Politically Correct and Unreliable

Have you heard the one about the government employment site that refused to allow discrimination against unreliable employees?

CAMPAIGNERS reacted with anger last night after it was claimed a Jobcentre worker had refused to display an advert for a "reliable worker" because she felt the phrase discriminated against unreliable applicants. ...

The mother of two [who attempted to place the ad], from Borehamwood, Herts, said yesterday: "I placed the advert on the website and when I phoned to check I was told it hadn't been displayed in the Jobcentre itself. The woman said, 'Oh we can’t put that advert on the Jobpoints'.

"She said it was because they could have cases against them for discriminating against unreliable people. I laughed because I thought that was crazy. We supply the NHS with staff so it's very important for the patients that we have reliable workers.

More reasonable heads seem to have prevailed, but the initial impulse speaks volumes about the use of political correctness and threats of litigation for the benefit of the lazy and scheming. It's the subversive manifestation of the same cultural movement leading to riots in Greece and political intimidation on California campuses. Mark Steyn puts it well:

We hard-hearted small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government: Once a chap's enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest; he's got his, and to hell with everyone else. People's sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.

Without a resurgence, this could be the century that Western self-reliance dies.