A colleague forwarded this to me this morning. The caption provided read: "Alright liberals, guessing you're gonna call this freedom of speech. If I see this I will have the freedom to place boot in teeth." And a long string of invective followed in the comment section. The first obvious observation has to be, this is not in the United States. Until we start conquering/annexing African muslim countries and extending the constitutional protections to our colonies the idea that the whole world enjoys freedom of speech is somewhat moot. Americans do not really have freedom of expression either, Congress passes laws all the time restricting what we little people can say or do. Freedom of speech by definition is the unfettered ability to say what others disagree with. Now, the guy posting it and many commenting on it are veterans of our colonial wars, so it is unsuprizing that after mixing with locals who don't like what "we" are doing over there, their hearts are a little hardened. But what the heck does this have to do with Liberals? I guess we didn't cheer loud enough when our Democratic black President assassinated bin laden?
Well, ask a Korean war vet what they think of Koreans. Ask a Vietnam vet what they think of Vietnamese. Dehumanizing epithets are something our soldiers are pretty good at inventing. But again, what does this have to do with American Liberals? What makes a "real american" want to bully and badger fellow Americans into defending this shirt? It is an old trick and something that seems to come naturally to them, but really the manichean duelism that informs it is the hallmark of a small mind. If I like something, then you who disagrees with me must automatically dislike it. If I hate something, then you must automatically defend it. And too many people of whatever stripe fall into the trap in a kneejerk fashion.
Conversely, if I or someone like me says "uh, go to hell you fascist pig this has nothing to do with me" that reaction plays right into the other extreme where the hotheaded bully becomes a helpless victim, terrorized by the all-powerful liberal elite. The whole game is a silly illustration of how hellbent a certain faction of "real americans" are on starting a Civil War based on ideology. I guess Jello Biafra was right when he said the tapestry of factions is weaved throughout the American fabric with no clear place to draw the battle lines. Of course if you started this kind of argument in downtown Madison or some other liberal area, you'd probably get a "get away from me" kind of response. While in the south, they would kill your cat at the very least if you fell into the trap of defending the bloody shirt.
dude, people are just...man. I wish we had gone over the federalist era a little more in Hoeveler's class cos that's where this democracy thing, you know, originated. And it was never intended that democracy would turn into this sort of crass populism, where some joe nobody gets it in his head that its up to him to defend the dignity of the whole country. all these idiots wanting to go back to the founding fathers would most definitely end up with their butts handed to them...
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