Free Speech




I believe in free speech. I believe deeply that it's our most precious freedom. So on today of all days our free speech is even more important than before. I kept thinking about this while I watched news coverage earlier today about an American branch of Islamic extremists who had a protest praising the hijackers. I kept reminding myself that it's the speech we disagree with the most , that needs the most protection.
I don't have all that much experience with protests or rallies. In point of fact I can only remember seeing one demonstration in my entire life. It was at college . There were a bunch of kids protesting the fact that my college had money invested in some South African companies. ( This was during apartheid)They demanded that my school divest immediately.
In order to show the horrible poverty that the black population of South Africa faced, these protesters made a little "shanty town " out of cardboard boxes. 24 hours a day they sang "We shall overcome". They vowed not to leave, no matter how bad it got during the cool wet spring evenings.
I personally couldn't care less about apartheid. If these guys wanted to protest instead of getting drunk while in college more power to them , I thought.
What I did care about was that they had erected their little shanty town across the street from my frat house. Laying on the roof, drinking a winecooler, and looking up at the stars just wasn't the same with these pin heads singing "We shall overcome ". It got to the point where we were all going to our classes instead of blowing them off , because we couldn't stand the singing. A few of my frat brothers wanted to go over and kick their butts.
"No", I'd say. "They have a right to be annoying little pukes. We have to respect their rights ."My frat brothers weren't happy ,but they agreed to leave them alone.
As much as they annoyed me I couldn't help but think it was a victory for free speech.
That Friday on a very cold spring evening , my frat threw a big party. The shanty town across the street was being advertised as a peace rally , so we called our party a war rally to protest them. We even advertised in the local newspaper. We had a big sheet with a large target painted on it hanging from our second floor. There was a large turnout.
For some unknown reason this seemed to upset the people in the shanty town.
Of course I didn't care. All I cared about was that Cathy , a girl I'd been trying to get to know better all year had showed up in a toga. And she was very drunk! I couldn't have asked for anything more.
Well maybe one thing.
To protest our protest against their protest, the shanty town pinheads had found even more people with nothing to do to come over and sing,"We shall overcome!" As loud as our party was , the shanty town people were louder. It started to disrupt my concentration while convincing drunk Cathy that I respected her intelligence. I tried to block it out but found myself failing. I asked Cathy if she'd excuse me , and went outside.
I grabbed the garden hose and stretched it as far as I could across the street. With a drink in one hand and the hose in the other I sprayed my shanty town neighbors with water.
A lot of water.
May I point out that for a peace rally these guys reacted very unpeacefully. Thankfully my roommate and a few other friends were there with me. When it was over most of the shanty town people left to find a dryer place to have their protest. Afterwards I wandered back to my frat house only to find that Cathy's toga was laying on the couch and she had gone off with my frat brother John. Realizing that some things just weren't meant to be I grabbed another drink and went outside and laid on the roof. For the first time in a week I could stare at the stars with hearing "We shall overcome!"
The moral of this story? If you find some protesters praising the hijackers , please respect their right of free speech.
But if you do happen to spray them with a garden hose I'm not going to say anything.