As time went on, the culture as a whole mingled without slavery and later segregation, a new breed of discrimination has risen.  This discrimination hides itself behind “fairness” and “tolerance,” but it is actually the greatest form of social oppression possible in a free country.

Political correctness is a disease that cripples creativity and free thought.  It represents the chains that hold our society back from evolution, all while keeping the population from completely melding together as a whole.  Racism, sexism and religious intolerance are all reinforced by the politically correct, while people believe it is an effective means at proving they aren’t.

Don’t agree?  Just think about how it’s used today to divide society along common lines: black and white.

Being politically correct means that you must toe a fine line between what is thought to be “proper,” when it really is just a way to create less offensive terms to separate them from you.  

Sixty years ago, a black man was a negro and drank from a different fountain and sat at the back of the bus.  Today, he’s an African American, but still is looked at based on the color of his skin.  He identifies himself as an African American, black man, or various other descriptive words, but by believing in the label and accepting it, many of these individuals who would otherwise have had great potential now live as underachievers because that is how society looks at them.

A black man is no less capable of being as successful as any white man.  The fact that they identify with their “people” and hold strict ties to that ethnicity rather than thinking about what it is that they truly value and where they want to go in life, throws the chains of social slavery back on them.  This doesn’t apply to all, because there are those who have decided that he or she matters as an individual, and therefore has been able to achieve great things. Barack Obama is one of them, whether you love him or hate him.  Even though he is guilty of feeding into the class system, reinforcing that black people as a whole are expected to do less simply because they are black.

If you hold them to a higher standard of accountability, the problem herein vanishes.  White culture has its failures as well, but is held to a higher standard, where these individuals have lost the respect of their peers by making bad choices and walking down a path that obviously could only end in failure.

People say respect is earned.  I say it is willingly given, and it takes an effort, or lack of effort, to lose it.  As long as you try, society responds favorably.  Don’t try, and society will forever hold you to where you belong.

At the bottom.

Unfortunately for Phelps, for a while, the poor guy’s incredible Olympic achievements were outshined by the ominous photo… with the bong. The photo, published in January by the British newspaper News of the World, flushed Phelps’s “All-American good guy” image right down the drain. His reported $500,000 deal with Kellogg’s was also quickly dropped.

Sure he groveled and apologized to his fans for his “inappropriate” behavior. And sure, we forgave him. I mean, have you seen the guy swim?!

Six months after the unveiling of Phelps’s party time in North Carolina, we saw him back on TV for Subway in an advertising campaign called “Be Yourself.” The campaign name is amusing in itself and implies that Subway doesn’t care about what happened with Phelps.

Dan Neil of the Los Angeles Times suggested that “Phelps has moved the weed needle,” which was published in an article in the Tampa Bay Times and was titled, “Phelps smokes another rival: marijuana hysteria.”

This is something that I hadn’t even considered. At the time the photo was released, most of what I heard was about how horrible it was that someone of role model stature would be doing something like that. Knowing that millions of Americans smoke marijuana (often too), this critical attitude seemed a bit hypocritical.

Neil reported that 13 states have legalized medicinal marijuana, and in many other states the possession of less than an ounce is legal. We all know that many more states are considering legalizing marijuana.

Could Phelps have accidentally pushed America in the right/wrong direction?

Americans have created the stereotype of the “stoner” going nowhere in life. Many believe that anyone who smokes marijuana is addicted to all other kinds of drugs and should be put into rehab. Well, yes, sometimes this is true, but, of course, sometimes it just isn’t.

As we’ve seen with the recent legalization of marijuana in some parts of the country, and even with the Phelps’ scandal, we are shying away from our old weed stereotypes.

Neil argues that Phelps’s lack of consequences have shown that big time companies aren’t ashamed of the connotation that Phelps will forever carry.

After the scandal, Phelps’s other endorsement deals (Speedo, Omega, Subway and Mazda-China) stood right by him. In June, he even signed on to endorse H20 Audio, a company that makes waterproof headphones.

What you’re probably thinking is that these companies aren’t consciously trying to advance the “legalize marijuana” cause. That’s probably true, but you do know they’ve at least thought about it.

Imagine that you’re the president of one of these organizations, Speedo for example. Right after the photo was released, you call an emergency board meeting to decide what to do about it. One side of the argument is that you don’t want to be associated with someone who “breaks the law,” not to mention moral code. Then, of course, the other side is that nobody really cares about that because he’s still an awesome Olympic athlete.

What side would you be on? It’s inevitable that the whole ordeal will blow over eventually, as all scandals do. Yet, you know that it will always remain in the back of people’s minds. You have to ask yourself if the pros outweigh the cons. Will you lose business because you continue to endorse Phelps? Will people associate you with being pro-legalization?

Yeah, it’s a toughie but these companies apparently decided to stick with him. The reason must have been because they figure people don’t really care that much about marijuana.

Neil reported that studies show that 100 million Americans have smoked pot, which makes Phelps no different, really, than those millions of Americans.

Regardless of where you stand on marijuana rights, the truth is that one picture is worth a thousand words. Proponents of marijuana have worked for years to achieve this step toward their cause and they didn’t even have to do anything for it this time.

Our first story starts on a dark summer’s night in May. Twenty-one-year-old Richard McTear Jr. was with the woman he loved, 17-year-old Jasmine Bedwell and her adorable 3-month-old son. As Richard looked at Jasmine, he was overwhelmed by her beauty and could do nothing but…attack her.

To further prove his love to her, he took her baby, Emanuel Wesley Murray and threw him onto the concrete. When he saw this wasn’t enough, McTear drove off with Jasmine’s baby and threw him from a car window while driving on the highway.

Baby Emanuel died.

Needless to say, this was the end of Richard and Jasmine’s love affair. Although at his May 20 court appearance, McTear professed his love to Jasmine by screaming, “I love you, Jasmine!” Jasmine just wasn’t having it, but a 40-year-old Ida Williams was.

Just when McTear thought he could never be loved again, “Ida the Spider,” who has served five prison terms and just got out of jail on June 3 accepted his marriage proposal.

Now, as McTear was told of the state’s intention to pursue the death penalty for him, McTear’s fiancée (Williams) told the St. Petersburg Times that McTear is “beautiful, sweet, kind, gentle.”

McTear now faces the death penalty and Williams faces a life without the love of her life.

This next story also takes place in sunny Florida, and with the most unsuspecting of couples.

Victor Clavizzao and Jacqueline Dean both had bad luck with life and love. They found what they were looking for when they found each other.

Clavizzao, 46, is running away from his fraud charges while Dean is a registered sex-offender. None of this matters, of course; not when true love is involved.

Clavizzao has so much love to give that this is his fifth marriage. He’s also still legally married to his first and fourth wife.

Dean knew of Clavizzao’s undying love for her when he suggested that they go to Lisbon, Ohio to get married (away from the Florida court system that may know of his polygamy).

How precious, Dean must have thought. It would be like a romantic honeymoon.

Dean decided not to invite her ex-husband who had killed her lover with a samurai sword a couple of years ago in Brandon, Fla. Clavizzao was pleased by her choices.

Luckily, Dean and Clavizzao were in Ohio because a little magical fairy told them that the Ohio court system wouldn’t check on Clavizzao’s marital status if he checked the “previously married” box, but said “none” in the number of times box.

Tricky.

Now the happy couple lives in their beautiful St. Petersburg home, which is in foreclosure.

And they all lived happily ever after.

…. Who says dreams can’t come true? For these two happy successful couples, they were able to find true love in the most awful of situations. Maybe Disney would be interested in making a film of their love stories.

Or maybe not.