If you can stomp on the American Flag even though that offends a great many people, then don't be upset when other folks can fly the Confederate Battle Flag even though that offends a great many people.
Whatever your take on this issue there remains a troubling question of liberty and free speech within a free society here. Although there is sense in removing painful symbols (real or perceived) from public forums, there is also a real danger that the wave of hysteria will begin to wash ashore on private ground.
We might have forgotten what liberty and free speech in a free society is all about. If we no longer have the right to offend each other then we are lost as a free nation. It is the freedom to offend that defines a free people, not the freedom to flatter. No one has ever died for pleasing a tyrant. No one has ever gone to prison for sucking up to the establishment. It is doing the opposite and remaining free that is the hallmark of a free land.
You can call Comrade Putin a fine fellow all you like and no one is going to come for you. No one will run you over with a car for that. Well at least until someone rises to power that doesn't like Comrade Putin much. Then you better change your tune and it might just be too late depending on how many of your neighbors remember how much you liked Comrade Putin. That's the reality of living in a NOT free society.
When the people take up an issue in the forum of public opinion that is one thing. When the government takes up an issue and starts talking legislation and executive orders -well that is another thing altogether and it gives me the jitters. Next thing you know a person can be prosecuted for saying or doing something others deem hateful. That's already here in the form of hate laws, and though it seems laudable now, it's only all well and fine until it begins to infringe on your own personal beliefs.Then it's too late isn't it? History is replete with examples of well intentioned laws that later caused a great deal of trouble. Wisdom is not a hallmark of governing bodies, or people in general for that matter.
We live in a free land. There isn't anybody out there that isn't doing something in their daily life that someone else doesn't find offensive. We have to let people be jerks within the law so that we can be a jerk within the law. That's a free society. Otherwise it's a dangerous road. A dangerous road indeed -and we're busy whistling Dixie as we trudge along it...
I agree. This system of checks and balances doesn't work at such a large scale, and one can't stand if the tide of power comes against him.
ReplyDelete(I like the sad whimsical note you've added into the layers of prose you've used to express your views of this important issue.)