Distortions, doublethink and urban legends

Sorry - the headline was sneakily meant to disguise another post about flag bans.  I've gone all Paul Dacre!  I'll be saying the c-word and making stuff up a lot next!

It's always fun looking at Sun roundups of outrageous BANS to see how padded out with exaggerations they have to be in order to fill the space.

Banned or all over the chuffing shop?

Two of the most common distortions you see in political correctness gone mad stories are the exaggeration of the scope of a 'ban', and the misrepresentation of the reasoning behind it. (The third is the use of the word 'ban' to mean something else, like 'stop doing' or 'decide not to do in the first place').

These first two distortions beef up yesterday's 'More than 1,200 housing association staff banned from flying England flags on their OWN cars', although they're pretty minor examples.

Clampdown on patriotic badgers!

You know yesterday, when I said, "Whatever the reasons for these myths spreading without the aid of the tabloids, it'll be as interesting as it is depressing to watch this new myth develop over the summer with their aid"?

Well, now we can let the depressing but interesting carnival begin!

Cue the capering clowns dressed as Schopenhaur to come tumbling through the tickertape and bunting down the street as the caliope belts out Radiohead tunes..

Are England shirts being banned?

When I read about the Facebook group '...It's funny how our flag offends you but our benefits don't!!!...' last week via good people like Anton at Enemies of Reason, MacGuffin at TabloidWatch, Carmen who gets around and Sunny at Liberal Conspiracy, I dreaded opening my own Facebook account. I just knew I'd see a load of family members joining.