Contrary to statist belief, human beings are born with rights. These rights are inherent and not granted only by the good graces of Lord Government. There's a common problem among younger demographics that honestly believe that "I feel" is a valid replacement for "I think." Combine these elements and that brings us to the topic of the day: You do not have any inherent right to not be offended. It is one of those rare things in life that no one can control other than the individual so there is literally no fair way to legislate it. Of course, lots of people "feel" that logic is mean or unfair so we get a society that tries to do the impossible and legislate "niceness." while maintaining free speech.
The current buzz is related to the Washington Redskins. I won't bore anyone with why this is considered "offensive" since I'm sure you can figure out which group white folks are rushing out to be offended on behalf of, but suffice to say this is the most hilariously stupid idea I've ever heard. Let's give some background on our spotlight pity group of the minute: "Native Americans."
First, they are about as "Native" as I am. I was born here, my parents were born here, my grandparents were born here. You have to go back to the 1600's to find a branch of my family tree that doesn't root in US soil. There's this great image people have adopted as fact of peaceful Indian (somehow that word is still okay though) tribes that were sitting around petting deer and growing corn when a boatload of drunken white people showed up and started shooting them and selling their scalps for beer money. There is not a single piece of land claimed by anyone on this planet that wasn't taken from someone else by force to assume ownership. The idea that "white people", an awkwardly ironic racist generalization that is applied to anyone of fair skin from numerous locations in the world, came in and brought war, famine, and evil to a peaceful land of hugs is so naive and childish that it shouldn't merit a response, yet it is basically preached to children throughout their entire schooling. Did people land here and eventually push out another culture of people and take over their lands by force? Absolutely. Something that would have been done by those same people if they had the ability to do it. I'm sure they just had axes, tomahawks, and bows purely for hunting animals though right? I don't feel sorry for a group of people that just met with advanced weaponry, any more than i feel sorry for Somalian pirates being blown up by a cruise missile. Indians were some not peaceful people at their core innocent of any crime. Need I reference the Indian massacre of 1622? Men, women, and even children were slaughtered by Indians under the guise of a peaceful trade. Had they been abused themselves? Absolutely, but by a single group of English colonists, and though there are varying accounts of barbaric acts, none seem sinister enough to merit a massacre including small children. The ultimate irony for bleeding heart liberals on this topic is that the Indians only lashed out violently because the settlers were under orders to "collect a tribute of food and wealth" that they felt was undeserved. In other words, they felt taxes were too high. But yes, I should be burdened with guilt and restrictions in my life, nearly 400 years later, because some people with "sticks and stones" as their most advanced form of weaponry decided to stand up to people with firearms and lose brilliantly. It was a noble act to stand up in defiance of the violation of their property rights, I admire the concept, but when your plan is "just go butcher the children" I'm not gonna shed a tear when you get stomped out.
There were many humanitarian crimes committed against Indians though, I'm not denying that. The problem is that we expect society as a whole, hundreds of years later, to have their rights restricted because of individual crimes they had nothing to do with I didn't scalp any Indians, that I know of, in my life. I've probably never met a true 100% Indian, perhaps seen one that was toured around like an exotic animal in school at some point...maybe as some diversity fair. I've certainly never personally assaulted one verbally or physically. Why should I be punished?
How am I being punished? Well, I don't care enough about the NFL to be boo-hooing over the loss of Redskins as a name, but it sickens me to watch idiotic humans with misguided visions tearing down free speech, something I love dearly, all in the name of guilt. If I wanted to live my life based on rules of illogical guilt and self loathing, I would not be writing this blog at the moment, but celebrating the election of my new Pope. We should feel guilty and bad when we do something wrong. Not when someone else, unrelated in any way to us does wrong to someone else. We shouldn't like it when someone is mean to someone else. The problem with the modern world of political correctness, is that we try to scientificate (my word) a process that is 100% subjective. As if certain words, phrases, or actions are inherently evil by their mere existence. If I say "Man, I cannot wait to see the Redskins game this weekend" everyone knows I'm talking about football, there's nothing derogatory being said about Indians or anything like that. Yet this has been deemed "offensive." I have a wonderful practice anyone reading can do if they are offended by the name "Washington Redskins:" Don't watch them. Don't buy a ticket. Don't buy a jersey. You haves to all of those actions. You do NOT have the right to tell me that I cannot do those things. If the Redskins commercials were laden with "Come check out the redskins brutally rape and murder the children of the Dallas Cowboys this weekend while trying to avoid the small pox blanket of defense that is the Dallas secondary...." then you might be onto something. This is a matter of assigning hard value to a word. There's no such thing. If there were hard values to a word, you would feel that same shadow of white guilt when Jay-Z busts out "Where my niggers at" as you would when Jethro stumbles into the room and says "Anyone seen them niggers?" The usage of a word, and the intent of the person using the word are what create insult, not the letter combination and phonemes themselves. Furthermore, there are already harassment laws on the books. If I'm following around an Indian going "Hey squaw, hey redskin, hey tonto" that's harassment and already banned at the workplace, and society as a whole will treat me like a racist piece of shit for doing so (rightfully so). We don't need to treat words like the Germans treat the holocaust. Pretending these words never existed is not going to suddenly make some inbred redneck a tolerant and respectful member of society. The only thing changes like this do, as consistently reinforce the concept that we are not all equal human beings, but rather sects meant to be isolated for our differences. Again, the irony of that reality contrasted with the lovey-dovey bleeding heart crowd is worthy of a mighty head shake.
Let me explain a little bit about how being "offended" works. A person gets offended when they are weak. How harsh right? But so true. Shielding someone artificially from racism, hatred, anger, and other evils of the world by creating a false protective bubble only sets them up for the day they are bombarded by an unforeseen assault that leaves them shattered. Think of insults like getting a flu shot. We get a little bit of flu virus so that our body can build up an immune system and be prepared when the real thing comes. That's how being offended needs to work. Letting people go through life being vulnerable to suffering at simple words is like not immunizing your baby to chicken pox. Now if the "I'm offended" crowd had it their way, words like "Redskin" and "nigger" would be banned. There would be some microchip implanted into our body that would shock us every time we considered using it or something of that nature. If they had their way how much art would be lost? The same people that rally around the art world when Christians get up in arms about elephant-dunged virgin Mary want to rally behind banning words? Where would the aforementioned Jay-Z be in his career with "Nigga" as a lyrical option?
We should not seek to bury and hide an ugly past by sweeping it under the rug. Much like the child without a chicken pox vaccine, putting it off until later is only going to make it worse. Instead of hiding the stain, explain how the stain got there and what we can do to avoid another stain in the future. When a kid goes "Grand-dad, why are they called the Redskins?" It's a great time to explain how people used to label other humans by their skin color and treat them differently based on it, the term now is used in a harmless game and demonstrates how we can turn the ugliest of words and sentiments into nothing more than a logo for a game, played with a ball.
As long as we keep seeking to protect everyone we can label as a minority, we will never rise above petty racism and the true evil behind those words. Being offended is a decision made by a person hearing a word, it is a reaction, not an action. You cannot ban a reaction that is controlled solely by the person having the reaction. Maybe in your culture/family saying "Hello" is offensive because it contains the word "Hell." Should I be punished for saying Hello to you? Should I be forced to change my company's nametags that all say "hello, my name is ____" because you might be offended? Of course not. Because you're too small of a minority, you're a nut. We only like to reward minorities that are big enough to be a political conquest afterall.
There's no logic in being offended. Your inability to deal with self esteem, ego, and other internal mental conditions is not sufficient cause to remove my right to use any speech I choose to use. So I'll leave with you a much shorter and concise version of my complaint that probably sums it up a lot better than I, take it Stephen:
