Use It Or Lose It
April 11th, 2008You have Freedom of Speech. So by all means, voice your opinions and be heard. Stand and be counted. If you take it for granted, you will lose it.
One thing that bothers me about folks in Western nations is they take their Freedoms for granted. Freedoms are God-given Rights, things that come from birth. You heard the old saying that says “man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” It’s because people took those God-given Rights for granted and allowed themselves to be enslaved.
In America, we have Ten (not nine) Rights in the Bill of Rights. All ten of them are Sacred and there should be no compromises. Political correctness is bad. It is a restriction on Free Speech. You can be ostracized for saying something that is “offensive.” Well, by all means, fuck them! Say it. If someone gets butt hurt because of something you said, it’s their problem.
People need to grow a spine. If words hurt you, you’re too soft.
With Freedom of Speech, there are very few limits. We have things that are agreed upon, like for instance, you do not broadcast your friend’s credit card info and Social Security number. You cannot violate Copyright laws, nor scream “fire!” in a crowded theater (unless there really is a fire). You also cannot make direct physical threats. If you do, the person you are threatening has Right to defend himself or herself.
Why do I keep doing different versions of this same post over and over? Because it needs to be said over and over. With political correctness, folks are afraid to say what’s on their minds even though it’s their God-given Right to say it.
So say it. Express yourself. Don’t be afraid to offend. If you offend me, that doesn’t mean I don’t still love you. I can agree with you sometimes and disagree with you other times. It’s all good. I’d rather you be honest to me and especially honest to yourself.
Political correctness is forced politeness. I said this a million times but I’ll say it again, if you force anything, there will be those who fight it. People don’t like things shoved down their throats and frankly, I’m sick of it.
I will be heard, whether it’s popular or not. I’ll tell you what I believe whether it’s in vogue or not. I’ll express my politics whether the polls say it’s what the majority wants or not.
In fact, the reason for us being a Constitutional Republic in the first place is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Everyone has Rights, even criminals. You have the Right to remain silent. You also have the Right to voice yourself. You have the Right to have ideas and voice them even though they are not popular.
Use it or lose it. Do not take your Freedoms for granted.
That reminds me, I need to take a few more liberals shooting. You’d be surprised just how fast yuppies change their views on guns once they’ve handled one and realized just how fun they are.
I can agree with you sometimes and disagree with you other times. It’s all good. I’d rather you be honest to me and especially honest to yourself.
amen! and see this is something else we have lost, the ability to disagree respectfully. anymore when to parties differ it turns into a shouting match with the loudest voice winning rather than calm reason having any sway or two people being able to agree to disagree.
Lime - The thing about it being a shouting match though is the 3rd party who overhears it will have more respect for the person who is more reasonable. That’s yet another reason to always keep your cool, even when they’re driving you nuts.
“The reason for us being a Constitutional Republic in the first place is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.”
I have been having an argument about this with Dan and a few friends for years. They just don’t get it. I’m glad someone else does!
Change is never easy and the biggest changes are often the most uncomfortable… or else why change at all?
I think this is the harbinger of big change. One of my favorite Jewel songs (Life Uncommon) says it best I think;
“Lend our voices only to sounds of freedom, No longer lend our strength to that which we wish to be free from..”
Courtney - I’m glad someone else knows about that. The majority scare me. Watch when something bad happens and they all overreact to it and start passing laws restricting our Freedoms.
Clothosfate - I’m going to have to start listening to Jewel. Although I told you that before but haven’t started yet.
Did you hear the recent story in the news about the group protesting in front of a Marine recruitment office and blocking people from going in or out? The journalist interviewed the leader of the group and she was shouting “We have the right to be here, we have the right of free speech.” So, the interviewer ask, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a group to defend our right to free speech?” and the gal said, “Oh yes, that would be great!” duh…
Fuck yeah.
You can never please all of the people all of the time.
Great post ZS.
Granny - Nice. The thing that these “peace” folks don’t understand is that sometimes violence is needed. If we didn’t have a military and 80 million Americans with guns, with our natural resources, somebody would want to take us over.
JACC - Thanks.
Miladysa - No, you can’t. That’s why I think people need to be honest to themselves.
Z and I have this argument with my parents a LOT! Fox News has destroyed their understanding of freedom of speech.! My parents now believe that people who don’t agree with them, or Saint Bush, should be silenced. Their attitude scares me!
I’ll defend, to the death, anyone’s right to speak their mind, even if what they say goes against everything I believe!
I have to disagree on one point. Political Correctness is more than just forced politeness IF it is looked at in it’s original context. If you take the politics out of political correctness, you end up with merely correctness. Replacing words with other words doesn’t address the underlying power inequities. For example… there is no politically correct replacement for “maternal instinct” because the entire idea of maternal instinct is rife with social assumptions about women.
Also, language is not static. Language changes over time through the prescriptive rules those in power enforce on the rest of us. If you accept the notion that language is a collective, evolving social structure, then you must accept the fact that it can and must be changed to reflect social and political changes.
Language is power. Those with the power to control the language control thought and quality of ideas. So there is nothing inherently wrong when a historically disempowered group like blacks or women decide they need to re-write the rules of language to be more inclusive of points of view other than the ruling white male elite (the standard language is just that if you look at who writes the prescriptive language manuals).
There is a difference between freedom of speech and the desire to reflect in the language, points of view of others. It’s about more than just offending or hurting feelings.
Tshsmom - I think any of those news programs are bad, not just Fox news. Did you know that the average reader can read a 60-minute news transcript in 4 minutes? Talk about dumbing down the populace.
And agreed, even if someone disagrees with me, I’ll have to defend their Right to say it (unless it’s a violation of copyright laws, violation of privacy like credit cards or social security numbers, or a direct physical threat).
Laura - I see what you’re getting at but I’d like to see more concrete examples.
Mothers do have maternal instincts, but fathers have paternal instincts. Also, childless people have other instincts as well. Language is broad, and another problem I have with political correctness is that it is an attempt at thought control. Control the language, control the thoughts.
Are blacks and women disempowered today? I’d argue no, and blacks and women trying to rewrite the language so it works in their favor is wrong, very wrong. I know that that’s not what you’re getting at at all. You were merely saying that blacks and women should be included in the language, but with political correctness, it gets to the point of silliness, like changing women to womyn, history to herstory, negroes to colored people to African Americans to blacks to whatever is the next word (maybe melanin gifted?)
Let’s also keep in mind that yes, there is a white-male elite, but 99.99% of white males are NOT a part of it, and are in the same boat that you or I are in. And for the record, who really is in charge? I’ve said this before, that the most powerful single media person (as opposed to a media group) out there is Oprah Winfrey. She’s more powerful than that Fox News owner or someone from the Hearst empire.
If I could somehow book an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show, I guarantee you I’ll have a best-selling book.
I also want to say that if the language is being re-written right now, then it is still being written by the “ruling white male elite” and I am curious as to what the agenda is behind forcing everyone to watch what they say…
People will always be offended by something, and what if it is political correctness that is doing the offending, as in Zombieslayers case, should we then re-write once again to fit his sensibilities? I’d say No. We are not so soft and squishy as porridge.
Each person is responsible for the words that come from their mouth, and they will have to face the consequences of those words personally… it doesn’t require the governments approval or disapproval. I would never teach my son to be so wounded by other peoples opinions, or else how would he ever survive the real challenges.
If we really wanted to be politically correct, we would do away with all laws except one; ‘Do unto others as you’d have done unto you’. Period. But that wouldn’t really work for any kind of political agenda now would it?
I’m certainly not in a position to go into ample detail and more examples. If you’re truly interested in the other side of the coin, check out some of these authors:
Deborah Cameron, On Language and Sexual Politics
Robin Lakoff, The Language War
As far as thinking that women and blacks (or other minorities) are no longer disempowered, I’m just not going to go there. From previous discussions here at at my place, I know that that is like banging my head against a brick wall.
There is only one success - to be able to live your life in your own way and not give others maddening claims upon it.
Clothosfate - I think we should rewrite language to fit only my delicate sensibilities. Criticism of Heavy Metal music or the Green Bay Packers will hereby be illegal. At work, anyone who does loses their job. No ands, ifs, or buts.
Heh. You talk about tact. That’s what it’s all about. If people had tact, we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place.
Laura - I’ll have to check out those books.
As far as thinking that women and blacks (or other minorities) are no longer disempowered, I’m just not going to go there.
This whole mindset is extremely counter-productive. While sure, there is a white male elite, 99.9% of white males are in the same boat as blacks and females, and all this kind of thinking does is alienate the white males who should be your allies. Race and gender have been talked to death, to the point of annoyance. It’s all about class. Class is the taboo subject, yet it is class, not race and gender, that is the special privilege. It is class that opens doors to the elite. Put some white redneck in an elite country club and watch how fast they throw him out the door. It will be just as fast as they throw you or me out the door. Once he opens his mouth, they know he’s not one of them. (Also, he can’t afford the clothes, the cars, etc., just like you or I can’t).
Vest - Are you becoming Libertarian?