What’s the trouble with rights? You don’t know? Well, then, that’s the first indication of why rights are in trouble.
Yesterday I was reading a column, written by a man in Maine – Al Diamon. He writes: “The trouble with the right to free speech is other people’s vocal cords. They insist on flapping them to utter obnoxious noises.
Also, other people’s computers, used to produce ridiculous postings. And let’s not forget other people’s fingers, which operate the aforementioned computers, light matches to burn American flags and flip us the bird when we politely suggest they conceal their ignorance by shutting their pie holes.”
I long for such eloquence. (That doesn’t mean to shut your pie hole.)
Rights are a funny thing these days, mostly because we have been trained to disrespect anyone in disagreement with our ideology and perspective on rights. Along with this training, comes the action to force everyone to do what I want them to do and to hell with you. Perhaps if we took a giant step backwards and began all over again learning about respect and proper etiquette, the problem could be solved.
It’s mostly simple stuff. I remember in what today is called Middle School, learning something as simple as answering a telephone. I suppose in a day and age when actually using vocal chords to communicate on a phone is falling by the wayside, replaced with texting in coded language, proper etiquette in telephone use would be laughed at. However, as digitally techie everything has become, we still need to talk on the phone and should learn the once-proper way. And, what about holding doors and helping elderly people across the street, checking on your neighbor, assisting a disabled motorist, etc.? I always hold doors to whoever is behind me, regardless of their species. Most are thankful, but I have had some, mostly of the opposite sex, tell me they are very capable of holding their own door. See what I mean? Me holding the door has nothing to do with whether a person is capable or not.
Those who think they promote free speech have an odd way of going about it. In their one hand they carry the torch for free speech, while in the other they wield the machete of eagerness to chop the heads of those who don’t agree with them – exercising their right to free speech. This is when the right to free speech becomes nothing of the kind, more closely resembling fascism.
Realizing it is impossible, try to imagine how free speech would work if there existed something called respect. Yeah, I know. You can’t do it. You are programmed in opposition to such thinking.
What has amplified the distorted view of free speech is technology. Techno-Zombies are everywhere. With their equipment, a devise purposefully designed to destroy societies, in hand, there is little, if any, accountability for the letters and words that are put on a computer screen or cell phone. We have been programmed to believe it is your right to do, say and act anyway you choose because “you have a right to free speech.” The boundaries of respect are falling at a pace that’s sure to end this society in disaster.
People haven’t a clue about verbal tonal inflections and body language that tell us much more than the words someone is uttering. These two elements are missing from text. If the author of that text hasn’t a clue, they will write words that are dangerous and harmful and not realize what they are doing.
Often I hear people talking to me and telling me of an email they got from someone. They begin to repeat the text of the email, adding their own tonal inflections and body language. HUH? I ask, how do you know that was the tone and attitude behind the texted message? Did you actually speak to this person? If not, there is no way of knowing exactly what the message was.
In short, texting can be and is a dangerous weapon, loaded with the false belief that the sender has a right to free speech, and they don’t have a clue about their responsibilities in exercising that right.
If you drive a car, unless you have lived a very sheltered life, you have taken your car into a traffic circle. Traffic circles once were designed to better keep traffic flowing instead of piling up at a traffic light. Traffic circles are mostly a thing of the past, but the more I travel, the more I see things that sort of resemble a traffic circle. Here in Florida they are called a round-about.
The magic of a traffic circle is that it was once designed with the idea that drivers would have respect for the other driver, sort of a give and take approach. This is why they don’t work today. The attitude is “Screw You” and get to hell out of my way. This “right” and right to free speech carries over into much of our lives today. The highways are hell. Entrance ramps to highways generally have a “Merge” or a “Yield” sign for traffic entering the highway. Almost never do those drivers merge or yield. It’s only TAKE. Screw you. Get out of my way. I have just as much right as you do. Instead of teaching what respect is as a driver, we have paid billions of dollars to redesign on-ramps in order to allow aggressive and disrespectful driving.
I wonder if you would honestly answer a question if I posed it to you? Here’s the question. Have you ever spoken or blurted out at some point during a conversation and said, “There oughtta be a law?” Unfortunately most of us have and for all the wrong reasons. Somehow we have been trained to believe that how you think, others should think the same way; that how you act, others should act the same way; that how you eat, sleep, relax, worship, etc., others should be forced to do it that way too.
Hidden in the act and wrongly perverted is a person’s notion that that is free speech. Wrong.
What this world needs is to take a giant step backwards and begin to learn respect all over again. I wonder if it could really be done?
From my perspective and knowledge, there is only One who can accomplish that task. If only we should ask.
