Salon 1

I have been thinking about this obvious problem for a while, but wanted to wait until I could come up with a good word for it. This is the best I could do right now, but I am open to suggestions.

There is another social trend plaguing this country (it seems to be more prevalent in the US, but this may just be a perception due to my proximity to US media). It is the irrational drive to appease smaller minority special interest groups even at the expense of larger special interest groups. In other words, the needs of the loud few outweigh the needs of the obvious many.

Such incidents are probably due to a combination of current social trends as well as pressure from these minority special interest groups, and possibly offensiphobia.

A recent example is when the Tyson company decided to give up Labor Day as a paid work holiday in exchange for a Muslim holiday. I am not saying that they should not allow Muslims to observe their holidays as well, but this is silly for two (2) reasons.

1. Labor Day is a national holiday available to most workers regardless of religion.
2. I would guess that Muslims are a minority within the company, so why should non-Muslims give up their Labor Day for a holiday they don’t celebrate?

The fact that we are currently at war with several facets of the Islamic religion suggests that overpacification might also be due to either of the following:

1. Fear of retribution from the minority group
2. An uber liberal sense of sympathy

Giving everyone a specified number of holidays / year to take as they see fit would have completely solved this problem for everyone.

Another example was when I was a graduate student at Wright State University (WSU). Many US students (including myself) had been asking for years to turn the 3 credit hour classes with 0 credit hour labs into 4 credit hour classes because 4 credit hours were required to be considered part-time and deferred payments on your student loans. WSU always refused. Following 9/11, there was a new federal (or possibly state) law that if foreign students on student visas were less than part-time, they could be deported (or investigated, I don’t recall). So, to assist the foreign students, WSU decided to change all 3 credit hour graduate classes to 4 credit hours. Not only is this overpacification, but it circumvented and defeated the whole purpose of the new law.

I hate to have to quote Spock, but there is ridiculously simple rule of thumb. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.