One of the most highly politicized issues of the year and in fact the decade has been political correctness. One might ask, “How can political correctness be politicized?” See, political correctness should not in fact, be a political issue. I t should solely be a social issue, in my view. It is our job as a people to determine what we as a people will and will not say, but it is no one’s job to enforce either, and that feigned responsibility certainly should not fall upon the government.

But again, how has this become something that candidates like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio have been so belligerent upon? How is it that is now a policy decision to pick and choose how one describes certain ideas, peoples, and things?

I believe I have a worthwhile answer.

Being politically correct is not the same as limiting free speech. Political correctness Is, as defined by Meriam Webster, “agreeing with the idea that people should be careful to not use language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people”.

Notice that this description does not suggest forcing people not to use language that could be deemed offensive, it simply states that someone agrees with the idea that you should be careful and perhaps intentionally watchful about what you say around certain people. Is this not something we all do? When we are at work in the breakroom just before clocking in, we don’t talk about how lazy and pathetic our coworkers are, neither do we describe our families as annoying or irritating.

There are two reasons why we don’t behave like this: we do not say this because we know that it will be offensive to them. It will hurt their feelings and damage our relationships and ability to be productive together. The other reason is that we know deep down that it is not entirely true. We know that we are making a generalizing statement that does not truthfully describe the whole. When we say our coworkers are lazy, we may only have three specific people in mind, or if we say our family is annoying, we might just mean that one uncle who is always drunk and that one cousin who yells at the table, but we don’t mean the whole group of either.

We don’t make these generalizations because we know that if we were to take a closer look, we would find human qualities we admire or relate to within these people.

Now take that concept and apply it to an entire race of people. This is where the discussion really begins to turn.

Many of you may have understood my comparison with families and coworkers, who are very small groups, so I then ask, why is it that the same principle when applied to a far larger groups of people, becomes so hostile an approach that it is viewed at tyranny?

When someone says a phrase like “All black people are lazy because they are on welfare”, that person might not even know a black person who is on welfare, yet they still make the statement with confidence and will defend the statement against criticism as an attack on their freedom of speech.

As has been stated, freedom of speech is not freedom of criticism. It is a fact that not everything said is true, which lies at the heart of my argument. When we are forced to take a closer look at our family or our coworkers to find evidence of human qualities, we do so, and will likely not say that they are all lazy or annoying again, because we have realized the error of our ways.

Likewise with speech about an entire ethnicity, we should allow ourselves to adhere to criticism. If we take a closer look, we will find human qualities and relatable facets of every person we meet. The truth about why people say things like “all black people are lazy”, or “all gay people are pedophiles”, is the same reason we react negatively to most things: fear. We are afraid of what we do not understand, and our natural response to something like that is to make ourselves feel bigger. We make statements before looking for empirical evidence to back up our claims, because if we say it loud enough, other with our same mindset will relate.

But back to political correctness.

Since I feel I have discussed the human side of political correctness, here is the political side of it, especially in modern times.

Political correctness is often attributed to liberals, and rightly so. Liberals have a hero complex, because they often stand on the side of progressive and human rights issues, which gives them the idea that they can help any situation. This is not the case.

When most people talk about this issue, they immediately think of the re-labeling of words in an attempt not to offend people. A moderate example would be calling indigenous Americans, “Native American”, rather than “Indian”. There is not much of a negative connotation to the word “Indian”, but many Native Americans wish to be called “Native American” because it is more historically accurate.

And extreme example would be to attempt to remove gender pronouns from language in order to accommodate transgender people. The reason this is not feasible is because there are far too many people who identify as a “he” or a “she” to throw the terminology out. Once it is evident that the hypothetical transgender person identifies as one gender, then the discussion on whether or not to call them “he” or “she” becomes relevant again.

While this is certainly a liberal issue, it is also a conservative one. An example in politics as of late would be when Hillary Clinton refused to call illegal immigrants “illegals” due to the negative connotation attached to the word.

But other examples would be how top conservative icons use the word “job creator” when talking about billionaires called into question over certain shady business tactics. This is a clear attempt to attach a positive label to something that has a pre-existing word with negative connotations. This works in reverse as well. Instead of saying “anti-life”, liberals say “pro-choice”; instead of saying “anti-choice”, conservatives say “pro-life”. Instead of saying “anti-religious freedom”, liberals say “pro-gay rights”. Instead of saying “anti-gay rights”, conservatives say “pro-religious freedom.”

While a few of those phrases may have different meaning to different people, it’s all about semantics to the opposition. Change the name of something so that it reflects a viewpoint more identifiable with the constituency. That’s how politicians play the game of political correctness.

So the question is, whose to blame? The answer is neither. We are all sensitive and passionate creatures with our own likes, interests, and other things that make up our identity, and we all want them to be recognized. We don’t like being called names that are derogatory to who we are, even if we know there is no truth to the name calling. Black people like being called “black”, not “n*gger”. Gay people like being called “gay”, instead of “f*ggot”. Conservatives like being called “conservative”, not “fascist”, and liberals like being called “liberal”, and not “Communist”.

Under the US constitution, you have the right to freedom of speech, which is arguably the most important freedom given in the United States. The freedom of thought, and to choose what you say dictates everything. While we are given the freedom to say anything we want, we should realize that this is a tool better used to encourage and empower than to tear down and inflict harm. The choice is still yours, but bear in mind that truth always takes a side, and that side might not always be yours.

It’s not hard to understand why we want to be affirmed rather than denied. We all seek acceptance and love in some form or another. We all want to be the person that we know we deserve to be. Whether you find that in a church, mosque, synagogue, temple, or reason rally, it is true of all of us that we are looking for something.

Maybe we need to stop using political correctness as a language tool and political talking point and just start being better people. Maybe we should recognize our differences as beautiful and exciting rather than repulsive and frightening. We should be considerate rather than haughty, and accept that we are sometimes incorrect in our use of freedom of speech.

By limiting our freedom of speech, why stifle our expression and creativity, and by abusing our freedom of speech by using it to hurt others, we devalue the beauty of such a liberty.