Freedom of Expression

Those who often moan about the violation of their “rights” are often quite niggardly when it comes to affording those rights to others. We not only have a right to our beliefs, we have the right to spew them. We have the right to express ourselves in the most hateful, hurtful, vile manner we can think of (as long as we don’t get naked, or put on blackface in some states, though I’d be happy to challenge the constitutionality of either restriction).
We even have the right to preach what we believe, whether it’s [teaserbreak]
love of Christ, Satanism, polytheism, atheism or any other -ism. And that goes for political -isms as well. The idea is that every idea should have its airing. Through discussion and lively debate, we can figure out for ourselves which ideas should guide us and which are just hot air. It’s called the marketplace of ideas, and we should celebrate it. The wisdom of this was obvious to me, and most of us, in grade school.
It is our good fortune that most of us are good people. We aren’t mean, hurtful or vile. We recognize that people have their sensitivities, and we don’t go out of our way to offend others. But in this marketplace, we get that we don’t all agree, that others may offend us, and that it is not our place to police them.
This notion is lost on a good portion of our population. This is most disturbing at the our colleges and universities. The students who should be the biggest participants in this marketplace are too often trying to close it down. And even college administrations are taking part. They speak of “trigger words” and “safe spaces” to make sure that they not be subjected to uncomfortable ideas. They attack the student press to stifle debate or criticism of their cause, and often violently confront their particular other.
This has gone so far that even being made to feel bad is complained of. It seems that some today are confusing their wish not to be offended with their right to express themselves. They do have a right to express themselves, and if they’d like to try to enroll others in not using “offensive” or “disturbing” language in their presence, they are welcome to try, but they must also allow that our response may be to laugh it off, and that is our right as well, and that our idea that they should learn to deal with the challenges of life by engaging instead of censoring also deserves to be heard.
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