Political correctness, I have said here, is seriously flawed because it is only political when it should be moral and correct when it should be right. I have also said I find a modicum of value in political correctness when it can intimidate people into doing what happens to be morally right even if only on the basis of its being politically correct. However, the PC squad is hard put to find things that are both. I suggest two values that are both morally right and politically correct: drinking in moderation and refraining from smoking.

Of course, neither is universally valued within our post-modern society, but I notice segments where these are increasingly valued. I applaud it wherever or even why-ever I find it.

I first noticed a change in the armed forces concerning drinking. In my early military experience I was held in suspicion because I didn't drink at all, and I also suffered a good deal of unfair discrimination because of it. I was accused of being self-righteous and holier-than-thou. When I managed the home office of a national firm, I was distrusted because I was the only one not drunk at Christmas parties and, therefore, the one who reliably remembered what others said and did.

But it changed first in the military -- not specifically for moral but practice reasons. It finally dawned on command that alcoholism and even heavy drinking was the number one "operational distracter." Offenses were perpetrated and accidents occurred more frequently as a result of drinking than all other causes put together. Those leaders who recognized this were morally motivated, but they couldn't sell the morality of it to an entire society.

The armed forces made little attempt to persuade personnel that excessive drinking is immoral, but they made it politically incorrect. Personnel curbed their drinking not under moral conviction but political pressure.

They instructed raters to come down hard on those they rated who are influenced by alcohol. They banned alcohol from being offered as part of official social functions. Leaders were counseled not to speak of drinking in favorable terms or to be tolerant of excessive drinking. Suddenly, light drinking or even abstinence was codified into political correctness. This is to say, military people began to forego drinks not out of personal conviction but professional savvy.

In basic training at every break I heard: "Smok'em if ya gott'em!" No longer so for similar reasons. When a new, strong emphasis was placed on physical fitness several years ago, heavy smoking had to go just to survive. Smart professionals confined smoking to private spaces, and many concluded even this wasn't worth it.

World War II veterans amuse me when they drink and smoke heavily, thinking this is what makes a soldier or sailor. They betray how far out of it they have become. They could use a little of this positive political correctness.

Although starting in the armed forces, the brakes on drinking and especially on smoking have spread to the corporate world and community organizations. No-smoking requirements at individual locations and even county-wide bans are increasing rapidly.

People are at their best when they individually and intelligently choose not to smoke and to drink no more than in moderation as an act of self-responsibility for their own health and safety and that of others. If we can't persuade them to act morally, we can at least intimidate them into politically correctness.

Dr. Wallace Alcorn’s commentaries appear in the Herald on Mondays