LETTERS: IDEA IS GOOD; METHOD ISN'T SO GOOD

To the editor:

In his Feb. 5 letter, Ray Umbdenstock condemns the set of attitudes which are collectively known by the term political correctness as through control on the part of liberals. Although I am in general accord with this set of attitudes, I still agree with Mr. Umbdenstock that the foisting of them upon unwilling conservatives is an undesirable thing. Let me explain.

Mr. Umbdenstock obviously regards such a foisting as an impertinence up with which he will not put. I regard it as a muddying of the political waters in that, to the extent that conservatives mute their true feelings and appear to become sensitive to the feelings of minorities in this increasingly minority-populated nation, they will only serve to deceive those minorities that they have friends where, in actuality, they do not. Since I oppose major parts of the conservative agenda, my preference is to allow conservatives to express themselves exactly as they wish in full confidence that, by their very own words, they will show themselves for exactly what they are. I suspect that the show will not be a pretty one.

I was once a member of Young Americans for Freedom, an organization which was the right-wing counterpart to, say, the Young Communist League. In other words, the organization consisted of young people committed to rightist ideology and looking forward to an adult life of rightist activism. This was back in the 1960s, and I am now in my middle 50s. I do not doubt for one minute that the current Congress, with its conservative tenor, has many former YAF members.

I remember attending a YAF chapter meeting in Queens, N.Y., during which a couple of members who had attended a YAF national convention were reporting back, showing souvenirs and so forth. Among the souvenirs was a song sheet which was widely circulated -- not officially, I'm sure -- at the confab. The lyrics of one song, intended to be sung to the tune of a well-known song, celebrated the machine-gunning of Jews and welcomed the return of Nazism. I was shocked, but nobody else at the meeting was. I think it was taken for granted that U.S. rightist ideologues and German Nazi ideologues shared a common outlook. I wonder how many members of Congress gleefully joined in the singing of that little ditty in their innocent youth. Others besides would do well to start wondering. If political correctness had been cosmetically adopted by those conventioneers, I might have been denied that early insight into the ideology which, for the moment, is in the catbird seat in this nation.

DONN S. MILLER

Tamms, Ill.