Tag Archives: Free Speech

Moral Compass

1.  Motives

We saw conflict this weekend in Charlottesville.  We saw a group of American citizens, people living in 2017, marching for white pride, under a Nazi flag, espousing repugnant and wicked world views.   Views totally incompatible with mainstream American values.  Views inconsistent with the views held during the founding of this nation.

We’ve rejected this side of ourselves since we were we.

Nazis, neo-Nazis, white nationalists and white supremacists are among the worst examples of us.

We, I, despise the departure of Individual Liberty these people preach.

No one I know agrees with the motives of those hate groups.

2.  Tribes

Consider rivalries.

Consider the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns.

Say the Browns announced that they were gonna assemble on Saturday and have a Brown’s parade.  And then the Steelers decided that they were gonna show up, and then engage those Browns fans.

Violence ensues.

Who is to blame?

3.  Free Speech

We have a rich history of protected speech in America.  We rightly should rejoice in this.  However, not all speech is protected.  Some speech incites violence and should be denied.

We need to admit that.

If the Nazi’s request to assemble is inciting violence, deny it and arrest them if they gather.  Or

Or.

Or have the balls to admit that they DO have the right to assemble and protect their rights to do so.

One.  Or.  The other.

4.  Right to Assemble

Motives aside, if one group has been given the right to assemble, and another group, motives aside, seeks to deny or infringe on that right, the moral argument is mute.

Speech has been determined to be protected.

Protesting The Protester

Colin Kaepernick

Colin Kaepernick.  You’d have to have been in a coma the last week to not have heard his name.  Mr. Kaepernick is the NFL football player that decided he would protest “oppressed people” by sitting during the National Anthem.

Never minding what he considers ‘oppressed’, how he measures it, how he thinks his sitting during pre-game will be different than his sitting DURING game or how he thinks his protest will affect change – the pop-culture conversation has been all about Kaepernick and his decision to sit.  And for how long.

I’ve mostly stayed quiet on this one save for a few face-to-face personal conversations with friends and neighbors.  The usual eye-roll* is quickly followed with ‘pass the beer nuts’ and we move on.  It’s the same thing.  Cause de jour is being highlighted and is amplified by the media in an obvious method to stoke agita.  I mean serious; who could care less about what Colin Kaepernick thinks about anything?

So whatever.

But then I have seen the trending or viral Facebook post on the topic authored by Jim Wright:

If Americans want this man to respect America, then first they must respect him.

If America wants the world’s respect, it must be worthy of respect.

Much more at the link  – but this was the part that got me.   Now, to be fair – I doubt that Mr. Wright expected his post to go viral.  That being said, the moving back and forth between America and Americans is misleading and confusing.  There are concepts that are unique to each – to America the Nation and then to Americans the Citizens.

The First Amendment chief and first among them.  For example, you have no First Amendment Right in my home, nor me in yours.  Don’t like my speech or religion?  Force me to leave; you can.

But AMERICA can’t do the same.

So when Mr Wright laments Americans who want Mr. Kaepernick to respect America by first demanding they respect him – he’s off.  His thesis has no logical continuity.  America the Nation is not interchangeable with Americans.  I am under no moral, or other, obligation to show respect to Kaepernick.  And his respect, or disrespect thereof, America being predicated on such is ridiculous.

Here I do agree with Mr Wright:

The United States isn’t a person, it’s a vast construct, a framework of law and order and civilization designed to protect the weak from the ruthless and after more than two centuries of revision and refinement it exists to provide in equal measure for all of us the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Yes.  More or less, the United States is that.  And if you don’t respect that, or feel that America is living UP to that, then sit.  Or stand.  Or clench a fist.  Or turn your back.  Or walk out.

Whatever you wanna do – do it.

And yes, THAT is what our veterans have fought and died for.  The right to protest your government for redress.  The privilege to offer speech, or not, free from lawful persecution.  The right to agree – or not.  To vote – or not.  To stand at attention, or burn, the flag that represents the very freedom you are exercising.

To protest free from tyranny.

But it DOESN’T mean that you get to protest in amnesty of MY right to protest.

So, if Mr. Kaepernick wants to sit his entitled ass on the bench where he will earn north of $100 million dollars while doing nothing to *change* the conditions he’s protesting, that’s his journey.  I haven’t seen anyone denying him that.  I haven’t seen calls for his arrest, or his detention, or his forceful demand to stand by threat of State sword or gun.  All I’ve seen is a massive and rather resounding protest of the protestor telling him that he’s a dumb ass.

America can’t tell Kaepernick to stand to, but Americans most certainly, and rightfully, can.

* This is in two parts:

  1.  What is it about people who demand change without active participation?
  2. Does Kaepernick comprehend that by relinquishing the change agent within his own self he is only buying into the power structure he claims to hate?

Thoughts On Free Speech

Free Speech

Cleaning out the stack.  This thought courtesy of The Coyote:

So now that the Turkish incumbents have been re-elected, the government will allow Twitter to be turned back on in the country.

I think that the vast, vast majority of Americans would agree that this turning off of a communications vehicle several weeks before an election was a pretty transparent dodge to protect incumbent politicians, and that most of us would oppose such steps — even be outraged by them.

So why the hell was McCain-Feingold‘s ban on 3rd party ad-based communications 60 days prior to an election any different?

I think that a fundamental concept often times forgotten in American politics is that we are free.  We are free.

 

A Kinder Gentler Tone

The irony is just too much.

It seems not so long ago that a mad-man did the unspeakable.  He took a gun and fired it.  Lots of times.  People died and a nation changed, and a dialogue on dialogue began.

And it got kinda personal.

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Forgive Me If I Say No

When Barack Obama won and announced he was going to fundamentally change America, I shuddered.  I believed him, and I shuddered.

See, I don’t think that Obama loves the idea of America.  I don’t think that he is even close to comfortable with the concept of individual freedom, liberty and responsibility.

Not at all.

So this doesn’t surprise me:

“Administration wants national ID card for online commentary”

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More Military Metaphor

Taking my morning coffee reading the internet.  Saw an article that grabbed my interest:

America’s Healthiest & Unhealthiest States

I decided to take a look, I was interested in what the survey used as criteria in making their ranking.  While the exact order of the list would be interesting in a trivia sort of way, I knew that the northern states would rank near the top while the deep south struggled.  I  guessed that Mississippi would rank either 50th or 49th.

Low and behold, what to my wondering eyes did appear?

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Why Does My Country Hate My Religion?

As part of a tolerant nation with laws that protect free speech and prohibit the government from becoming a religion, we don’t have to look very hard to see examples of my religion being mocked.

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