"Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection." -Neal Boortz
First, a note on tolerance. The word tolerance is bandied around with abandon anymore. Every progressive individual on the planet wants to be seen as tolerant, but tolerance is not simply supporting a cause, movement, or ideal that you already agree with. For my part, the fact that I support the rights of gays to marry does not make me a tolerant man, it makes me a man who feels gays should be free to marry as they choose. The fact that I know all races to be equal does not make me a tolerant man, is simply makes me a man who values the inherent equality of all humanity.
True tolerance is being able to live with something that you cannot agree with. It is finding a way to uphold the rights of people that you may personally find abhorrent. I consider myself a tolerant man when I concede that the Ku Klux Klan, or Chalcedon Foundation, or Nation of Islam have as much right as I do to say or publish anything they want, though I (and any thinking individual) may find it disgusting, deplorable and reprehensible on every level. This tolerance is, and has for years been, fostered by my unshakable belief in freedom of thought and speech.
As far as I am concerned, freedom of speech is exactly that; A freedom to say what one wants, when and where one wants. The choice of subject matter, word, attitude, or phrasing should have no bearing whatsoever on a person's liberty to speak their mind. This is how I can find myself in the distasteful position of standing up for the rights of speech of repugnant hate groups. But lately I've found my own personal freedom of speech chilled by the trivial use of a "dirty" word. That word, in case you were wondering, is cunt ("An unpleasant or stupid person" according to The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, just to get the whole misogynistic thing out of the way early. I highly recommend you listen to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's "This Bloke Came Up To Me" to hear it used in this context) Let me write that one more time so any and all can get the full effect of it and move on. Cunt.
(A quick aside: In the interest of future pay checks I will insist on pain of death that everything that follows is strictly hypothetical, fictional, and has absolutely nothing to do with my actual self, my actual place of employment, or anything in the actual real world.)
As a person who believes in the absolute right of any person to say any thing, the fact that such a trite word could cause one's livelihood to be threatened is absolutely astounding. The fact that the usage of the word was outside of, and had nothing to do with one's work simply boggles the mind. I'll elaborate... In passing, a person used the word in a FaceBook comment and it was not received well because one of the people who saw it (that I know of) took it as an insult against women. This, as the above definition would suggest, was not and is never the intention when this person happens to use the word. So, to clear things up this person posted an update with the above mentioned definition. Cleared up, end of story, right? Right.
For about 22 days.
At that point, more than three weeks after the event and 21 days after this person stopped giving two shits about it, this person gets called into the H.R. office at his or her place of employment and is given an avuncular, I'm-looking-out-for-you type of talk about how he or she needs to watch what they say and write. OUTSIDE OF WORK. WHEN THEY ARE NOT ON THE CLOCK. All because someone who worked with this person had their overly sensitive little feelers hurt by a fucking word.
If I were this person this situation would have crossed a very, VERY major line. I would have been forced to tell the fat, intolerant cunt who caused the hullabaloo that she needs to take responsibility for her own weak-kneed, pansy-ass sensitivities and simply ignore that which offends her. The corpulent fuck was not being forced to read what was written, she chose to accept it when she extended a friend request. If she had one shred of self-respect she would have simply approached this person and smoothed out the situation like an adult.
I'd also have been forced to lose a lot of respect for my place of employment. If I were this person, I would have been able to look past the fact that his company had recently done away with commission and taken away five thousand dollars of annual income after posting a fifty-two week high in profits ("Eh, its just the way the company is going.") I would have been able to look past the fact that, after years of being able to, the company mandated that no employees can smoke on their state allowed break ("Eh, guess I'll start chewing.") But the second a company told me I had to monitor, censor, and sanitize what I as a grown-ass adult say on my own time, I would feel forced to write a blog about it and cover my ass by making it a hypothetical, fictional political statement.
First, a note on tolerance. The word tolerance is bandied around with abandon anymore. Every progressive individual on the planet wants to be seen as tolerant, but tolerance is not simply supporting a cause, movement, or ideal that you already agree with. For my part, the fact that I support the rights of gays to marry does not make me a tolerant man, it makes me a man who feels gays should be free to marry as they choose. The fact that I know all races to be equal does not make me a tolerant man, is simply makes me a man who values the inherent equality of all humanity.
True tolerance is being able to live with something that you cannot agree with. It is finding a way to uphold the rights of people that you may personally find abhorrent. I consider myself a tolerant man when I concede that the Ku Klux Klan, or Chalcedon Foundation, or Nation of Islam have as much right as I do to say or publish anything they want, though I (and any thinking individual) may find it disgusting, deplorable and reprehensible on every level. This tolerance is, and has for years been, fostered by my unshakable belief in freedom of thought and speech.
As far as I am concerned, freedom of speech is exactly that; A freedom to say what one wants, when and where one wants. The choice of subject matter, word, attitude, or phrasing should have no bearing whatsoever on a person's liberty to speak their mind. This is how I can find myself in the distasteful position of standing up for the rights of speech of repugnant hate groups. But lately I've found my own personal freedom of speech chilled by the trivial use of a "dirty" word. That word, in case you were wondering, is cunt ("An unpleasant or stupid person" according to The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, just to get the whole misogynistic thing out of the way early. I highly recommend you listen to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's "This Bloke Came Up To Me" to hear it used in this context) Let me write that one more time so any and all can get the full effect of it and move on. Cunt.
(A quick aside: In the interest of future pay checks I will insist on pain of death that everything that follows is strictly hypothetical, fictional, and has absolutely nothing to do with my actual self, my actual place of employment, or anything in the actual real world.)
As a person who believes in the absolute right of any person to say any thing, the fact that such a trite word could cause one's livelihood to be threatened is absolutely astounding. The fact that the usage of the word was outside of, and had nothing to do with one's work simply boggles the mind. I'll elaborate... In passing, a person used the word in a FaceBook comment and it was not received well because one of the people who saw it (that I know of) took it as an insult against women. This, as the above definition would suggest, was not and is never the intention when this person happens to use the word. So, to clear things up this person posted an update with the above mentioned definition. Cleared up, end of story, right? Right.
For about 22 days.
At that point, more than three weeks after the event and 21 days after this person stopped giving two shits about it, this person gets called into the H.R. office at his or her place of employment and is given an avuncular, I'm-looking-out-for-you type of talk about how he or she needs to watch what they say and write. OUTSIDE OF WORK. WHEN THEY ARE NOT ON THE CLOCK. All because someone who worked with this person had their overly sensitive little feelers hurt by a fucking word.
If I were this person this situation would have crossed a very, VERY major line. I would have been forced to tell the fat, intolerant cunt who caused the hullabaloo that she needs to take responsibility for her own weak-kneed, pansy-ass sensitivities and simply ignore that which offends her. The corpulent fuck was not being forced to read what was written, she chose to accept it when she extended a friend request. If she had one shred of self-respect she would have simply approached this person and smoothed out the situation like an adult.
I'd also have been forced to lose a lot of respect for my place of employment. If I were this person, I would have been able to look past the fact that his company had recently done away with commission and taken away five thousand dollars of annual income after posting a fifty-two week high in profits ("Eh, its just the way the company is going.") I would have been able to look past the fact that, after years of being able to, the company mandated that no employees can smoke on their state allowed break ("Eh, guess I'll start chewing.") But the second a company told me I had to monitor, censor, and sanitize what I as a grown-ass adult say on my own time, I would feel forced to write a blog about it and cover my ass by making it a hypothetical, fictional political statement.
