Mitt Romney transverses Iowa in the last days of the primary caucuses there quoting the bowdlerized, corrupted, bullshit version of “America the Beautiful”:
America, America
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea
But here’s the real verse, from the real song, as composed by feminist/lesbian poet Katharine Lee Bates, who saw that there were a few things wrong with America:
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
Why, that sounds like a jab at Wall Street and those big corporations like the one Romney used to work for. As with the dropped verses of “This Land is Your Land” real Political Correctness has always come from the right, usually in the form of patriotism, but also religious virtue. In the issue, for example, of Christmas symbolism in public buildings, the “political correctness” is to trumpet the Christian virtues of the nation at taxpayer expense. Separation of church and state is the liberating doctrine.
Every ideology sees their own cause as correct and virtuous.