Much of what I see in America troubles me greatly. The point on my mind today is the erosion of the first amendment in the name of kindness, or of seditious speech, or any infringement on that most sacred of our rights.
As a girl, my father taught me an object lesson on this issue early on. The Klan was holding a rally in Dallas, where I grew up, and I told him that they shouldn't say those things, or even think them, because it was evil. His response was to tell his five-year-old that while I might not like what was being said, as an American, I had to be willing to defend to the death their right to say it, because freedom of speech was not guaranteed in all countries, and that it must be zealously guarded in order to maintain it.
The lesson stuck. I see a lot of people saying things I don't agree with, or don't like, or don't think are wise. I see the bully media, our political class, and bots on Twitter (may it go bankrupt) drumming up hatred and division between us, and we the sheeple going along with it and even joining the chorus. At the rate it's going it won't end well.
Thomas Jefferson believed we would need a revolution every 50 years in order to maintain our republic, and maybe we do -- that decision is well above my pay grade. But I think we can all take a note here and consider our rights -- and our obligations.
We have a right to free speech, and concomitantly an obligation to use it wisely. We can't control the braying chorus, but we can control ourselves.
