Re: So hiring a hitman is fine then?
You have the right to say many things, but words have power and you also have the duty to face the consequences of your words.
Best keep your mouth shut and your keyboard unplugged then. You might accidentally say something that could be considered bad, and you have a duty to face the consequences of your words.
I know it all too well what words can do. I'm actually quite qualified to speak on so-called "hate speech" having been a victim of it a great many times. I quite literally bear the scars of someone using words to incite another to act with violence.
I'm quite qualified to speak on it. Are you? Have you ever been held by a teacher who tells your classmates to beat the gayness out of you? Has that teacher had his boot on your throat - legally - while he tells your class that "evil must be destroyed"? and suggesting that while they cannot kill you, they can encourage you to kill yourself? (Yes, it wasn't a crime in the mid 80s).
People better and braver than me won the right for those of us born/made different to live and love. To do that they had to win some very significant "freedom of speech" rights, as there was a time when saying "I'm gay" was an admission of a crime and you would either go to prison or go to a psych ward. I was still growing up then, but I have a very deep, personal understanding of what many of these men and women faced as I faced it from my own school. Few people stood with me or stood up for me, and they faced their own risks.
If we allow freedom of speech or freedom of association to be destroyed, then we allow every other right to be lost. No government, given that power, would give it up nor would they long allow us to have the other rights and privileges we currently enjoy. Those rights are under increasing attack - especially our rights to privacy. So much blood has been shed to give us the freedom we enjoy today - are you going to be so quick to throw that away? For shame.
I have the right to tell my chosen that I love him, but that right would quickly go if we allow free speech to be taken. I have a lot to lose and nothing to gain by such things.
(And if you're reading R.D - I still remember what this day means, and I'm still so grateful for what you endured to be my friend!)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
