The growing of vegetables appears increasingly unstoppable, both in the USA and abroad. In Austria, they're taking growing of vegetables to an entirely new level, as activists there push for a chimpanzee to be declared a person: In a case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26-year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a person.

Things haven't yet gone quite that far in America as yet, but there are strong indications that we're plunging into the abyss - particularly where our first amendment right to freedom of speech are concerned.  In the insane world of political-correctness, speech is highly targeted.  In "Human Resources" departments across the country, rules are churned out that hold you accountable for the perception of another.  Literally, their view is that "What you meant to say doesn't matter; all that matters is the perception of the recipient."  If you say something that somebody else - for whatever reason - deems "offensive" or "discourteous", you can lose your job.  And there is no recourse, because the perception of the recipient takes precedence over your freedom of speech.

What does that really mean?  It means that you have no first amendment right.  As noted in a recent Opinion Journal piece:

At a scholarly meeting two years ago, then-Harvard President Larry Summers suggested that women are underrepresented at the top of science and engineering because of what he described as the evidently more men than women who are "three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean." I recall back then reading the transcript of Mr. Summer's remarks, which is filled with caveats, obeisances, impenetrable prose and tangled logic. From this morass, it was possible to extract a big PC faux pas. But to think Mr. Summers was led from this turgid speech to the pyre, where his entire career as president of Harvard was immolated is, well, striking.

Mr. Summers lost his job for the crime of stating what he believed.  Don't believe for a second that it can't happen to you.  As Daniel Henninger correctly notes:

Short of prosecutable acts, violations of PC should not lead to loss of livelihood. No more summary executions. No more firings. No more allowing the Al Sharptons to decide who makes a living and who doesn't. Don Imus is financially set, but not so the average college prof or schmo sports commentator. With this no-job-loss rule in place, Mr. Summers's enemies would have had to overthrow him on the merits of his presidency, not PC.

This won't solve all the depredations of political correctness, or its penchant for imposing lifelong stigma on offenders. But it would stop the zombies who serve as administrators, executives and advertisers from being instruments of career destruction.

Henninger, a deputy editor for the Wall Street Journal, is absolutely on-target - but don't expect changes anytime soon.