I should be working right now–working on my science fiction story–but I can’t because I am irritated.  Bothered is more like it.  To link my irritation to science fiction, I should quote Guy Montag from the Bradbury classic Fahrenheit 451.

We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?

Yeah, I’m that kind of bothered, bothered about that cartoon contest Sunday night near Dallas where two gunmen showed up, intending to do harm (Update–ISIS is now claiming responsibility for the gunmen) but they were stopped before they ever got started  (click here for CNN) because one Garland traffic officer with a pistol took out two terrorists with automatic weapons and body armor.  And yes, in case you’re wondering, that is how we roll in Texas.  When they make this movie, Bruce Willis will no doubt play the role of the traffic officer.

What bothers me is that by the next morning people all over the media were blaming the people hosting the cartoon contest for the incident.  For an example of this type of gross equivocation click on this link to read a hatchet piece over at the Huffington Post.  It is rather nauseating, because people can’t seem to tell the difference between words and weapons, and the result is that over and over and over again pseudo-intellectuals and media types were blaming the people at the “Draw Muhammad” contest, those people who would have been Charlie Hebdo-ed had the police not been there.

I have no doubt that the people who organized the “Draw the Prophet Muhammad” contest, or whatever it was named, are odious and mean, even hateful.  However, people who are exercising their constitutional right, however distasteful it might be, can never be cited as the victim or as the ones who brought it upon themselves.  I’ve used this analogy before, but it needs stating again–this reasoning is akin to blaming a woman for being harassed or raped because of the way she dressed or behaved.  Need another example?  If someone is burning the United States flag in protest, but an offended patriot tried to kill them, no one would ever blame the flag burner even if we all disagreed vehemently with what the flag burner was doing.

As a pastor, preacher, writer, and historian free speech is dear to me, and it is sad to watch it fall upon such terrible times.  We are told what words we can’t say, we are told who we have to be nice to, and we are warned constantly not to offend anyone.  The net effect is that liberty is retarded in the United States.

Free speech in our nation is almost dead, and you can hear its death rattle every day on the news.

Other free speech posts from Pastor Greenbean

Charlie Hebdo

Koran burning

Google Searches/Spying

NSA T-Shirts

image from jewishpress.com