By David Rask Behling, Making a difference

This past weekend the people of America were denied the opportunity to watch a TV mini-series about Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Given the dubious quality provided by most for-profit TV networks lately, I’m not certain we missed all that much. Unfortunately, we’ll never really know whether it was worth watching or not, or at least most of us won’t, because CBS, the network that had produced the film, gave in to pressure from Republicans and canceled the broadcast.

Was the mini-series canceled because the movie came too close to the truth? Was it because it was complete fiction? Was it because too many Republicans are governed by a &uot;cult of personality&uot; when it comes to Ronald Reagan? Are we supposed to wait until presidents are dead before we make movies about them?

Not being a fan of celebrity docu-dramas, or of the Reagans, I probably wouldn’t have watched this movie even if it had aired; this country suffered too much from the real version for me to want to watch it happen again on TV. But it bothers me that, because of accusations of &uot;revisionist history&uot; and pressure to show only the &uot;official&uot; portrait of the Reagans, I no longer have the choice of watching or ignoring the movie.

If the film had been about Bill and Hillary Clinton, portraying both of them in all their flawed humanity, and the pressure to cancel had come from groups that have been accused of being &uot;liberal,&uot; we would be hearing great cries from talk radio and Fox News about a network bowing to the gods of &uot;political correctness.&uot;

So why don’t we hear anyone complaining about &uot;political correctness&uot; because of what self-described &uot;conservatives&uot; did to CBS? We’re not hearing that term because the same people who opposed the mini-series created it.

The real problem isn’t how groups decide whether a book, movie or speech is politically correct or provides the properly &uot;revised&uot; history; the problem lies in how people in power use that power to squash ideas they don’t like and don’t want anyone to hear about. It’s a problem that is rooted in our culture, going back as far as history takes us. Powerful people often try to make the picture of the world reflect their beliefs or opinions.

The issue of political correctness is one that I’ve heard a lot about because it first surfaced at colleges and universities. It became a buzzword about the same time some people starting complaining about &uot;revisionist history.&uot; Apparently telling the whole story of America &045; the traditional stories about Columbus and the Founding Fathers along with the stories about slavery, greed and conquest &045; undermines American values. Off campus, charges of revisionist history and political correctness have surfaced in attacks on exhibits at publicly funded museums, including the Smithsonian, whenever the historical facts or images on display offended those on the political right.

Complaints about political correctness arose on college campuses when certain groups or individuals &045; often associated with those same self-described &uot;conservatives&uot; who blocked the movie about the Reagans &045; complained that their freedom of speech was denied. Typically what happened was this: Enough people in an institution’s hierarchy considered some group’s speech offensive to other groups on campus. So they cut the offending group’s funding or made it more difficult for them to find an audience. Yes, it’s true that such things have happened, even if much less frequently than is believed. Still, that it happens at all is appalling. Scholars who once proclaimed that nobody’s voices are privileged turn into hypocrites and refuse to listen to people they don’t agree with.

Again, the real problem is people in power abusing that position. So-called &uot;liberals&uot; may have gotten teaching and research positions on campuses around the country, but the system they inherited &045; one that is both hierarchical and authoritarian &045; remains pretty much the same as when the self-styled &uot;conservatives&uot; were in control and made everyone jump to their commands.

The phrase &uot;power corrupts&uot; may be a clich, but it’s still worth repeating.

The ability to make public speech &045; or books or movies or museum exhibits or scientific research &045; adhere to certain political views is a blatant example of political correctness, whether the so-called &uot;liberals&uot; or self-styled &uot;conservatives&uot; are in charge of the definition. It’s always wrong.

(David Behling is a rural Albert Lea resident. His columns appear on Tuesdays.)