PC vs Free Speech

         
         

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Ok, I read an elegant and well spoken posting from my friend Melanie about the results of this election. And wow. It really was a awesome post. She said a lot of what I was thinking. But not everything.

Now I'm not going to be as well spoken as my friend, and I'm not sure this is going to be anything more than a rant, but, well, I had made a comment about the silent majority. And maybe the problem is we're the silent majority. Maybe the reason people have the misconceived ideas that they have is because we need to speak up. So, this is me speaking up. This is gonna be a little long winded and I'm hoping to get this edited down and I most likely will end up breaking this up into several different posts, so you're not reading a book here, so bear with me, please.

Those of you that know me (outside of facebook) most likely know that I am not easily defined. Meaning that I don't like to be categorized. I don't just go along with the crowd, I've argued with some of my political affiliated friends about religion, Liberals, Democrats, sexual orientation and so on. I tend to take the side that isn't being argued. And yeah, this has cost me, friends. In one instance it cost so much of my 'online' reputation and so many of my online 'friendships' that I ended up leaving that community all together and kept silent for a long time.

Honestly, Facebook is the most I've been connected online in a very long time. And I am once again going to put myself out there, and frankly, I'm nervous about how these posts will be taken.

blah blah blah .. wah, wah, wah ... ok so on with what I was saying.

I have another facebook page that I just post comic book pictures, movie articles, odds and ends of all kinds of things that are media related stuff. On that page, I have a LOT of friends and people I associate with who are a LOT younger than me. My page draws a lot of the college and high school groups and it's kind of funny that they think I'm their age. (kind of insults my maturity, but it's comics so I don't care).

In this community, I talk and read a lot about what they are going thru. And the ones that I am actually friends with are very ... diversified. lol. Meaning I have lesbian, gay, bisexual, omnisexual, demisexual, pansexual, transgender, genderless, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, Satanists, witches, wizard dudes, a couple of closeted Catholics, baptists, white, black, Mexican, Spanish (from actual Spain), Hispanic (meaning Indian Spaniard), mixed, college age, high school age, and yes even a couple of Jedis and a few of my age comic book geeks.

So I believe that I am not just saying that I'm open minded. I actually do talk and ask and debate with anyone who is willing to do so with me. It's interesting that comic book geeks seem to be willing to debate almost every issue and walk away with no hard feelings (not all of us mind you, those star wars and Trekkies guys are a little scary, it's better not to force them into a debate or it gets ugly for a very long time.

I bring these people up because I will be using some of what they have told me in the last couple of days in this little, already drawn out .. whatever it is I'm writing.

Ok, deep breath ...

Here we go ...

Many of us Repubs/conservatives and even democrats have had enough of the political correctness 'terrorism' that has become our society's way of bullying, coercing, censoring, and ceasing our use of free speech and freedom of religion and expression to the point where anything said about a selected group of people is considered hate speech as long as it's not said by another selected group of people who can apparently say whatever the hell they want no matter how damaging, hateful, untrue, or if it incites violence because the group of the selected can rationalize it.

Example? Beating up Trump supporters, Attacking/killing cops, Verbally attacking our Military, oh .. the riots screaming for Trump's death that is going on right now. Or my personal favorite, the beating of a homeless black woman who tried to protect Trumps sign on the walk of fame.

Want some non-political examples? A kid being expelled for pointing his finger, another kid being expelled for pointing a sandwich like a gun, back when Caitlyn Jenner was considered a 'heroine', a young man in high school was disciplined when he said he didn't see why he was a hero, kids in a college were harassed for wanting to start a Christian group. Kids in college given F's because they were conservative, a college professor tearing up signs because she said she didn't' like what they said, another professor stating anyone who believes in God should leave her class at that minute or she would just flunk them right then or they would have to work their way up from an F. Many people who work in the retail business and customer service are told not to say Merry Christmas because it MIGHT offend someone.

People going out of their way to ensure that we don't OFFEND not just someone, but only that selected group of someones that are never to be offended.

That is basically political correctness defined right there. Where it was meant to be about being polite, because apparently just using the word 'manners' wasn't enough, we (and I mean all of us) started to use 'political correctness' to apparently cover not everyone (where 'don't say/do that, you're being rude' would suffice) but that few group of people who apparently didn't like anything and so we .. said ok, we'll give you a little more slack than we do for everybody else because we feel guilty.

And now here we are.

A transgender is a beautiful heroine (until she switched parties and now she's hated, don't believe me? where is the politically correct people when she is obviously being portrayed as a deformed mockery of a woman on south park?) and if you didn't think she deserved hero status, well .. look up 'doesn't believe Jenner hero' and you'll see a bunch of articles about a bunch of hate mongers who are apparently happy to see a bunch of sexually diverse kids kills themselves instead of letting them have a heroine or someone to look up to.

If you don't think that Obama isn't the best president ever, didn't vote for him, don't like him, or yeah, can't stand him. You are obviously racist. No, it's not cuz you are actually listening to his plans and are worried about the cost of his plans, or his policies or the fact that he thought he could just 'executive order' his views without going thru the proper channels or that as we speak this 'Obama care' is being proven as a failure. No, you're just a racist.

Except for Condoleezza Rice, it's ok to hate her.

A trump sign was considered traumatizing. Classes are canceled to allow for grieving because Trump won.

oh .. remember this? type in Loser.com and you were directed to ??? Donald Trump's wiki page. here's the article. http://time.com/4204929/donald-trump-trolled-loser-wikipedia/

<just a quick insert, now if you type in Loser.com it goes to Nate Silver's wiki page, and I'm sorry. This is just mean, no, it's rude. Silver is the editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight. Which is a 'liberal' news site, I think. I am sorry, but this is what I'm talking about. It's rude. It doesn't feel good when the shoe is on the other foot. but it's still rude.>

You can't have a bible study in your own home without being harassed or even arrested. You can't wear a cross to school (this was my daughter at the high school in my town and I had to go argue with people to get it to 'slide'.) you can't take a pencil with crosses on it (again, my daughter was afraid to do this because she didn't want to get in trouble) you can't read a bible during lunch (my best friend's daughter was told she had to take it home and couldn't let anyone see it)

The cross from 911 is offensive.

God bless, is offensive.

God is offensive.

Not Allah, Not Buddha, Not Thor or Zeus, not Satan. God. The Christian God to be exact.

You know what kids write on my other page instead of 'oh my god'? Oh my Gods. why? guess.

Again, political correctness is selective, because not once did I hear about it not being ok to persecute people of those beliefs, lifestyle, political standing. It was ok to bully, force, ridicule, be rude, mean and even be violent against those few selected.

It's ridiculous.

Now, here's the other side of this. Free Speech and Freedom of Expression.

My husband, the man who loves me so much he gave me his Kidney to keep me here. He loves me so much that he would break himself to give me whatever I want. I am truly spoiled and in love with him. And I go out of my way to try to make him feel important, loved and most of all respected.

He is amazing. He has battled a mental illness all his life, and yet he is the one who takes care of me. He works hard, he does his best to make ends meet so that I can stay home to take care of our kids.

And he is Army.

Yeah, he's retired, but, as most family members of military know, once military, always military. That's why we say, 'he/she is army/navy/marine/airforce,'.

So believe me when I say, I HATE seeing people burn the flag. My husbands face when he see's a flag being burned makes me see red. And I want so much to go over and scream at these people that they are killing my husband. That they are spitting on the very people who are fighting and have fought and died for that piece of cloth that they are destroying. It not only offends me, it makes me feel like I want to vomit. I want to scream, yell, cry, hit, smack and yeah beat the living crap out of them for the total disrespect that they are showing.

But I can't, I don't, and I won't. ever.

why?

THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES!

My husband didn't defend the flag (be calm, give me chance to finish this sentence) he defended the ideals behind it. The flag is only a piece of cloth that represents it. I have gotten into fights with my own mother over this. She was totally aghast that I would defend the people doing this. But they have that right.

There's a quote from a movie (I have always said that God talks to me thru the media, remember?). The American President. Michael Douglas, and Annette Benning. Yeah he's a democrat and Richard Dreyfuss plays a total jerk as the republican, and yeah the president is against the 2nd amendment, but, I do really like it and I've seen it several times and there is an awesome quote.

"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.

Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free."

Guess what. That means you are going to be offended. You are going to be offended a lot. Sometimes it will even hurt your feelings. It means that you can listen or you can walk away or you can stand across the street and give them dirty looks and pray OUTLOUD to God that people don't believe what he's saying and even rant and rave about how wrong those people are.

It means I have the right to offend you. I have the right to laugh at you, I have the right to be rude, and stupid and wrong and make a fool of myself in proving whatever I want because I have the right to express my opinion and or feelings however way I want.

You also have the right to be offended, hurt, angry, frustrated, disgusted, laugh at me, hurt my feelings, be rude and stupid and make a fool of yourself because you too have the right to express your opinion and or feelings however way you want.

AS long as ...
- it doesn't incite panic and/or violence
- child pornography
- give false statements of fact
- you are not claiming ownership of someone's written/spoken words

(Now, I know there are a couple of people who are going to be fact checking everything on here, so I am going to say I did leave out a couple cuz quite frankly there are a ton of limitations that are very controversial and vague. such as obscenity. Which is kind of a social/cultural/moral definition. And there is also the 'fighting words/offensive speech' which again is driven by political correctness/social/cultural/moral reaction. No one can come up to me and say a word that takes control of my brain and make me punch someone. I control myself, but apparently, there is a debate on others who can't. So ... I'm not going to go there right now.)

Ok, so .. now here is my ending on this posting.

The chaos we are witnessing is the result of political correctness. My opinion, yeah, but this is why I have it.

The people protesting right now can't for the life of them understand why they lost. They feel cheated, offended, angry, betrayed, and they are pissed.

Why is this PC's (AKA Political Correctness) fault?

Because they weren't allowed to see or hear anything but the PC version to the opposing side. Which was, that Trump was a misogynist, rapist, bigoted, homophobic, liar, tax cheater, money loving, hate-mongering, asshole who is going to freak out and kill us all.

And a 'Trump Supporter,' was also/most likely a misogynist, bigoted, homophobic, liar, tax cheater, money loving, bible thumping, hate-mongering, asshole.

However, if we were of an ethnic, homosexual, transgender, or .. female.

We were obviously uneducated, being coerced, lied to, or have been threatened with deportation if we didn't do what were told. I'm saying 'we' because I'm one of those labeled here.

(I find it amusing that the group that started out as not liking labels, now labels everyone, except when it's not PC to use labels, which depends on who it is who is doing the labeling or being labeled.)

That's PC people. And that's exactly why Free Speech is better.

You have to have a thick skin for it. It hurts. But it treats everyone equally. We all get a say, and we can all listen, argue, defend, debate, cry, whine, yell but in the end we all get heard.
So what will people use to protect themselves or others from being hurt, offended, 'triggered'?

Respect. An action that is much needed now. Oh and what about manners? Remember being taught manners? Here's another phrase that seems to be forgotten.

Be polite.


Ok, that's it. Thank you for putting up with this long winded whatever it was. and again ...

Thank you for listening.