Every freedom comes with responsibility

This is in response to the Gater's Oct. 24 commentary "Offensive to Whom?" The author remarked on the call of American Indians to stop using their images to represent baseball teams.

After taking us through what were supposed to be other examples of people trying to suppress speech because said speech offends them, the author ends with a warning: don't we realize that "incessant bitching" about offensive word usage was going to "end up muzzling us all."

This argument is a classic slippery slope. It slips and slides from an unreal view of free speech to the end of the right altogether. Telling someone I offended not to make a stink because it might interfere with my right to offend them, does not make a good argument. And neither does telling them they have the right to offend me back. This is not the makings of a civilized discourse, but the right to engage at that level is secure.

What gets criticized as overblown PCism is the attempt to be sensitive to the power of words. Look behind the words. We don't call our cars "Jeep Jews" in spite of the nice alliteration. Maybe if Hitler had been successful it would be different, but we do call them "Jeep Cherokees."

The expansion of our European legacy to an already occupied land left destroyed cultures in its wake. This process is ongoing, which is why Indians are still complaining. Holy lands are still being desecrated.

We have so-called free speech, but all freedoms have limits. How could it be otherwise? Since when does "free" mean "without responsibility?" All of our rights are qualified by the concept of the greater good.

Consider sexual harassment v. free speech. Sex was tacked onto the 1964 Civil Rights Act the day before it passed Congress as an effort to defeat it. But, sexual discrimination wasn't understood for 10 years. In 1986, we saw the first case of enforcement.

Judges started enforcing sexual harassment when they realized that offensive language or acts to a "reasonable victim," by making her workplace intolerable, interfered with the right to earn a living. The state has a greater interest in enforcing this right over the right to free speech.

This is not a case, as the commentary implies, of women unleashing some kind of plot. The courts shy away from regulating particular words, but do look closely at the consequences of those words. A workplace where everyone swears and tells dirty jokes is perfectly safe from government scrutiny as long as no one is being oppressed. This is reasonable.

No rights are absolute, and yes, there will always be conflict about rights as long as power continues to be unevenly distributed. The least we can do is recognize that Indians have the right to tell others who and what they are and stop forcing lies down their throats, and everyone else's, behind the "right" of free speech.

[ Golden Gater Online November 21, 1995 ]

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