Political correctness gone mad?

Nobody in their right mind agrees with blatant offensiveness or bigoted discrimination, but it's ridiculous that we have a bunch of thought police who tell people that they should be offended by this or that when no offence was intended or taken. PC actually patronises minorities rather than defends them. It umes that these groups can't speak for themselves, need 'protection' and also that they have no idea when they are being offended. PC doesn't bind communities, it splinters them. Besides, there exists no rights against being offended. It's up to the individual whether they take offence or not and how they deal with it. You can't legislate against people expressing an opinion, even if that opinion is ignorant and bigoted. People are now too frightened to express an honest opinion for fear of falling foul of over zealous discrimination and 'hate crime' laws. It seems that every day a new offence is added to New Labour's growing list of Thought Crimes. And the police are now fully politicised to enforce these crazy laws and to silence bit by bit our freedom of speech.