What ought to offend us?

The grim reality of the 2010s versus the goofball racism of the 1960s. I wonder which is worse?

I'm watching the old TV show F Troop the other day and imagining how terribly offensive it must be considered today in some quarters. With its jokes based, in this case, on Red Indians and Japanese culture I'm surprised it's on free TV let alone cable. From Karate with Love is this particular episode, if you care to look it up. F Troop has also parodied Germans, French Canadians, Mexicans, Russians and, shockingly, the US Army. Horrors.

Now let's compare this to the currently popular Game of Thrones, a gore fest in the name of realism, where also an actress has publicly complained that the amount of male nudity must equal the amount of female nudity. There is a double standard here which much be addressed, we are told. And we are not expected to be upset or concerned with such flippant attitudes about propriety anyway.

I don't know about you, but I think screwball comedy mocking almost everybody and anybody without regard to feelings superior to presumed high art made for prurient interests. Give me honest lampooning over gritty reality any day. Quite frankly, it's more honest with itself.

The Redskins and the US Patent Office

Okay. Now the United States Patent Office has gotten into the fray. It has revoked patents on the Washington Redskins name; yet we hear little about free speech rights despite that.

This isn't to defend the Redskins, whose name admittedly is pretty offensive. There's no point denying that, Washington fans. But there are issues nonetheless with what the Patent Office, and arm of the US Government, has done, as well as free speech questions seen more broadly.

When the government funds art, even or perhaps especially art which is clearly intended to insult (such as the Crucifix in urine thing years ago), we're supposed to accept it as a defense of free speech even with our tax dollars paying for the offense. Yet offend certain other folks and government action goes exactly the other way. This is more than merely schizophrenic. It is dangerous when a government can say what is and is not legitimate free speech. That is exactly what the action does.

The real bottom line is that Redskins should change their name and Washington itself should get out of the business of censorship, even with such relatively mild forms as a patent office rebuke. The move isn't likely to actually hurt the organization, but it sets a bad precedent for our future leaders who might one day employ such tactics against their political enemies. Mere football games and team names will matter after that point is reached.

True Free Speech

We Americans boast routinely about free speech, being so proud of the right that we put it smack at the top of the Bill of Rights. So, perhaps, it should be. But there are unfortunately degrees to which it must be seen negatively.

There are folks who opine that free speech means the right to say offensive things. They forget that there are two ways in which someone is offended: either when the listener is a fool, or when the speech in question is genuinely offensive.

No one has a moral right to voice offensive remarks solely for the sake of making offense; that is simply rudeness at best and insulting and vulgar at worst. To say that they have such a right under the guise of free speech is really only to hide irresponsible behavior behind a pretty face. As rights only grow from responsibilities, it is reasonable to argue that the right to speak freely comes from the obligation to speak truthfully, in the reasonable interests of ourselves and the general society, and considerately, so far as circumstances may allow.

Still, the only way to really stifle morally offensive speech is censorship, and the problem with censorship is that it is only good when good people are in charge. When bad people hold the reigns, then good and necessary free speech will be prohibited. It is a risk we cannot take.

In the end, though, no one has the right to say offensive things, but merely the practical option of expressing them freely. No one has the right to be wrong in the truest sense of the term, but only the free will to be in the wrong. Until we understand that, we really won't understand the importance of a well regulated freedom at all.

Rights must be viewed in their proper perspective. They are not, not a one of them, open ended and subject to mere personal interpretation. We may treat some select few of them as absolute, but only due to abject necessity. Actions which beg the true nature of free speech do not promote but instead denigrate the right. They make us less than we can be and less than we should be. We should be good and decent people.