There’s an epidemic in this country, something that has or will affect all of us in our lives. And the government needs to act to protect us from those who may do us harm. This plague is particularly felt in schools. The children must be made safe.
President Obama, bravely speaking out against this horror, said, “We have an obligation to ensure that our schools are safe for all our kids.” Amen, Mr. President. Amen.
The best course of action to protect as many of our citizens, particularly children, as possible is to place sensible restrictions on this right we all share so as to prevent it from being used in a violent way. We can’t stop all acts of this violence, but if we could even save one person from suffering this fate…it would be immoral not to act.
I’m talking, of course, about the First Amendment, about words.
Every year, thousands of people, many of whom are children, are bullied by words. They’re made to feel bad for being overweight, having acne, braces, or messy hair. The list of things about which people are made to feel badly about is endless.
What’s worse is all the accidental bullying that takes place each year. People can build up a thick skin against drive-by “lard-assing” or an occasional swirly, but the accidental bullying that takes place through someone having more than you do or winning a game against you is hard to handle. These are the silent victims who don’t grab the front page of newspapers.
The horror of losing a game has sent many children to therapists in the hope of rehabilitating their self-esteem. The hair product industry has profited off the tears of people with cowlicks for too long.
Yes, words are sometimes used in self-defense. But for every, “I know you are but what am I?” there are countless more, “Your mamas.” And they can be used for fun, for making jokes. But for every joke there are untold “Nice shirt, geek!” cracks.
There are 171,476 words listed as currently in use according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and another 47,156 considered “obsolete.” Do we need that many words?
When you consider the average person has a vocabulary of 35,000 to 50,000 words, clearly we do not.
There are First Amendment extremists who will tell you freedom of speech is absolute, but it’s not. You can’t yell fire in a crowed theater; you can’t threaten the life of the president, and so on.
If we just banned a few, just the semi-mean words, how many tears might we save? Does anyone really need the word “loser”? People who have “loser” in their vocabulary are just as likely to use it in a fit of anger in their home or, in a lot of cases, in a self-deprecating way against themselves.
No one needs the word “loser,” or for that matter “jerk,” “moron,” “idiot,” or countless other semi-mean words. As the media has told us, words can kill.
First Amendment extremists would have you believe they have a right to use these words for whatever purpose they want. But banning them will not change Scrabble, Words With Friends or crossword puzzles. And the hurt feelings saved by eliminating these words would be immeasurable.
I know many First Amendment extremists will say I’m calling for punishing the innocent for the acts of a very few. But anyone with these words in their vocabulary, even if only use them in private, could become a user of them in public.
And most of the words these First Amendment extremists revel in being able to freely enjoy were not even invented at the time the First Amendment was written. The Founding Fathers could not have conceived of something as nasty as “cyber-nerd.” So their defense falls flat.
I hope you join me in my push to end speech violence.
This is, of course, absurd. No one would think to restrict one person’s free speech because someone else hurt others with their words.
None of these arguments make any sense, yet they have all been used in gun control advocate’s assault on the Second Amendment.
They say, “No one needs” this or that gun. But, as the Great One Mark Levin first said, it’s the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs. You don’t have to justify your exercising a right to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Piers Morgan or anyone.
They also say certain guns weren’t around at the time and couldn’t have been imagined by our Founding Fathers; that the Second Amendment only applies to muskets since that’s what there was at the time. If that’s the yardstick by which they want to measure our rights, inform them there was a much higher likelihood of them envisioning advances in firearms technology than there is them envisioning television, radio or the Internet. If the Second Amendment applies to only arms available at the time, the First should work the same way. Freedom of speech should apply only to talking, movable Guttenberg Press type printing and things written with a quill. They readily point out the absurdity of that but can’t justify it in the context of their argument.
As for Vice President Biden trotting out shooting victims as experts, well, they are as free as anyone to have their opinions. But to claim someone has more authority or is an expert because they’ve been a victim is akin to me saying I’m a doctor because I’ve had surgery.
Progressives have wanted to restrict our right to defend ourselves for decades. They happily wrap themselves in the First Amendment while wiping themselves with the Second. Even if you choose not to exercise that right, we cannot allow it or any of our rights to be chipped away under the guise of false compassion.
In the wake of Sandy Hook, this current push is being draped in the blanket of “for the children.” Few excuses have been used to perpetrate more horrors on liberty than the banner “for the children.” It’s an emotional appeal meant to override logic and drown out the question, “Why are my rights being restricted because someone else abused theirs?” They use it because it works with too many uninformed people who’ve never been exposed to the fallacy of that sort of appeal. History is rife with examples of people willingly surrendering their sovereignty to an emotional appeal without realizing it…until it’s too late.
Have you noticed how Democrats and the Democrat Media Complex aren’t using the words “gun control”? They’re using “gun violence.” Government must act to prevent “gun violence.” They’re all using it and it’s no accident. The word “control” doesn’t poll well, but who can be against stopping “gun violence”? They frame the argument in such a way as to guarantee the easy demonization of their opponent. Facts don’t matter, and the media will do its part to ensure they don’t enter the discussion.
Progressives are organized and incredibly well-funded. You will hear about the budget of the National Rifle Association, but the NRA’s entire budget is a drop in the bucket compared to the left-wing despotic billionaire machine seeking to “fundamentally transform” this nation. NBC News will get its stories from the widely discredited Media Matter for America, the fascistic front group for the dreams of Stalin, Mussolini, Mao and all of history’s greatest monsters.
If we sit by and depend on common sense or good actors to prevail, we will lose. Liberty will lose. We can’t keep fighting to lose our rights more slowly. It’s time to regain lost ground. But first we must stop losing ground. Here, this line, can be that spot. It can be the time stop the advance of tyranny. But it’s up to you to speak up and educate those who don’t know they’ve been miseducated, that they’re being lied to.
We don’t have an NBC News or a Media Matters because we have integrity. We may not have a megaphone and a machine behind us, but there’s no noise we can’t speak over if we speak together.
By the way, nearly every argument I made in the first half of this piece is made, in one form or another, in the left-wing’s push to “end bullying.” If you think those arguments are absurd, and a push like that could never happen, just wait till you see what happens if they successfully wipe out the Second Amendment.
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