There's something that has been bothering me. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes to America, and is invited to speak at Columbia. The magnitude of people wanting him to be silenced was substantial and it made me think.
We are now a society that wants to pick and choose when we are allowed to utilize our rights. Now, Mahmoud is not an American citizen and is not afforded these rights, but our citizens' reactions were frightening. As soon as someone says something we don't like, we immediately want to silence it. Whether it is construction workers whistling in public, Ward Churchill making cruel metaphors, or rappers singing about their bitches.
Ultimately, I have found that I have become less and less offended by peoples' words due to the fact that I have realized that EVERYTHING can be offensive to EVERYONE. I don't like it when I hear about the Fairmont Park rapist. Don't like it at all. It gives me nightmares. I should stop Fox 29 from reporting the 315th murder in Philadelphia, too, because it scares me.
I don't like Dane Cook's voice. He bothers me. I am going to sue over the horrendous baseball playoffs commercials using him.
And I don't like it when Rachel Ray says EVOO.
Once you realize that peoples' words are just...words, it's easy to move on. It hurt when people chased me around the school yard and called me a Nazi fool in grade school because I had a REALLY German maiden name. But, I had the right to call him a douchebag. Or I had the right to walk (er...run) away and ask God to damn him to hell. See? It all works out.
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