Free Speech From the Dumb

I am proud to be an American, but not like most people who would say that. In most cases, people who identify with their country, or their state or their football team or their religion or any other group affiliation, are just tribalizing and being clannish, promoting their sheeplike love of groupthink as a way to avoid having to address their own problems in life. Not me, though. I don't love this country just because I happened to be born here. I love it for what it stands for: freedom. It is the first country in the 7000-year history of civilization to boldly proclaim that individual freedom is its highest value, and I hold it to that standard.

As far as I'm concerned, freedom is more important than safety, peace, security, stability, or any of the other things people try to trade it away for. Granted, those things are sorts of freedom in themselves - "freedom from", rather than "freedom to", as Roosevelt put it. But when in doubt, I firmly believe we should always favor freedom to act over preventing action to protect other freedoms, unless the difference is vast. Freedom to express one's selfish anger or malice or psychosis by killing someone obviously does not have the right to eclipse their freedom to not be killed. But logically, this suggests that they have a right not to be punched in the face, or poked in the arm, or shown a gut-churning image, or be called a dirty name - these are all decreasingly reasonable, though probably still within an acceptible range of freedom-from rights. I, for one, draw the line however at complaining you were offended just by hearing someone speak a dirty word, when they weren't talking to you, or seeing it displayed when it's not being directed at anyone - and the infuriation of prohibiting such free speech is all the worse when it's not even actual profanity, but something that might be construed as offensive by an exceptionally ignorant or lily-livered person. I believe that such a case has far exceeded any reasonable claim of supporting overall freedom - this is one person's preferences being arbitrarily considered superior to another with no justification for why one wins over the other. And in such cases, I say let every other country go with traditional pretentions, but this is Fucking America and freedom-to should win here.

The incident that has set me off, though only by being the last straw: someone at my work, I don't know who and this is just as well for both our sakes, decided that my Minnesota Renaissance Festival "Wenches Want Me" shirt is offensive. This person clearly doesn't know what a wench is; they probably just assumed it meant "witch" or "bitch" because it looks sort of similar. So that ignoramus gets to tell me what I can and cannot wear, and they whined to the company and rank was pulled on me. Intolerable! This is oppression, it's rule by stupidity, and it's anti-American. I'm sick and tired of conservatives and other weak-willed sorts trying to turn this nation into a carbon copy of every other society on Earth. We radicals, we believers in true freedom of expression, we need one place on this planet where we can say whatever the fuck we want. And this country promises to be that place, so I am vehemently opposed to anyone who tries to make that promise a lie. Let those people move to some sleepy backwater nation on the other side of the world, or even to goddamn Canada; none of those other nations claim to stand for freedom, if their citizens want to be oppressed in the name of social order so be it. This should be a nation of individual expression unconstrained by the meddling of self-righteous others.

And I stand by that, even having expressed prejudices against others' free expression myself. By this very standard, I have the right to say I don't think other people should do things I don't like. But I don't have the right to enforce my prejudices on them, not even if my beliefs are the majority. That's Not What Freedom Is, Bitch.