Free Speech

I wrote about free speech earlier, where I decried the crime of being offended (while still trying to look at the entire situation) should not have pushed people to silence others. In fact, I disagreed with many people who said that trying to silence someone was not the same as a free speech violation, and that, duly, we should all watch what we say. Even xkcd [1] chimed in to say you cannot offend. Right. Again, this is in line with the core of the Constitution (I'm speaking specifically of America now) while being completely against the spirit of that amendment. Yes, you're violating someone's free speech, and the very thing this nation relies upon is in danger when we try to silence people and not engage them.
I'm actually not sure why people find this hard to understand: that the first amendment is all about increasing the chance for dialogue and we should try to foster such an idea everywhere. And yet though in the past it was the right that really tried to use other methods of censorship, it now seems that the left is doing it more and more (for whatever ill-conceived reason); and even though this is against some of those old power structures of the right, this rarely achieves anything. As Coates says, it's just asking for a better class of racist since even if someone like Clive Bundy isn't around, there are still many racist policies around. So stop being so easily offended. And I'm telling this to people with whom I agree with on many issues.
Sad it is. But just because you gain a slight upper hand, don't immediately go for some odd purge (of the media as it) as the people who once purged you did once. We should always aim to be better.

[1] Though I certainly don't take much of what that cartoon says seriously, since it's much fun about nothing

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