Your Offense Offends Me

I was on the internet looking for another article I saw today about London's Billionaires (yes, with a 'B'; apparently the Millionaires can't afford to live there any more) Row, where almost 20 percent of the houses are abandoned to rot and ruin. Apparently its a tax thing; its cheaper to let them rot for 20 years and then repair them (sales tax wise, on repairs the tax is 20%; on rebuilds its 5%). Wouldn't it be nice to be able to let your 70 million POUND house rot for a few years to save 15% on the sales tax on rebuilding it? More Dollars than sense if you ask me.

But while I as looking I found this article, going on up in New Jersey. Apparently 2 Senior boys wore a Confederate Flag to an after-school sporting event. And got permanently suspended for it. Apparently some other students found it offensive. Okay; fair enough. I can see that there may be some narrow minded folks who fail to see the historical significance of and what the Confederate Flag actually stands for, and have placed their own values on it. and those values offend them.

So what? Where in the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution, or any government document does it say you  have the Right not to be offended? If you find it, let me know; there are lots of things going on that offend me, and I want to start doing something about it.

But I said the other day, one of the things about rights is that they cost you nothing for me to exercise any of my rights. You exercising some right not to be offended, cost me my right to Free Speech; something enumerated in the Constitution, and not divined from some penumbral emanation.

Why would you have a right not to be offended? How would that right have come into being? How could you EVER exercise that right without trampling on someone else's right to something? And even if this right existed, who would determine whether your right not to be offended was greater or less than my right to Free Speech?

I know who decides; the left in this country have already determined these rules, and are working their damnedest to enforce them.

Wear a Confederate Flag and offend someone? You have no right to Free Speech. Wear a Gay Pride Flag and offend someone? You have no right to be offended. See how easy it is? So how WRONG it is?

Your right to Free Speech cannot be determined by what you will say with that right. There are limits obviously; the old Fire in a crowded theater chestnut applies. (Which is one of my goals. One day I want find a crowded Fire and shout "THEATER") but that is a safety issue, not a Opinion issue. If your right to Free Speech can be determined by those in power its not Free.

And why would you choose to never be offended? Galileo's ideas offended the Church; and he was silenced, before he was proven right. Martin Luther King's ideas offended those in power, and he was silenced, before he was proven right. Thomas Jefferson's and James Madison's ideas offended those in power, and the King tried to silence them. And failed.

And now the left is trying to silence them again.

Its up to us whether they fail or succeed.