideology that is already taking them down the same failed path of every other Western country.
The world’s fortunes travel with America – we need America to be as healthy as possible. Right now, due to President Obama not keeping the world safe, even Australians, in a country thousands of miles away from America, aren’t sleeping well.
I fervently want Americans to understand that America is still the exception, and because it is, it remains the only hope to crushing political correctness.
I have a unique perspective from which to view America. Sometimes it takes someone on the outside to warn you what is coming.
I’ll be blunt: I believe America is about ten years behind the U.K. in the political correctness stakes. That’s scary. That’s why we have urgent work to do.
Any historian worth their salt will tell you that most great nations last between 200-250 years. That puts America right in the “kill zone”. If it is to make it to her tri-centennial in 2076, it must eliminate the intellectual tyranny and cultural cringe that political correctness insists on, as well as the moral and intellectual Lilliputians who bully relentlessly.
America has been, and remains, the refuge for brilliant, creative, ambitious, and independent thinkers of other lands. Their dreams can only be accommodated in the land of the free and the home of the brave. America provides the most friendly, open, nurturing, free and optimistic environment for any individual to achieve their dream. This must be protected at all cost.
American exceptionalism stretched across the world and saved my life at sixteen months old on Christmas Eve 1985, with an American doctor diagnosing me (when others couldn’t) in the nick of time with Stage IV Neuroblastoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. My chances at life were just five percent at that point. The chances of America crushing political correctness and making it to 2076 are much better. It can be done, and it must be done.
I’m a missionary against political correctness, because I love life, and I owe America.