SamSaid!

FREE SPEECH

     Back in college days, my majot was Political Science, regarded  in those days as pre-law. After getting my undergarduate degree, I chose the path of business instead of law and, considering the events of the past year, I am proud to say that I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant. How lucky can I get?

     A major element of PolySci study was the US Constitution, very much including the 1st Amendment. Good old free speech. But over the past 40+ years, the whole notion of free speech has been stretched way beyond what was contempleted by our forefathers. Now we have obscene filth at art exhibits, and a veritable tidal wave of coarseness, vulgarity, oscenity and pornography beamed at us by the media purveyors of garbage  –  printed material, movies, and the internet. And what does our Court system say?  –  “OK, 1st amendment”  –  and the ACLU stands back and cheers. In all of this stuff  mailed to me or beamed into my living room there isn't much I can do about it whether or not I am offended or my sensitivities have been violated. When you hear the defenders say “control your channels or monitor the PC –  keep this stuff away from your kids” it's nothing short of laughable. If I am offended, too bad: if I find it insensitive to my values, too bad. Those who create this garbage just point to the 1st amendment, chuckle, and hide behind it.

     But in the great world of academe  –  on our prestigious campuses, it is a different story. Here we have speech codes to ban the use of terms that may be offensive or insensitive to others. We can't use words like “fat, broads, rag-heads, slant-eyes, hunkies, krauts, nigs, spics, queers, fags, wops, or even Indians (since real Indians aren't really Indians). So now the criterion isn't free speech, it's terms that are offensive or insensitive. The terms cited above are not gentle, kind or considerate. And indeed they may offend some. But why are some offensive terms accepted but others are not. If I am at home with my family and become offended by obscenities or pornography coming from a Federally approved media broadcast, why is that to be ignored or sanctioned under the 1st Amendment while non-flattering terms –  pejorative or not  — are verboten on our campuses? And some of the student penalties are severe. So some people are offended. So what. We either have a 1st Amendment or we don't.

     After 3 years in the military and 4 years on a college campus, I am no prude when it comes to language. But the very idea that a charge of insensitivity by someone trumps the 1st Amendment is flat out ridiculous.

     Harry Truman had it right, “If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. I frankly think the 1st has been stretched way too far and a cooperative judiciary has contibuted to having the moral fiber ripped out of our culture. But if we are going to say (via the courts), “anything goes”, then we should get rid of asinine college speech codes that make a joke out of the 1st Amendment. Just tell the students on the first day, “if you are offended, tough; if you find comments insensitive, tough”. After a couple of bumps, life will go on.

TWENTY MILES

     After a pleasant round of golf, my companions and I stopped at the Grill to enjoy a cup of New England chowder laced with Taco sauce. Good zesty taste. As we settled in, we couldn't help but overhear a couple of guys at the next table really tearing up Big Oil. Unscrupulous, money grubbers, price gougers, rip-offs — these were the more polite terms  –  all because gasoline prices had risen to $1.70 per gallon for Regular. Granted, gasoline proces in California are higher than in most places, but I began to wonder if all of the condemnation was justified. I thought about it driving home.

     Gasoline is black slimy stuff found in pockets under the surface of the earth, often in very inaccessible places. It takes some smart cookies to find it, bring it to the surface and control it so that it doesn't splash all over the landscape. Then it has to be transported to a good location for storage until it can be transported by railcar, pipeline, or huge ship to still another storage point often thousands and thousands of miles away. All of this doesn't come cheaply. After the latest storage stage, it has to be transported again to a refinery (a very expensive complex facility) in order to be converted into a form suitable for consumer use. Different octanes, diesel fuel, etc., etc., etc. Then as a last step, it is transported again to locations all over the country  –  all over the world. And in our case, to the local neighborhood gasoline station where we can buy it for $1.70 a gallon  –  enough to drive our cars about twenty miles. Just imagine the huge costs to get this far in the process. Rip-off??  Sounds more like a miracle to me considering where the whole process started

     I hate to hear reasonably smart (assumption?) people bitch and moan about about trivial matters. With a buck-seventy in your pocket you can't buy a hot dog at the ball park or a draft beer at the local pub. And you can forget about a movie, a rental V-tape or a sandwich. In my view the best solution would be to take these kinds of folks out front and have them walk twenty miles. After 19 miles, ask them if they want to walk back or get a ride back for a buck-seventy. Either that or let them try to buy a gallon in Europe or Japan. That might restore a degree of perspective. Maybe. But in any event, don't try this exercise on left-leaning liberals who frimly believe that Big is Bad. Got that??