Offensive Speech, Militant Mediocrity,
and the Slippery Slope
The following article was taken from Mark Turney's My Space blog (with permission) and concerns the concept of censorship of one group by another and the slippery slope many forget to think about.
Why does MySpace fascinate and obsess many of us? Networking? Pictures of people getting smashed? Those saucy girls from the dating service ads? Surveys requiring us to choose between Coke and Pepsi? Expressing our beliefs on an intelligent yet fun forum? What I like best, aside from the networking, is the ability for so many of us to voice our hearts, our opinions, our beliefs, in an environment that is not censored by the media or the government or a church, yet at the same time not subjecting us to the myriad of boobs, porn, etc.
That may well change, if we're not vigilant. There is a push to ban the group
"F*&^K THE TROOPS" from using MySpace. The theory here is that the men & women of the Armed Forces are defending our freedom with their lives in a time of war, so this group should not be allowed to say what they say. People have their pitchforks and torches out and ready; this group is offensive, and people shouldn't be allowed to offend other people.
Only thing is, THAT
particular idea happens to offend me. Since when is offending people so incredibly horrible? It's the basis of a whole lot of comedy. Are we
SO THIN-SKINNED that we must disallow anything that might potentially offend another? I know I'm offended by
PLENTY
of things, and that my own beliefs and thoughts offend
PLENTY
of other people. Our
President
offends me. People forming groups called
"F*&^k the Troops"
offend me.
Diane Sawyer offends me. What's the point? Banning Diane Sawyer? Do we eliminate everything that can offend? Anything that can hurt us? Bicycle helmets for pedestrians; baths in isopropyl alcohol?
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story called "Harrison
Burgeron"
about a very similar concept, that people might be offended if others were better than they were. And the end result of such slippery slopes is
MILITANT MEDIOCRITY. It's a fear-based society, where no one is willing to say that the Emperor has no clothes. Well, the Bible
[a REALLY offensive book: do we ban that one? They do in some countries, you know.]
says that "Perfect love drives out fear."
I believe that; I live by that.
It's actually the same argument they use for hate speech and hate crime. What makes a hate crime more heinous than a regular crime? The dead girl killed by the serial killer is just as dead as the dead homosexual killed by the homophobe;
KILLING THEM
is the crime, not what someone is
THINKING
when they kill them. The push to regulate thought becomes
VERY SLIPPERY INDEED, because what you set into precedent today can bite your tookus tomorrow. The politically-correct wind blows where it will. Hate crime becomes Thought crime. Ask Joseph Stalin or George Orwell.
Or take the example of Nazis/Klansmen speaking publicly. Is what they say so threatening that we cannot bear to let them exercise the same rights that we do? Is it as if we have no concise rebuttal that would defeat their logic, so we must muzzle them? Do we have some difficulty with science disproving the notion that
"black people evolved from monkeys and white people were created by God?"
Heck, I'VE
dismantled that one in about a minute and a half. The Nazis/KKK should have the light of day shone on their ideologies in a
VERY PUBLIC forum, so that people can see just how stupid these ideas are, then the Nazis/KKK will go the way of the dodo. No offense to you dodos.
To balance this, keep in mind, the First Amendment concerns PUBLIC
domain. MySpace is owned by a private someone, just as a restaurant or a convenience store is, and as such they may refuse to serve whom they will. Remember, you can get booted off the site for displaying mammary glands or showing violence. But if we begin to boot people off for opinions, then it's
OPEN SEASON ON ANYONE WHO DOESN'T FOLLOW A SPECIFIC SET OF IDEOLOGIES.
If you get booted off for saying
"F*&^k the Troops", then why not
"F*&^k the
Government"? or "F*&^k the Christians"
[increasingly popular, by the way, especially since so many equate--wrongfully, to my mind--Christianity with George Bush and the Republican party]
or why not "F*&%k the
Liberals"? It CAN'T
be the
"F" word itself; I see that on at least half of the sites I visit.
Personally, I think the "F*^&k the Troops"
sort of vitriol is useless, thoughtless, and immature, but that's me. You want to stop people who form groups that you don't like? Delete them, or better yet, send them messages. I delete webcam spam. It's all garbage, neh?
Disallowing them from using the forum is like becoming Nazis in order to stop Nazis. It just doesn't help us in the end.
Mark Turney
December 2006