LIMITED FREE SPEECH

Last Wednesday began like any other at my job. Our pre-shift meeting started promptly at eleven. Before adjourning, Tony Chan, my manager, introduced a new beer. He described its taste as "hoppy." I seized the opportunity for a wisecrack. "Come again?" I inquired. "Hoppy, as in a rich, barley flavor," he replied. "Now I understand," I said, "I thought you were trying to pronounce happy but couldn't because you're Asian." Wisecracks being standard operating procedure in my workplace I was surprised when he did not respond with a retaliatory jibe. His stony stare made it clear that he found the remark distasteful.

Later I approached him privately. He contended that my joke was inappropriate because it was made at his expense. In my defense I reminded him of a joke he made at the expense of one of my coworkers the day before. In reply he posited that his zinger was harmless because it was not made about said employee's race or religious beliefs. For once I left well enough alone. I apologized for the remark, but I didn't really mean it. See, in my rational mind a joke is a joke is a joke, a joke is an idea meant in jest.

Judging from what I read in the papers and hear on the street, most Americans are so brainwashed by Political Correctness they take knee-jerk offense to ideas, sometimes without even being able to define how the idea is offensive. Is it not true that some persons from the Far East have difficulty pronouncing certain letters and sounds in the English language? Is poking fun at that fact really tantamount to bigotry?

What is so innately Un-American about this particular school of thought is the notion that it is the pinnacle of intellectual and moral enlightenment, and dissenters should not only be silenced but punished. At best, that's a mob mentality; at worst it's Mein Kamph. The following is but one example from the mainstream media of how Political Correctness is not only usurping our ability to think rationally, but to think what we want.

Washington DC - On January 26, the director of D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams's constituent services office resigned after being accused of using a racial slur. Davis Howard used the word "niggardly" while addressing his staff. Two members of his staff, both black, were unfamiliar with the word. They complained, and Howard was placed on administrative leave. An investigation quickly showed that he had said nothing wrong. The word niggardly predates the African slave trade. Still, Howard resigned stating that rumors of his alleged use of a racial slur, had, "…severely compromised [his] effectiveness as the District's Public Advocate..." He resigned - not the boneheaded race baiters who spread the false rumor, but the guy who said nothing wrong to begin with.

Calgary Sun (January 1997) Should the government be able to stop you from participating in political activities in your private life, even if they don't affect your work? Of course not. But that's what happened in Ontario's Peel Board of Education. According to charges from his school board, educator Paul Fromm "continued to participate in conferences sponsored by organizations which advocate white supremacy and anti-Semitism." On those allegations alone the school board decided not to renew his contract. The school board's sole condemnation was that Fromm's political activities "were inconsistent with the fundamental or 'core values'" a teacher is supposed to teach." In '94, Fromm was investigated to see if he was infecting his classrooms with his ideologies. He was exonerated.

Part of our national identity as Americans is subscription to the belief that our nation is "The greatest in the world." The U-S was built on a Native American Holocaust. During the Salem Witch Trials, nineteen people and two dogs were accused of being witches and put to death. Our country rushes to invade prospective economic markets under the guise of humanitarianism while slaves are sold in Sudan. Pol Pot – the despot responsible for exterminating a quarter of Cambodia's population during his reign of terror – died of old age in his bed. If this country is indeed the greatest, our civil liberties are the reason, namely Amendment One.

Political Correctness is the biggest threat to free speech today. Proponents claim that P-C's intention is not to deny freedom of speech, but to prohibit ideas that undermine the cohesion and stability of our community… Not to deny, but to prohibit… Sorry, there's no such thing as limited free speech, and subsequent punishment is no better than prior restraint. The price of free speech is that inevitably someone is going to voice an opinion that makes you want to choke him or her. Case in point: Last month I was on stage at an Open Mike Comedy night. I spoke about my trip to Puerto Rico last March. The natives were terribly unfriendly, and I said so. I saw an inordinate amount of pregnant females, many of them much too young to be pregnant, and I said so. Out of nowhere, a female audience member began shouting profane invectives at me in the middle of my performance. I responded in kind. I left the stage and thought nothing more of it. Imagine my surprise when minutes later the lounge manager tells me that the same drunk hag who was screaming "White Trash" at me only minutes before was outside crying, demanding an apology for my remarks. Apparently, she was Puerto Rican and took offense to some of the ideas I posited while on stage. To maintain good relations with the club owner and hotel management I agreed to humor her with a facetious apology. So I went outside.

I should have reminded this woman that she consensually patronized a venue where adults entertain other adults by expressing opinions and ended the conversation there, but I didn't. Instead, I tried to diffuse the situation by informing her that I am the son of two Hispanic immigrants and explaining the inherently jocular quality of "stand up" comedy. My words fell on deaf ears. She insisted that I had crossed the arbitrary, intangible line between jest and maliciousness that she had appointed herself to set for society. That offended me. So I informed her that I would not apologize for exercising my First Amendment right to free speech under any circumstances.

At that point one of her companions, an African American man, chimed in, "I guarantee that you would not have used the word nigger on stage." I agreed with what he said, but not with why he said it. The reason I didn't use the "N" word or any other racial slur in my show was because it wasn't my intention to spout off hackneyed racial aspersions, it was simply to recount what I saw - period. But that made no difference to her, because our current social climate has allowed her and others like her to believe that their right to not be offended supersedes my right to say whatever the fuck I want and your right to listen.

And here's something I thought of after the fact, if there was no truth to what I said, why did she get so angry? If I claimed to have seen a unicorn tap dancing down a rainbow in P-R she wouldn't have raised a stink. She was hurt because that's what the truth does to us; and therein lies the appeal of a mob mentality, cry wolf, start a march on Frankenstein's castle and anything else – even truth – becomes inconsequential.

The incident ended abruptly when her other cohort threw his hands up in frustration and said, "Fuck it, let's go, he just came out here to reiterate that he was right." And that's when the big picture became clear to me: they didn't really want an apology for what I said, they wanted an apology from me for thinking up the things I said, as if merely conceiving of them were a crime – a thoughtcrime. Where have we heard that word before?

I never received any further correspondence from Joe, the Holiday Inn or Ms. Rodriguez. Two months later I moved to sunny Southern California. Some two months after that a friend was conversing with the manager on duty the night the ruckus transpired when the incident came up. After recounting what had taken place, Lynn lamented my refusal to give Ms. Rodriguez a simple apology, leading me to conclude that Joe never passed my letter along.