Freedom of Speech!

I am pretty sure that when the founding fathers of our country were writing the Constitution they had a few different ideas about some of the circumstances for which the “rules” were written. Let’s take Freedom of Speech i.e. The First Amendment. At the time, I believe they were focused on the rights of Americans to be heard in regard to Religion, Government, Social Injustices, etc. I am positive it was not Carte Blanche to say anything we want, any where we want, to anyone we want. As a matter of fact “hate speech” is not considered a First Amendment right. This has been proven in court many times, even though, it is becoming less so all the time (probably because it is so hard to determine what is and what isn’t hate).

For instance, when did profanity become the norm? When did it become okay to use the “F – word” around children and in the general public. If you go on social media you will find that about every fourth word is a profane statement using F*&%. Back when I was a kid you would get your mouth washed out with soap if you used swear words (that even applied to “hell” and “damn” I can’t imagine what would have happened to me if I said F*&%) If that were true today, there would be as big of shortage on “Dove” as there was on “Charmin”.

I am reminded what my Dad told me. He said,
“your language was an indication of your education and of your upbringing. The worse your language, the worse job your parents did of teaching you”. He also claimed that men who swore all of the time were compensating for shortages in other areas (I really didn’t know what that meant then, but I get it now). Anyway, the point being that intelligent people don’t cuss all the time. Now, I am not opposed to a little dicey dialogue when telling a joke or when talking privately in certain situations, but to openly use profanity in public is still, at least in my opinion, unacceptable. I have done my fair share of cussing, but never to the extent did I use it openly where offense could be taken.

Let’s take my little town for instance. Right on the main road through town there is a flag flying from a house that says “F*&% Biden”. Now, personally I don’t care if people like Joe Biden or not. He won the election, he is now president, and like the former president we are going to endure him for the next four years. My problem is the “word” and the location of the banner. Every new person, school child that rides a bus, clergy, prospective business, driving through our town sees this flag as they motor through our great little community of 1500 people. What must they think? This is not a political statement, it is a message about our town and the mentality of the people who live here. The city officials have been approached about the banner, and their response is that the owner has a right to do whatever they choose to do on their property. Again, this is not a politically motivated complaint. It is about the message we are sending as a community.

More than anything this is a sign of a decaying society. It is a sign of the way we are now accepting almost anything that people do. Is it a wonder that we have so much violence, hate, and bigotry? We can’t even agree that public vulgarity is wrong and should not be allowed in our community. Every day we have a mass shooting for no reason at all. These shootings have become so common that we barely recognize that our citizens are being slaughtered by maniacal individuals. In most cases the perpetrator of these shootings takes their own life. End of story, nothing can be done. We then turn our focus on gun control, I guess because we need to blame something. Is it about the gun, or is it about our society and our lack of morality in terms of decency and regard for human life?

Everyone talks about “taking our country back”. I agree; let’s start with public decency. Let’s take the high road and condemn those that openly disregard community standards. Let’s go back and make city ordinances that support a good, clean standard of living. Let’s embrace the idea that we are a good Christian community where we value our children and citizens. Thank you for reading.

Advertisement