The right to say what you mean annd the right to suck up the aftermath.

Yah know, over the past week or so there has been a whole bunch of going on and on about racism. Cattle Rancher going off on people of color while protesting the government trying to get his cattle off of Welfare. Sports type person having a racially charged conversation with his significant other. Hells, I am pretty sure you can find a few others out there to add to the list without much effort. I'll let you do that, I'm too lazy.

Now the two sides of arguifying I have heard on these very sensitive issues is as follows. Side one is “He oughta not have said that!” and Side two is “He shouldn't be allowed to say that!” Now anyone who has any sort of common sense should see the problems with both of these statements. (No I don't mean my atrocious spelling and grammar!) Let us cover each one in greater detail so see if you can get the picture.

“He oughta not have said that” is first on the list of...well two. Well on the face of it, I can kind of agree with this one. Using the Cattle Guy as the example, the Old Dude stood in front of a camera and announced to the world his views on “Negros.” If this was 1914, I could see making those statements safely without any fear of repercussions. Heck he might have gotten away unscathed if he had used any word besides “Negro” or one of its derivatives. However, as a general rule, most people both Black and White aren't really comfortable hearing that word bandied about, especially by old white people.

Still he did say it and even doubled down on it later on when pressed on the issue. So should he “oughta not said it?” Prolly not, but get over it. He said it. It made him look even worse than before. It added maybe an extra minute to his 15 minutes of fame. It is done. Get over it. By ranting on and on about it, you are just giving this guy free publicity. Trust me, him and his cattle aren't really worth the time and effort.

Now on to the most important side. I get from a huge majority of the posts and responses that I have seen that a huge attitude is “He shouldn't be allowed to say that.” A lot of sites are stressing that what he said was “Hate Speech” and that people shouldn't be allowed to talk like that because it might offend someone. I read these statements and just kind of shake my head.

First of all, in the case of the Cattle Dude, what he said wasn't really any sort of hate speech. Was it a tad ignorant? Was it a trifle Retro? Yes and yes, but it wasn't really hate speech. He didn't say that Negros should be whipped or hung. He didn't advocate putting them all back on plantations. (Well okay the “picking cotton” thing may have been a bit much, but the guy is OLD and back in his day, Everybody picked cotton. Lord knows my family did.) He merely tried in his own semi-dementia sort of way to draw a comparison between “Social Slavery” and Physical Slavery. So I don't really think it can be qualified as Hate Speech, more of a kind of Confused Speech.

Secondly and most importantly, is this attitude that he shouldn't have been allowed to say that. That somehow we should be able to muzzle and tamp down anyone's opinion that we don't like or that we find insulting. To me this is completely antithetical so the very concepts our country was founded upon. FREEDOM OF SPEECH is not nor has it ever been “Freedom of speech that isn't insulting or annoying to me.” Everyone has the right under our laws to express their opinions as vocally and publicly as they want. If they don't like someone or something, they are allowed to write blogs, make videos or smoke signals to express it. Despite what so many people want to think, it really is that simple.

Course that freedom is a double edged sword. You have the right to express your opinion no matter how loathsome it may be to others. You can publish your pamphlets (Wait do people still publish those?) and stand on your soapbox to shout to the world what you think is right. On the flip side of that freedom is the fact that you also have the right to be ridiculed, poked fun at or ignored by people who realize that you might just be a nutball. No one should ever have the power to say, “Hey you can't say that” cause that is a very slippery slope my friend. After all, everything everyone says is offensive to someone somewhere in the world

As an ending note, I have used Cattle Guy as my examples more than Sports Guy mainly because I actually feel they are two separate cases. Cattle Guy said his opinions out loud for all the world to hear. Sports Guy said his words supposedly in private with someone he supposedly trusted. Everyone has a public persona and a private persona. We all have things we think or feel that we would never express to the world at large. We keep our private thoughts and feelings private and put on the public face whenever we are out and about. Sports Guy may be the world's biggest bigot, but all that matters to the world at large is the attitude and show he puts on for the public.

In the end, everyone has the right to say and feel the way they want to. They are free to dislike whomever (whoever? Always get those two mixed up.) they want. On the other hand, I have the right to mock and crack on them whenever they do it. Ain't America Wonderful?