Every year about now the musings and punditry can induce dizziness if not with their shear volume, then with absolute emptiness in so many cases.  So I thought I would zoom out with a wide angle view of what's past , and focus sharply on what America needs to accomplish in 2006 to navigate the Straits of Uncertainty challenging our very existence.

Why do our mental health statistics soar?  Why do alleged 'leaders' at mostly state and federal levels sacrifice governing responsibility for political gain over and over?  Why does a self proclaimed objective press lick its chops over some scandals and dismiss reasonable rebuttal so transparently? In medicine, doctors are taught to try to find unifying diagnoses to explain a cluster of symptoms.  In most cases, one or two maladies explain Grandpa's fatigue, dizziness, chest pain and fever, not four separate conditions.  Could it be that the decade of our discontent is a malaise rooted in a single proximate malfunction?  I think so.

Ironically, the baby boom era ends officially at midnight tomorrow as those born in 1946 start turning 60.   While we've made our gleaming contributions to America (Woodstock, The Smothers Brothers, Cell phone abuse and Monday Night Football to name a few),  I sadly have to pin the tail on my own generation's donkey when it comes to the one cultural seachange we've embraced that may explain the heap of trouble we're in today. Could it be......political correctness?

Yep, we're the hypersensitive, my-truth-is-mine-and-yours-is-yours, pardon-me-for-having-an-opinion generation.  How we got here is elusive, but I suspect it has underpinnings in the rise of human secularism, but I digress.  The problem we face, however, is pervasive and maybe even insurmountable.  But before we declare Jihad on political correctness, let's see what role it play in some hot issues.

Take race relations for example.  Katrina's aftermath opened wounds that many people of every color had didgently closed overthe years, thanks to zealous reporters  who statistically represent a left-leaning mindset.  The result was the nationwide perception that blacks were neglected and suffered unduly as a result.  Yet when the Louisiana Health Dept. reported that, when adjusted for their representation in the affected area, a larger share of whites perished, the 'objective' mainstream media was eerily silent.  Why?  Because it's not hip when you pass up an opportunity to trump the truth with the omnipotent (and omnipresent) race car.  Political correctness grade? A+.

How about gay marriage?    It's really a definitional thing.  I'm not homophobic, recognizing gay relationships as a reality, treating responsible, productive and discreet gays as we would any American.  Yet the radical gay agenda seeks to 'normalize' behavior that in no way, especially in the sense of biological survival of the species, can be labelled normal. Representing just south of 10% of Americans, it's hard to argue even in statistical terms that that fraction, much less the militantly pro-marriage faction represents any thing but outliers.   Most mainstream heterosexual  folks aren't looking for a fight, but the human secuarist rhetoric of 'tolerance', twisted into validation, continues gaining momentum, asking for a cultural brawl.  All the while our schools spend valuable curriculum resource on  so-called acceptance, peace, multiculturalism and diversity as Jack and Jill can't add 2 and 2 for the sake of the NEA's push for Jack and Bill.  Political correctness...a distracting drain of intellectual resources; ultimately this means a real threat to America's global advantage on many social, technological and economic fronts.

In the end our baby boomer hypersensitivity to whatever quirk- du-jour agenda is in the limelight will be our undoing.  I resolve to play my cards face up, of course with respect, but realizing that at some point our common need for security must dominate political discourse.  You see, if Osama and company have their way and nukes hit New York, L.A., D.C. and Chicago, no amount of political correctness will fix it.  No, Hillary, it doesn't take a "Village People".   It takes common goals: security, recognizing true enemies in the world and returning to plainspeak in America.  If you're of black skin and I call you 'black' instead of 'African-American', please don't take it personally.  After all, I'm white and balding!  Next year, can we please, please just be Americans? Here's to a politically incorrect 2006.