Is there a buzzing in your ear? That'd be the thought police.
Mine haven't buzzed since the immunotherapy wore off. So I've been thinking.
It should be obvious. Killing is wrong. Period. Charlie Kirk should not be a murder victim. No American should be killed for their beliefs or their words--not the person I agree with and not the person I don't agree with.
There are no buts here.
I believe in freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of belief. Freedom of the press, it's all right there in the first amendment. They used to teach you about the bill of rights in the 8th grade. Which would be the year I wrote my first column for the school newspaper. Fifty four years later here we are.
There used to be a saying in this country, I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight for your right to say it. Nobody says that in the age of social media.
That kind of thinking will get you canceled on both sides now.
I'm appalled by the rhetoric since Kirk's killing all around. From the insane ranting of the felon in chief and his trolls on one end of the spectrum to the unapologetic two faced killing is bad but... raving from some on the other end. Pointing fingers is the last thing we need but that's what social media is built for.
Here's what this has me thinking. Expect the thought police soon.
There are freedoms we share spelled out in the Bill of Rights. But not all the freedoms we cherish are in print. Some are implicit. We recognize several, but one stands above all.
It's just never mentioned.
It is the freedom to hate. That's in our blood. We're a nation of people who hated things so badly they left everything they knew and journeyed to a wild and uncivilized land where anything could kill you.
They learned to hate new things. Different things. Landing where people from all over the world were landing meant a lot of different things to be afraid of.
Hate isn't all bad, just mostly. It's natural to hate things that would cause you harm just hard to discern between those that would and those that wouldn't. Most hate is misguided. Which is why it should be used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.
But social media was built to spin hate. Hate makes money and is easily manipulated. It's always been our achilles heel. You've got to hate someone to make a slave of them. Many have died for the freedom to hate, from the War between the States to the modern loon going out in a blaze of gory glory taking as many as possible with them.
A nation of immigrants who hates immigrants is not healthy.
I try to live without practicing hatred, but it's still there. I exercise my freedom to hate. I hate cancer. I hate watching my mother suffer and deteriorate as she nears the end of life.
And I hate the attacks on the first amendment, whether by the bullets of the deranged or the words of the very people who were elected to protect it.