I am writing this a few hours after I learned that Jon Gruden, a head coach of a professional football team, resigned his position after the New York Times dug through his past and found private emails from years ago where he spoke crudely and disparagingly about certain protected peoples in our society.
I was wondering if Gruden would now be allowed to get a job somewhere
else, or would his remarks from years ago bar him from any meaningful
employment in the future. Would any apology
be considered truly remorseful and acceptable, considering he’s only doing it
after all this was made public, so, of course, he has to. But did he really mean it?
But this article isn’t really about Gruden, but about
freedom, and what are the risks that are inherent in that, and whether they are
worth it.
It is a fact in life that not everybody will like everybody else. And it can be for any of a myriad of
reasons. A lot of the time we don’t even
know the reasons. We don’t usually stop
to think about it. It can be their personality,
their appearance, their eating habits, their general attitude, or, it can be
something really important, like their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, or gender identity.
When our country was founded, it was based on inalienable rights,
things you could do without the government’s permission, interference, or
regulation. Now, rights in our country
are not focused on things you can do, but things you can’t do and things that
we are to do for you.
So before, the government was focused on things you can do,
freedom. Now it is focused on things you
can’t do, unfreedom, and things that we do for you, meaning, that the
government must now compel other people to do things for you, whether it is merely
paying for it, as in taxes, how you run your business, and how you treat people. I don’t mean here things like robbing, stealing,
assaulting, or killing people. I mean
where we hurt people’s feelings.
When our country was founded, the Founders debated whether
to include a list of inalienable rights to the Constitution. They finally agreed to and did so through amendments
to it. They were concerned that people
would think that these rights came from the government rather than from God.
None of these rights compelled anybody to do anything for
anybody else. A few compelled the
government to do certain things.
The Declaration of Independence states that governments
exist to secure these inalienable rights given to us by God. Now government exists to see that everybody
gets what their new rights are, things that the government, meaning everybody
else, has to provide for them.
You now have rights to things. And other people are compelled to give them
to you. Either things that cost money,
payable through our taxes, or intangible things like not being offended. Now we have speech monitors to make sure you
say nothing inappropriate, as judged by the crowd, social media, and certain
loud voices in our society that we are supposed to listen to. Anything you have said or done privately at
any time in your life can be made public and held against you in the court of
public opinion. And other brazen acts of
offending people are enforced by the courts and the law.
Changes in countries, especially those like ours where we
make laws to govern us change slowly. We
see a problem, and we make a law to prevent that from happening again. And over time, like planting trees, we have
changed the entire landscape of our nation.
I agree that people should be nice to each other. I don’t think that this is something that
must be compelled by the government or public pressure, such that people lose
their jobs over it. People may act more
cautiously, but they still won’t like you, and we shouldn’t compel them to act
like they do.
Sure, the world is a better place where people are kind to
each other, care for each other, and respect each other. The problem is that these are not things that
any law will produce. Forbidding people
to say disparaging things to or about other people can limit the disparaging
things that people say to or about other people, but it also limits a lot of other
things people will want to say as well.
When we have society or the government policing people’s
speech, such that their jobs, livelihoods, and reputations are at stake and
that people’s entire past can be trolled looking for any possible offense against
the written and unwritten laws of social decorum, then we are allowing a
tyranny as stifling as any dictatorship.
Yes, I know that we are not allowed to shout ‘Fire’ in a
crowded theatre if there is no fire. But
that extreme example is now used to justify limits all across the spectrum. We are no longer focusing on freedoms but limitations. We have turned the whole system on its
head.
The Founders knew that with freedom comes responsibility. If the people did not have a moral code to
willingly want to do what is right and fair and kind, they would have needed a
large government to closely monitor the people.
They believed a moral education was imperative, so they promoted the use
of the Bible in all their schools to teach love for other people and a high
moral code.
Our modern emphasis on rights as things that the government
must provide for people and things that are intangible like words and feelings is
contrary to the entire spirit and intent of our nation’s founding.
How can I be so sure?
Since our government assumed responsibility for taking care
of everybody, they have found there isn’t enough money in the country to do all
that. They are driving the country
deeper and deeper into debt, merely paying the interest on the debt yet
continually borrowing more.
I submit that the United States is the freest country in the
world, and part of that freedom is the freedom to say wrong things, inappropriate
things, bad things even, as long as you don’t do bad things to other people,
like the aforementioned robbing, stealing, killing, etc.
When we put our focus on what people say more than on what they
do, we are making a petty tyrant dictatorship such that people become afraid to
say anything important anymore or saying what they really think about things.
And that is not how you want to run a country. And that’s certainly not the United States of
America.
