Stay Woke to Freedom of Expression… Before We All Lose It.

First, I am on your side. The side that rejects evil/hate. And if any #NAZI scum ever threaten you with physical harm, I stand at the ready to open up a can of Jerry Springer on their ass.

But what does freedom of speech in America mean?

Imagine if someone insisted that you have no right to do with your body what you will. Imagine if they said your body, but not your choice. Imagine if they said it doesn’t matter that you were raped, you will carry that baby to term. Imagine if they passed laws regarding this. Now imagine if someone insisted that you have no right, under law, to voice your grievances in public.

Imagine if someone told you that our country was founded on Christian principles. That we are one nation under God. Not once nation under Allah or Muhammad or Vishnu or Buddha or mountains and streams and rocks, but one nation under the Christian God and as such, you must proclaim your commitment to that God Almighty or face jail time. Or public stoning. Now imagine if someone insisted that you have no right, under law, to voice your grievances in public.

The ACLU says that freedom of speech, press, association, assembly, and petition are guarantees protected by the First Amendment. They comprise what we refer to as freedom of expression, the foundation of a vibrant democracy. That without that freedom of expression, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither away.

The point is that you don’t have to agree with what people express. You don’t have to agree with the vitriol that Nazis espouse. It simply means, that under law, you must simply allow them to have their voice, as long as it’s not coupled with violence. So when #Charlottesville first happened, I suggested these Nazis were merely loud-mouth skinhead punks who wanted to throw a public temper tantrum, and that we should have just let them have their tantrum, their Freedom Of Expression, so that they could return to their parents’ basements to play video games and smash beer cans on their heads.

Counter protesters could and SHOULD have stood peaceful guard in CASE some shit happened, the way that counter protesters do when Westboro Baptist asshats come out to spread their hate. The way that counter protesters form human chains when those idiots try to scream their vitriol at a fallen gay soldier’s funeral. But instead, counter protesters in Charlottesville came ready for a fight, screaming that Nazis have no freedom of expression (see the irony?). No right to wave a Confederate flag. No right to voice their grievances about removal of a statue. EVEN IF that stature was erected post war as a means to intimidate.

So because both sides came ready for a fight, a fight is what happened. Consider the It Takes Two theory. Had counter protesters stood peacefully back, stood peaceful guard, there would have been no violence, no death, no media there making those one hundred or so punks seem important by providing TV coverage which increases ratings, which leads to more money for media corporations, which leads to more coverage of Nazi punks slinking out of the basement to shout their pathetic tantrums, which brings out The Sky Is Falling crowd, and round and round the cycle goes.

So #Resist, #Persist, and #StayWoke to what #freedom of expression actually means, before it is taken away from all of us.